No turnover yet of source code, database from Dermalog to LTO
The Land Transportation Office (LTO) has not yet received the source code, database and other important online transaction systems from Dermalog despite the completion of the contract for the Land Transportation Management System (LTMS).
This developed as Verzontal Builders, Inc., one of the signatories to the JVA, revealed in a hearing at the House of Representatives, that Dermalog failed to pay them in full for the electrical, mechanical, and civil works that they have completed under the Joint Venture, particularly the construction of a data center inside the LTO’s main compound in Quezon City.
In the hearing, Verzontal Director Jose Natividad said that Dermalog has yet to pay them an estimated amount of P165 million, which covers direct costs, variation orders, and other requests of the foreign IT firm in the data center construction.
This, he said, is on top of the 25 percent profit share that the company is collecting from the Joint Venture.
In the same hearing of the House Committee on Transportation, LTO chief Assistant Secretary Vigor D. Mendoza said they have been asking for the source codes, application codes and database and other related materials but the Dermalog is yet to comply.
The LTMS is the digital system of the LTO for all its online transactions and was provided to the agency through a Joint Venture Agreement with Dermalog and other local firms in 2018.
The source codes, application codes and database are considered as important since it would not only open a gateway to other online payment systems for the LTO clients but also give the agency's IT experts the opportunity to assist in implementing cybersecurity measures amid hacking and data breaches involving government agencies.
In the same hearing, lawyer Anthony Peralta, Dermalog legal counsel, said the position of their legal team is that the turnover of the source codes and other materials being asked by the LTO should be done after the maintenance contract is completed.
The position of the LTO, however, is that all of them should have been turned over to the government through the agency after the certificate of acceptance and completion was given to Dermalog.
Following an internal squabble, Natividad said they went through an amicable settlement with Dermalog but they were only offered P1 million.
Natividad also said that they were removed from the Joint Venture, which prompted them to seek help from the Department of Transportation (DOTr) and the LTO but to no avail.
Peralta, however, belied Natividad’s allegations and said they had already paid over P219 million to Verzontal from September 2018 to September 2021, and it was Verzontal which decided to leave the Joint Venture in April 2019.