A group of education workers urged the administration of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. to “act” on blacklisting the firms involved in the controversial laptop procurement for teachers under the Department of Education (DepEd). (DepEd file photo)
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines expressed its disdain for the “lack of accountability and dereliction of duty to safeguard public funds from malversation” of the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM). This after PS-DBM “failed” to implement recommendations from the previous year’s audit to terminate and put on the blacklist the supplier of laptops for public school teachers found to be overpriced and outdated according to a statement released by the Commission on Audit (COA). “Malaking sampal itong kawalang aksyon ng PS-DBM na panagutin ang mga supplier na sangkot sa maanomalyang P2.4 bilyong kontrata na napunta lamang sa overpriced at outdated laptops (The inaction by PS-DBM to hold accountable the suppliers involved in the anomalous P2.4 billion contract that only went to overpriced and outdated laptops is a big slap),” said ACT Chairperson Vladimer Quetua in a statement. As if it was not bad enough that the said laptops “were not useful” for teachers during the implementation of distance learning due to the pandemic, ACT noted that what made it worse is that the procurement became a root of corruption. “Malinaw na pagpapabaya ito na protektahan ang pondo na dapat direktang pinakikinabangan ng mamamayan mula sa korapsyon, katiwalian, at pandarambon (This is a clear neglect to protect the funds that should directly benefit the people from corruption),” Quetua said. ACT also called out PS-DBM for failing to return to various agencies the P1.2-billion unused funds in 2022. Of this amount, ACT said that DepEd should have used P808.1 million to address the lack of teaching and learning resources. Given this, ACT urged the Marcos administration to direct DBM to “act on this” as its procurement arm failed to exemplify accountability. The group also demanded the concerned agencies to “file charges” against top officials involved in the overpricing of DepEd laptops, recover the overpriced amount, and allot funds to support our teachers.