Senate Blue Ribbon Committee chair Francis Tolentino believes former Education Secretary Leonor Briones has nothing to do with the anomalous purchase of overpriced and outdated laptops by the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM) for public school teachers.
“I don’t see enough fingerprints that would involve the good secretary (Briones),” said Tolentino in an interview with ABS-CBN News Channel.
Tolentino, however, clarified his panel is still looking at the aspect of command responsibility, since Briones’ signature was affixed in the memorandum of agreement between the DepEd and PS-DBM over the procurement of laptops.
“Of course, her signatures are there. But, if you now dwell into the intent, the motive, who’s behind, who’s behind, these are and these are the end game result of this, what the investigation would look like. So, let’s just wait for the outcome and I promise that we will have an outcome,” he added.
During Thursday’s Senate inquiry, Tolentino grilled DepEd Undersecretary Alain Pascua for continuously denying his alleged involvement in the approval of the laptop purchase even though it was clear in the submitted procurement documents that he himself was responsible for the acquisition of the laptops.