MANILA, Philippines — The University of the Philippines has settled with the subsidiary of a telecommunications giant over a P134.62-million digital infrastructure project that never fully materialized.
Following years of delay in the troubled eUP project, UP said it will now tap its own faculty to develop its homegrown digital system instead of relying on external contractors.
The university reached this decision after ePLDT, a PLDT subsidiary, failed to complete the eUP project launched in 2012. The digital infrastructure initiative — which was supposed to have been finished in 2017 — was meant to create a single digital system for all student records, enrollment, and other administrative processes across UP's 17 campuses.
But key parts of the eUP project were never delivered. In its 2023 annual audit report of UP, the Commission on Audit flagged UP's failure to collect damages and delist the subsidiary from future government projects for its failure to comply with the project timeline.
In response to Philstar.com's query following the COA report released last week, UP said it had sent multiple demand letters to the subsidiary to seek payment of damages. This led to settlement negotiations.
The university did not disclose the settlement amount.
"Various settlement meetings were held, until both UP and ePLDT reached a mutually acceptable settlement that is not disadvantageous to the University. The settlement involves the payment by ePLDT of liquidated damages as required under the law and as recommended by the COA," UP said.
Both UP and PLDT said in separate statements that the matter is now "closed."
"Considering that a mutually acceptable and fair settlement which is not contrary to law, morals, or public policy, has been reached, the ePLDT matter is considered closed," the university said.
For its part, PLDT said both parties had "agreed in principle on a mutually beneficial agreement to close the issues on the eUP Project, built on mutual trust and a shared goal to drive sustained success for UP’s stakeholders."
The COA report said UP failed to collect P39.7 million in penalties from the subsidiary for missing its January 2017 deadline to deliver two project components: system integration test results and stress and security test results that would prove the interoperability of all information systems.
COA had recommended UP to "initiate the procedure of blacklisting ePLDT Inc. to disqualify it from participating in the bidding of all government projects if warranted."
UP did not say in its statement whether it will consider delisting the subsidiary from future government projects.
Digital plans
After abandoning the unfinished eUP project, UP said it would be turning to its own backyard for solutions – starting with its faculty members who have already built working digital systems for the university.
"The idea of an eUP remains, but the implementation will take a different route," the university said.
"UP is preparing to roll out its own digital transformation initiatives, majority of which will build on the capacity of the UP faculty to implement digital programs and solutions," it added. "We have world-class faculty who are engaged in high technology research and development."
The university pointed to two successful systems that UP Diliman's engineering faculty have already created: its BULSA (Budget Utilization, Liquidation and System Analytics) which tracks UP's finances, and PUSO (Personnel Unified Systems Outlook) which manages employee records.
The university has also launched UP Vinta (Ventures for International and Transformative Academia), an online platform that hosts online courses.
While UP is shifting to internal development, it said it would continue working with industry partners, saying that "the best solutions often come from a collaboration of academe and industry."
The eUP project faced backlash in 2016 when the project's team criticized students whose undergraduate thesis exposed irregularities in its bidding process and reported violations of government procurement laws on brand references.