Court granted petition of bidder in driver’s license contract

MANILA, Philippines — A Quezon City court has allowed the lowest bidder in the production of plastic driver’s license cards to present its evidence starting tomorrow.

The order was issued by Regional Trial Court Branch 215 Judge Rafael Hipolito after a temporary restraining order (TRO) stopped the Land Transportation Office (LTO) from awarding the contract.

Hipolito granted the petition of ALLCARD Inc. for certiorari, prohibition and writ of preliminary injunction against the officials of LTO, Department of Transportation (DOTr) and the winning bidder, Banner Plasticard Inc., represented by its president Evelyn Tan.

The court also restrained the LTO and DOTr from proceeding with the pre-printed driver’s license cards with Banner.

It reasoned that it was established during the summary of hearing that ALLCARD was originally declared as the lowest bidder for the LTO pre-printed driver’s license cards for the 2023 procurement project with an approved budget of P240.1 million.

“Petitioner is not just an ordinary losing bidder, but the one originally declared as the bidder with the lowest calculated bid and is thus possessed with the clear and unmistakable right to be subjected to post qualification, strictly in accordance with RA 9184, also known as the Government Procurement Reform Act,” the court added.

According to the court, the petitioner passed the legal, financial and technical specifications of the project.

“In fact, as revealed in the Facebook video-recording of the post qualification evaluation proceedings of petitioner by LTO, the petitioner passed the proof of concept,” it noted.

According to Hipolito, the LTO failed to fully disclosed to petitioner the context of the latter’s alleged delay in performing its contract with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas amounting to at least 10 percent of the contract price.

“The LTO through its Head of the Procuring Entity awarded the subject procurement project contract to Banner on 21 June 2023 immediately the day after LTO denied petitioner’s request for reconsideration after it was post disqualified and clearly, even before the lapse of the seven day period given by law,” the QC court added.

The LTO said it respects the court decision in issuing the TRO that prevents them from addressing the backlog in issuing plastic driver's licenses.

“Certainly, this is a major setback in our goal of addressing the backlog on the physical driver’s license, which we target to complete by September this year. The backlog is around 1.7 million as of this month and mounting every day considering the number of applications we are receiving for new, and the renewal of driver’s license on a daily basis,” LTO said in a statement.

According to the LTO, it is consulting with the DOTr, particularly on the aspect of cushioning the impact of the court’s decision to clients.

“We hope that this issue would be addressed in the soonest possible time because it is the Filipino people who would certainly suffer from a prolonged legal battle,” it added.

Proponents of reforms in the government procurement law have pointed out that the lowest bid does not necessarily mean the best product or service. Rodrigo Duterte, during his presidency, had often said that the cheapest is not always the best, and the government often ended up with substandard items.