Nonteachers also got DepEd laptops, Senate panel finds

Sen. Francis “Tol” N. Tolentino—Senate PRIB

Nonteaching staff, including nurses and lawyers, received some of the P2.4 billion worth of “pricey and outdated” laptops purchased by the Department of Education (DepEd), the Senate blue ribbon committee found on Thursday.

Citing DepEd records, Sen. Francis Tolentino said the distribution of some of the laptops did not fulfill their intention, which was to enable teachers to hold online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“So, I would say this has defeated the purpose that the laptops intended for teaching personnel went to almost all kinds of personnel,” he said.

The finding adds to what Tolentino described as “complications, turns and twists” that the Senate blue ribbon committee had found in its investigation of the laptop purchases by DepEd, which were made through a fund transfer deal with the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM).

Tolentino said that in almost all regions in the country, other DepEd employees—engineers, medical officers, dentists, lawyers, bookkeepers, accountants and cashiers—were among those who received the laptops that should have been distributed only to teachers.

The committee wrapped up its inquiry on Thursday after calling five hearings. It will wait for the responses of other people who were implicated in the questioned transactions before it issues its final report.

Tolentino said that the admissions and the vital documents uncovered by the committee would “complete the story.”

Changing purpose

The senator had questioned the changing of the original purpose of the P2.4-billion fund for DepEd from Republic Act No. 11494, or the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act, one of the laws passed by Congress to respond to the pandemic.

“The original purpose of the law was to have (mobile data) load for students and yet, it was converted to laptops. Is that even allowed? If that was allowed, was the process provided under the (procurement law) complied with?” Tolentino said.

The committee looked into the legality of the award of the supply contract to the winning bidder—a joint venture among Sunwest Construction and Development Corp., LDLA Marketing and Trading Inc., and VST ECS Philippines Inc.

The consortium supplied PS-DBM with 39,000 laptops priced at P58,300 each. The Commission on Audit (COA) reported that they were “pricey and outdated” for an entry-level type of a laptop.

Markedly slower

Because of the unit price, only 39,583 were provided to intended users instead of the planned 68,500.

Job Aguirre Jr., the COA supervising auditor for DepEd, had shown Tolentino’s committee that the boot-up and loading speeds of the Dell 3420 laptops bought by DepEd were markedly slower than a competing brand in the same price range.

The COA official also said that as of August 2022, the team has found 1,678 of these computers gathering dust at the DepEd central office warehouse.

Tolentino castigated DepEd for not distributing the laptops.

“This is really lamentable. These laptops could have been used, albeit slow, but somehow helped teachers, and with 30 students each, these could have benefited more than 50,000 students,” he said.

Complaints

Citing sworn statements, Benjo Basas of Teachers’ Dignity Coalition said they had gathered complaints from teachers nationwide on the supposedly slow and poor performance of the DepEd laptops.

“A teacher in San Jose City in Nueva Ecija refused to accept the laptop after seeing the low specifications; another teacher in Aurora province also did not accept the laptop issued, as the area lacks electricity and internet access, but the school head did not surrender it to the DepEd,” he said.

READ: DepEd to distribute 40,000 laptops to schools, field offices