DepEd allegedly bought PCs for the price of a car

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Education under former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo allegedly purchased Windows 98-run desktop computer units for P400,000 each.

In a May 29 report, News5 cited "overpriced" PC and computer accessories with Intel Pentium 4 processors purchased from a certain supplier called Merryland Publishing Corp.

Technology blog Yugatech says that given the computer units' specifications, the P400,000 price tag is "staggering" even if they were bought between 2008 and 2010.

"If we are to put it in today's setting, P400,000 can give you four 27″ iMacs, three top-of-the-line gaming notebooks, two 6-core with dual GPU Mac Pro, or even a decent automobile," the blog said.

A brand-new Japanese mini hatchback car, in comparison, can be bought for P388,000 in current prices.

The report also noted that the department allegedly purchased school text books from Vicarish Publication and Book on Wheels priced at P200 to P300 each.

Each book would originally cost less than P100 per unit as low-quality paper is used for printing.

The three suppliers were granted contracts of over P1 billion each.