“There’s no delay yet because it’s only the 13th of the month. It all depends on the DBM and we’re expecting it to be released this Thursday (December 15),” Ganzon said.

She added if DBM will release the fund on the said date, government teachers will receive their Christmas bonus before December 25. Totel V. de Jesus, INQUIRER.net

The anti-graft office has yet to receive written confirmation from the Lapu-Lapu City government about its compliance with the order issued last July.

Asst. Ombudsman Virginia Palanca-Santiago said she would write to Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Paz Radaza and the Department of Education in Central Visayas (DepEd-7) to determine if the sanctions were enforced.

Speaking in behalf of Mayor Radaza, Lapu-Lapu City consultant Jonjie Gonzalez said most of the respondents were serving their six-month suspension after the Ombudsman released the verdict last July.

Only three respondents have yet to be suspended on Dec. 16. He said the mayor could not remember the their names offhand.

“According to Mayor Radaza, she is near full compliance of the order of the Ombudsman to suspend those allegedly involved in the computer case,” Gonlazes said.

“A decision should be implemented otherwise it will become useless,” Deputy Ombudsman Pelagio Apostol told Cebu Daily News.

Three months ago, Apostol said Mayor Radaza asked permission from the anti-graft office if it was possible not to have the respondents suspended all at once so operations in the city would not be hampered.

Apostol said they referred Radaza’s letter to the central office in Manila but haven’t received any response yet.

“I’m not certain if the penalty was implemented. I presume it was,” he said.

Bad image

In 2007, businessman Efrain Pelaez Jr. filed a complaint against Rep. Arturo Radaza, then city mayor of Lapu-Lapu, and 18 others over the computers.

He said the purchase of P23.4 million worth of computers was overpriced. They were delivered to the city’s public high schools in 2005.

About 470 personal computers were bought for P49,950 each.

An inventory showed that PCs of the same quality were being sold for only P24,700 and P31,236 as stated in the sales invoices of two computer stores at the time.

After investigation, the anti-graft office said the 470 computers should have cost P10.857 million instead of P23.476 million, a price difference of P12.619 million.

About 30 of the computers were stationed in public high schools of island-barangays that don’t have power.

The Ombudsman-Visayas found the respondents guilty of conduct grossly prejudicial to the best interest of the service.

This is an administrative offense which refers to the “conduct of an official or employee which gives a bad image to the public service.”

The respondents who were meted a penalty of six months suspension without pay were city administrator Teodulo Ybañez; budget officer Victoria Andoy; treasurer Elena Pacaldo; and members of the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) and the technical and inspection groups.

Also included were city general services officer Cleofe Solis; and supervising administrative officer Leandro Dante.

Mayor Arturo Radaza was included in the administrative case but his reelection in 2007 left the charge moot and academic based on the Aguinaldo Doctrine. In 2010, his wife Paz was elected mayor.

Two respondents—Pacaldo and Solis—have since retired. Former legal officer Vincent Joseph Lim and assistant city engineer Fernando Tagaan Jr, have died.

Serena Uy, Lapu-Lapu City school superintendent, was also found guilty of the same offense and ordered suspended for six months.

Mayor Paz Radaza was mandated by the Ombudsman to enforce the penalty against Lapu-Lapu City officials while DepEd-7 Director Recaredo Borgonia was ordered to enforce the suspension of Uy.

Pelaez, who ran for Lapu-Lapu City mayor in the 2010 election under the Liberal Party and lost, said he wants to know what happened to the penalty.

“They have to face the music. They have to follow what the law provides. They can’t just do what they want,” he added.

Still, Pelaez said he is contented with the outcome of the complaint he filed with the Ombudsman.

Other than the guilty verdict of the anti-graft office, Tanodbayan Conchita Carpio-Morales also found probable cause to elevate to the Sandiganbayan the criminal charges against Congressman Radaza, who approved the Purchase Request of the project.

Pelaez, in a press statement, said he was happy with this development.

“We hope that justice will prevail. Radaza and his cohorts have all the opportunity to prove their innocence but we hope they will defend themselves in court so they can clear their names if indeed they are innocent of the crimes they are charged with,” he said.

Scams

Pelaez, a director of the Mactan Island Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MICCI), said hopes the case will serve as a lesson to the public.

