To World Bank Country Director Ndiame Diop and Senior Procurement Specialist & Hub Coordinator Dominick Aumentado; Asian Development Bank Procurement Directors Rustam Abdukayumov and Jefrrey Taylor; Commission on Audit Assistant Commissioner Atty. Roy Ursal; fellow public servants, guests, ladies and gentlemen:
Assalamu alaikum wa Raḥmatullahi wa Barakatuh.
Good morning.
First, allow me to thank the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank for working alongside the Government Procurement Policy Board (GPPB) in the assessment of the Philippine Public Procurement System using the 2018 updated MAPS—an important tool for evaluating the government procurement performance of a country.
It is also remarkable that the MAPS assessment proper was actually carried out during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic from January to November 2021. Fast forward to June 2023, the MAPS Final Assessment Report was published and issued the Seal of Approval.
And this couldn’t have been more timely as we have just presented to the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) Meeting led by no less than our president, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. last week, our proposed amendments to our 20-year-old Procurement Law. In fact, it was one of the priority bills included in the Common Legislative Agenda (CLA) of the 19th Congress to further advance the attainment of our social and economic transformation agenda.
As you know, Republic Act No. 9184, or the landmark Government Procurement Reform Act (GPRA), authored by the late Senate President Edgardo J. Angara—I was a young researcher during that time in his office—and enacted on January 10, 2003, was envisioned to address the lack of transparency and competition, eliminate collusion and political interference, and lessen delays in the procurement process.
GPRA was one of the biggest anti-corruption laws in the country which was, in fact, recognized by no less than the World Bank as world-class legislation.
However, there has already been rapid transformation in technology over the past two decades, and the pandemic not only propelled the urgency for digital transactions in the country but also brought to light inefficiencies in the law in times of crisis. Even PBBM said during his latest State of the Nation Address that we need to make government procurement more attuned to our changing times.
And so we commit to making the revised GPRA with its amendments as monumental and word-class as its predecessor.
Aside from adhering to international standards, our proposed amendments to the GPRA are aligned with the Key Areas for Improvement and Recommendations in the MAPS Report.
These proposed amendments will ensure a “fit-for-purpose” concept or “appropriateness” in the adoption of procurement modalities and address procurement challenges experienced on the ground.
We likewise recognize that one of the main pain points in public procurement is the lack of proper planning. This has resulted in gross inefficiency caused by failed biddings and poorly crafted technical specifications or requirements.
To bridge this gap, our proposed amendments intend to introduce various strategies in procurement planning including market scoping, early procurement activities, engagement of a procurement agent, and the use of framework agreements to expand the pool of prospective bidders, take advantage of economies of scale, minimize the burden of conducting separate procurement activities, and generate time and money savings.
We will likewise leverage digitalization and innovation to make public procurement more efficient and transparent through the modernized Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (mPhilGEPS).
We will also soon have an electronic reverse auction and an electronic or e-marketplace which we will expand to not just common-use supplies but also non-common-use supplies.
And because sustainability is one of my advocacies and a commitment of this Administration, we will adopt a Green Public Procurement Strategy to procure goods, infrastructure projects, and consulting services with reduced environmental impact throughout their life cycle. We will also integrate green practices and environmentally relevant criteria in the procurement design of a project.
Meanwhile, in constant pursuit of fiscal transparency and accountability towards an open government, we will also mainstream public participation in the procurement process by inviting at least two observers—one from the private sector and one from the civil society—to sit in procurement proceedings, ensuring equal access to information at all stages of the procurement process.
We actually presented our game-changing reforms during the Open Government Global Summit last month in Tallinn, Estonia. And we were the only ASEAN member representative among anti-corruption champions in the high-level roundtable discussion on “Sustaining Leadership and Catalyzing Global Action on Anti-corruption.”
Finally, as also cited in the MAPS Report, we recognize the need to establish an enabling environment for the professionalization of the procurement function. To address this, we will strengthen the institutional framework of the GPPB and GPPB-TSO to align its organizational structure and staffing with the technical and administrative support needed to implement all procurement reforms.
While the GPRA is an exemplary law, our society has changed drastically since its enactment 20 years ago. As such, it is no longer only beneficial but imperative for us to utilize the latest social and technological developments that we can use to meet the law's noble objectives.
As we all work hard to reinforce accountability and credibility in our procurement system, let us now take it to the next level with our digitalization and sustainability efforts so that we will remain on track with our Agenda for Prosperity—one where the government is trusted by the very people it has sworn to serve.
And we hope that the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and all our partners in prosperity will continue to stand with us and help us create a public procurement system that is truly inclusive, sustainable, reliable, and transparent—one that we can proudly put at the heart of delivering public services.
Thank you. Wabillahi Tawfiq Wal Hidaya, Wasalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu.
