No deals on noodles

Education Secretary Jesli Lapus has grudgingly suspended the contract for the procurement of the P427-million worth of noodle products from an alleged “favored” supplier under his agency’s feeding program for this coming school year. The supply contract is about 20 million packs of supposed “nutritious” noodle products to be distributed to children in public schools in poor provinces. This was after the Senate Committee on Education, chaired by Sen. Mar Roxas II was about to close the noose on the questioned noodle contract that DepEd has cooked all these years from this supplier.

Lapus informed the Roxas committee about his memorandum with instructions to concerned DepEd officials to conduct a review of this feeding program and defer for now the execution of the new supply contract for this school year. Lapus told Roxas that he has directed a review in coordination with independent experts whom the secretary designated to resolve questions such as nutritional contents, cost effectiveness and efficiency of field implementation.

Lapus has directed his deputies — Undersecretaries Ramon Bacani, Vilma Labrador and Thelma Santos to conduct this review. “As this is of the essence, please act with utmost dispatch so that the school feeding in the 13 poor provinces can be implemented during this school year as scheduled,” Lapus stated in his memorandum addressed to his three DepEd deputies.

At the same time, Lapus specifically directed Teodosio Sangila Jr., undersecretary for Finance and Administration and chairman of the bids and awards committee, to defer the execution of the noodle deal with Jeverps Manufacturing Corp. pending completion of the review by his designated DepEd panel. Jeverps has been supplying the instant noodles requirement of the school-feeding program.

During our time when we were still in public elementary school, we were being given what were called as nutri-buns (these are over-sized bread buns). These were iron-fortified bread especially being given out to underweight or malnourished schoolchildren. Now, DepEd gives out noodles as food supplement for schoolchildren aimed at encouraging them to continue their education despite their poverty.

In the past two hearings, the committee found out that P285 million was spent in 2007, another P61 million for a repeat order last year, while P427 million is going to be spent for the same project this year. Roxas noted there were actually six deals, including this year’s repeat order, amounting to roughly P750 million, all of which had only JEVERPS as the lone bidder/supplier over the last five years.      

These instant noodles, as we know, are supposed to be the cheapest snack or meal that we can buy at popular prices available in the neighborhood sari-sari stores to the big groceries at the malls. The price ranges from as low as P5 to P6 per pack. I should know because my twin sons love to eat them also either as snack or for their breakfast fare. My sons either take the noodles in soup and mix it with fresh eggs, or they eat the plain “pancit” without the soup.

At the Senate hearing, Sen. Roxas showed his knowledge of the noodle prices in the market as “Mr. Palengke.” He felt aghast to find out that the noodle products supplied by JEVERPS were priced at P18 per pack under its contract last year with DepEd. No wonder there was such an outrage over this deal.

To be fair with Lapus, he merely inherited this DepEd supplier from his predecessor. He took over as DepEd secretary in July 2006. But the question remains. Why did he not exercise due diligence to ensure that such pro-poor project of the administration really serves the supplementary nutritional needs of public schoolchildren and to safeguard their health and welfare?

But instead of giving a clear answer on the noodle deals under question, I’ve heard Lapus’ response to such queries, especially if asked by media, with nasty innuendoes. Lapus would point to another government supplier Kolonwell Trading as the source of this question. Lapus obviously alludes to a certain Dennis Quido, identified as the sales manager of government supplier Kolonwell Trading.

The self-styled whistleblower on the questioned noodle contract brought to light the alleged “overpriced” noodles of JEVERPS with DepEd. Quido reportedly further assailed JEVERPS’ justification for their higher priced product with claims that these are “fortified noodles with fresh eggs.” It would not help the case of DepEd if Lapus merely throws back these questions in a rather argumentative way without addressing the issues raised against it.

Is there something fishy in this noodle deal? Finally, the DepEd chief put his foot down to say there is no noodle deal for now until these issues cooked up against it are threshed out.

Despite the order for the review and deferment of the contract, the Kolinwell executive was reportedly not convinced by the actions taken by Lapus. Specifically, Kolinwell expressed dismay over his directive that the review of the JEVERPS contract would be conducted by education officials when the agency itself is the one under investigation no less by the Senate on this controversial issue.

Quido reportedly preferred just letting the Senate committee of Roxas to finish its own probe into the matter. Sen. Roxas announced he would defer his committee’s inquiry into the anomaly but warned the DepEd against bungling its review. He vowed to closely monitor the progress of the review and subject the agency’s findings to further scrutiny of the Senate Committee on Education. He said erring officials found involved in any irregularities behind this questioned noodle deal remain liable despite the suspension of this year’s supply contract.

If Kolinwell really has solid evidence of wrongdoings in this noodle deal by concerned DepEd officials, they should bring the case before the Office of the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman, as the independent body constitutionally mandated to look into complaints of alleged irregularities in any government transactions, will also be the same body that the Senate would refer this to prosecute, if indeed there is stink in this noodle deal.