“In the meantime, we will continue the fight until all the scams we have asked the Ombudsman to look into in Lapulapu City since 2007 are properly investigated and acted upon,” said Pelaez, who chairs the Lapu-Lapu City chapter of the Liberal Party.

Pelaez filed the complaint through his Coralpoint Educational Foundation, Inc., which showed that the price paid by the government for the computers was too high.

Radaza approving the request of the DepEd’s Lapu Lapu Division to buy the computers. Kein Enterprises was awarded the contract to supply the computers at P49,950 per unit.

However, the Ombudsman Visayas said the items that Kein Enterprises delivered were inferior and violated the specifications in the purchase order.

The anti-graft office said the 470 computers were overpriced by P12.6 million.  Ador Vincent Mayol, Reporter

Source:
Philippine Daily Inquirer

In her acceptance speech at the turnover, she made it clear that all programs and policies that former DepEd secretary Jesli Lapus left will be implemented according to schedule.

Valisno brushed aside speculations that the change in leadership could adversely affect the May 10 elections and the continuity of current programs and resolution of issues on certain Magna Carta for Teachers provisions.

She stressed she has no plans of altering any preparations in the May polls, least jeopardize the smooth flow of election activities. She has also no intentions of obstructing any party list whose goal is to look after the benefit of teachers or educators.

As regards certain provisions in the Magna Carta for Teachers, Valisno said she needs to be briefed on the status of all the negotiations, dialogues, and agreements that have been reached and the next steps that have to be pursued.

“The President and I have always acknowledged how important teachers are, so we understand the plight of teachers, we sympathize with them, and promise to take care of their concerns,” Valisno emphasized.

Instead of spreading baseless humors, Valisno encouraged everyone to help DepEd realize its objective of helping Filipino children, especially the poor, realize their dreams though education.  Education is the best social equalizer, “ito ang mabisang paraan para makaahon sa kahirapan,” she said.

Being the foundation of education, basic education under the care of DepEd, therefore, plays a crucial role for our children’s education as it carries the huge task of uplifting the lives of poor children so they can be productive and responsible citizen someday, she added.

She added that the Arroyo administration places great emphasis on the important role of education giving it one of the biggest shares in the national budget, representing about 29-percent and singled out the priority for the basic education with DepEd having 95 percent of the total budget for education.

Source: Manila Bulletin, March 16, 2010

Education Secretary Jesli Lapus and DPWH Secretary Victor Domingo signed recently an agreement to facilitate the prompt issuance of clearances required for the titling process. “We need to address this issue on school titling urgently to ensure that school operations are not disrupted and our children will not be displaced,” Lapus said on Sunday.

The titling of public schools will protect public schools from encroachment, segregation, illegal occupation, and adverse claims of ownership by other individuals or parties.

“It will contribute to further improvement of the public school system,” Lapus added.

In 2007, DepEd signed an agreement with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) on the titling of school sites.

The agreement stipulated that DENR shall be responsible for the technical output which includes the survey of public and privately owned lands covered by Deeds and Donation, field validation, and preparation of draft proclamations for approval by the President.

DAR, for its part, shall facilitate the issuance of the Deeds of Transfer of school sites that are located in Resettlement Areas and Landed Estates, which it administers.

DPWH endorsement/clearance is among the prerequisites to DENR’s preparation of presidential proclamations reserving lands for public purposes.

DepEd will provide DPWH the profiles of 5,000 school sites that will require DPWH clearances. Selected regions in Luzon have been prioritized for this initial phase, with other regions soon to follow.

Lapus noted that cooperation from other government agencies is crucial in order to resolve this perennial problem.

DPWH, along with other government agencies, has given DepEd its assurance of full support in the local, regional and central office levels to speed up the issuance of suitability clearances.

DepEd earlier identified some 8,000 sites that have been continuously occupied by public elementary and secondary schools, which were donated by private individuals as well as government entities, but have not been transferred, registered or titled under DepEd.

Lapus said that the DPWH earlier had allocated another P2 billion for the construction of new classrooms and repairs of existing ones.

Source: Philippines News Agency

MANILA –Progressive party-list legislators today said there is a need to look into the corruption allegations that have hounded the Department of Education, now that the hearings for the 2010 budget are about to begin.

