Baguio City – To ensure that the procurement process of proposed subprojects is in accordance with the Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) Guidelines, a Re-tooling training on the World Bank Procurement Guidelines was held last April 18-19, 2016 here.

Provincial Project Management and Implementing Units (PPMIUs) and PLGU Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) members and technical working groups from the provinces of Benguet, Mountain Province and Aurora were present and participated in the training. Representatives from the Regional Project Coordination Office (RPCO) of Region 3 were also present.l

The training was facilitated by the RPCO-CAR in coordination with the Procurement Unit of the PRDP Project Support Office (PSO) headed by Atty. Jennilyn Dawayan, PSO Procurement Head.

The activity kicked off with the presentation of the Harmonized Procurement Guidelines by PSO Procurement Specialist Engr. Mary Ann Capillo.

Major issues concerning bidding requirements and procurement process were raised during the discussion session which includes, among others, the contractors’ concerns on Joint Venture Agreement particularly on acquiring a special Philippine Contractors Accreditation Board (PCAB) license, as well as the qualification of Project Engineers and the legal basis on the cost for bidding documents.

The participants unanimously clamoured for more relaxed requirements in manpower as well as design standards set under the PRDP since these are among the major causes of failure or delays in implementing projects.

One query raised was on the fixed cost of bidding documents amounting to five thousand pesos (5,000.00) as per WB guidelines. ‘We increase participation of contractors by lessening the cost of bidding documents,’ Dawayan explained. ‘Any amount required in excess is understood to be LGU counterpart’, she added.

Atty.Dawayan explained that there is a signed agreement between the World Bank (WB) and the Government of the Philippines (GOP)  stating in essence that  should there be a conflict between RA 9184 (Government Procurement Reform Act) and the WB guidelines, the latter shall prevail.

Furthermore, the following topics were  discussed: Roles of PSO and RPCO in bid opening and bid evaluation proceedings; electronic uploading of bidding documents and Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PhilGEPS) posting; bid opening and bid evaluation procedures; and the differences between Philippine Bidding Documents (PBD) of RA 9184 and WB Guidelines.

To familiarize the participants on the actual process of evaluating bids, they were grouped and given actual documents to work on after which they were required to report to the body their accomplished Bid Evaluation Reports (BER) from the bid documents that were assigned to them.

The activity concluded with the presentation and critiquing of workshop outputs.

“After this training, we expect for more successful biddings in the future,” said Engr Gaston Cael, IBUILD Component Head. (Mabel Zabala/Elvy Taquio, DA-PRDP RPCO CAR InfoACE Unit)