Bidding of P1.2B in ARMM infra projects goes transparent

COTABATO CITY, Philippines—Amid past allegations of fund anomalies and kickbacks involving its officials, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao government has, for the first time, opened its public bidding activities to the public and the media.

At stake during the series of public bidding held at the Office of the Regional Governor here since Monday were some P1.2 billion worth of government projects, mainly school building construction, according to ARMM Executive Secretary Naguib Sinarimbo.

Over 30 project contractors, most of them from Mindanao, submitted their bids for the projects to be built in Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

“What we did was a precedent-setting of transparency allowing all bidders big and small to participate and compete for … a particular project,” Sinarimbo said.

He said that unlike in previous administrations, they prefer bidding of multimillion projects to be open to public scrutiny.

ARMM Education Secretary Baratucal Caudang said at least 1,207 school-building projects were offered during the bidding process.

Caudang said that aside from opening up the bidding process to the public under the regional government’s transparency program, all foreign and locally-funded projects were also being published on the Internet so that the public could be updated of what is happening in the ARMM—as far as infrastructure support is concerned.

Sinarimbo said the transparency campaign has earned the approval of several foreign funding agencies, including the Australian Aid for International Deveopment (AusAid), which has approved a fresh fund of P3.5 billion for education support to the ARMM.

Recently, the World Bank also approved the additional grant of $35 million to the ARMM. US, Japanese and European aid agencies also pledged to help uplift the security and social conditions of the regions inhabitants.

“Of course, the United Nations’ humanitarian agencies like the World Food Program, Unicef, UNFPA, among others, have been our permanent partners to peace and development, health, education and livelihood,” Sinarimbo said.

In Southern Mindanao, Davao del Norte’s public fund transparency program also earned AusAid’s admiration that the Australian funding agency initially released P40 million as part of its four-year annual financial assistance for the province.

Davao del Norte Governor Rodolfo del Rosario said the money would be used for improvement of public infrastructures such as farm-to-market roads.

About 30 provinces throughout the country had applied for the assistance package and Davao del Norte “was fortunate to have been chosen,” according to Del Rosario.

The aid program runs until 2014, which means that Davao del Norte will be getting a total of P160 million by then. With a report from Frinston L. Lim, Inquirer Mindanao