Blue Ribbon invites dead attorney, wrong expert to DepEd laptops hearing
MANILA, Philippines — Guest list blunders — including a deceased resource person and another with no expertise in the subject matter — hampered the third hearing of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee investigating the education department's deal for overpriced laptops Thursday.
First, the Senate panel found that one Atty. Jose Crisologo, the lawyer who reportedly notarized the memorandum of agreement allowing for the issuance of an invitation to bid for the laptops, had already passed away.
“I was informed last night that Atty. Crisologo can’t be present here today because Atty. Crisologo is already dead. So we’re trying to secure a certified copy of his death certificate and the actual cause of his death,” Sen. Francis Tolentino, who chairs the committee, said.
To recall, in the second hearing that week, one Ulysses Mora, who chaired the Bids and Awards Committee at the time of the procurement, allowed the issuance of an invitation to bid on May 10, 2021 even when he claimed there was still no signed memorandum of agreement.
But documents submitted to the Senate panel showed there was in fact already a notarized MOA signed the month before that, which the procurement division said it had no knowledge of.
“As of late May 5, 2021, PS-DBM personnel are still unaware of the existence of a signed memorandum of agreement between PS-DBM and DepEd which was notarized on February 16, 2021,” Tolentino said.
“That’s the reason why we requested the presence of the person, a certain Atty. Crisologo from Quezon City who notarized the memorandum of agreement.”
Senators in the first hearing established that the laptops originally cost P35,000 per the price agreed to by the DepEd before the PS-DBM conducted its preliminary market survey. But the final price tag in the Approved Budget Contract was eventually listed at P58,000 per unit, good for a 66% increase.
Later in the third hearing Thursday afternoon, committee chair Tolentino tapped National Bureau of Investigation Cyber Investigation and Assessment Center Director Palmer Mallari to ask about the technical specifications of laptops and their valuation.
But before the senator could get to his line of questioning, Mallari clarified that he was “not an expert on the quality and inferiorities or superiorities of computers and hardware.”
“Our expertise is, actually [there seems to be] a confusion. We thought you invited [us] in our capacities as cybercrime investigators...Cybercrime investigations are different from computer hardware," he said in mixed Filipino and English.
He pointed out that while he was knowledgeable on computer specs, he could not provide an expert's perspective as his office focused more on cybercrime and software. It was actually the NBI’s digital forensics laboratory that specialized in hardware, he said.
Tolentino apologized for inviting Mallari and allowed him to leave early.
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