Such an investigation, the sectoral representatives in Congress said at a press briefing today, Wednesday, is needed to ascertain whether the DepEd has made full use of its large portion of the national budget.

The DepEd, as stipulated in the Constitution, is to be given top budgetary priority among other government agencies. But the dissonance of a deteriorating educational system and the big chunk of budget allocated for DepEd has continually widened through the years, they said.

“They (DepEd) keep on pinpointing the incapacity of teachers as the root cause of the deterioration of education in the country. But they are forgetting that there are three fingers pointing back at them,” Gabriela Rep. Luzviminda Ilagan said at the press conference.

Since the 1990s, the DepEd has been repeatedly questioned on the numerous factual and grammatical errors found in the instructional materials given to elementary pupils.

Ilagan, a teacher turned lawmaker, stipulated in House Resolution No. 1276 the need to conduct an inquiry into the incapability of DepEd in providing quality textbooks to public elementary and high-school students as Antonio Go, who exposed many of these errors, exposed another set of errors in the reading textbook early this year in a new book, “English You and Me,” procured by the DepEd for the school year 2008 to 2009.

“This is comparable to buying expensive clothes that the moment you find damages, you would be told to just mend it yourself,” said Dennis Quido, the “noodle scam” whistleblower, said at the press briefing.

A case related to the “instant noodle scam” has already been filed before the Office of the Ombudsman but Quido said that there has not been progress on the case and called for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to act immediately on it. The scam involves the overpricing of instant noodles as part of the department’s feeding program.

Alvin Peters, president of the National Union of Students in the Philippines, said they are worried that these corruption allegations are not being resolved even as the fiscal deliberation for next year draws nearer and DepEd is sure to receive the biggest chuck of the national budget. Peters said these public funds would only go to waste in more scams.

In the press briefing, Palatino presented another scam involving the agency’s procurement of disposable needles, otoscopes and citronella shampoo. The needles are to be used in school clinics while the shampoo is supposed to treat for lice, a common problem in public schools. An otoscope is used to look into the ears.

In December 2007, the DepEd issued an invitation to bid for the supply and delivery of medical kits and citronella shampoo, a project with an approved budget of more than P10 million. This includes 500 million pieces of 200 mg tablets of ferrous sulfate worth P5 million; 125,000 carpules per 2,500 boxes of dental anesthetics worth P1.875 million; 500 sets of otoscopes worth P1 million; and 150,000 sachets of citronella worth 900,000.

The bidding committee, however, amended its bid bulletin in August 2008 reducing the quantity of otoscopes from 500 sets to 75 and the citronella shampoos from 150,000 sachets to 75,000 but the prices remained the same. House Resolution No. 1228 authored by Palatino said that an otoscope costs P2,000 in the first bid but now costs P13,000 in the rebid while the citronella shampoo costs P6 in the first bid but P12 after the rebid.

The other items cited in the project also have price discrepancies even without the changes during the rebid. The citronella shampoo has a total price discrepancy of P156,000; dental anesthetics, P562,500; disposable dental needles, P781,250; and the otoscopes, P932,500. The total price discrepancy for the project, P2,432,250, is more than four percent of the total budget for the project.

Equally important, the results of these computations have already been downplayed since the price discrepancy was multiplied with the lowest market price depending on the brands of the items. But if multiplied with the highest market price, almost P900,000 would be added to the price discrepancy.

Palatino questioned why the bidding price was, in the first place, more expensive than the market price. “Is it not that it should be priced lower because DepEd would be procuring the medical kits and the shampoo in a bigger quantity?”

Third-year high-school student Ayla Garduce of Quirino High School in Quezon City said they have never received any of the shampoos or tasted the supposedly fortified instant noodles. “The textbooks that we are using were published in 1990s and our chairs are almost wrecked,” she said.

(Source: Janess Ann J. Ellao, Bulatlat.com)

The President made the announcement after sitting in on the deliberations of the Regional Tripartite Wage and Productivity Board (RTWPB) of Region III here this afternoon (May 1, Thursday).

Credits: http://www.pia.gov.ph/?m=12&fi=p080502.htm&no=88