SENATE Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III is seeking an investigation on an alleged “undue payment” of the Land Transportation Office (LTO) connected to a P3.19-billion Road information technology (IT) infrastructure project.
The senator has asked the Upper Chamber’s Blue Ribbon Committee to immediately act on his submitted resolution.
“It’s about time that the Blue Ribbon Committee conducts this much-needed investigation into the details of this LTO contract,” Pimentel said.
Filed in August last year, Senate Resolution 147 seeks for a probe on the LTO’s undue payment to the joint venture of Dermalog Identification System, Holy Family Printing Corp., as well as Microgenesis and Verzontal Builders, as he cited certain provisions of the law that “issuances are explicit in providing that as a general rule, no payment shall be made for services not yet rendered, or for supplies and materials not yet delivered under any contract with the government.”
The solon pointed to Clause 10 of the General Conditions of the Contract (GCC) of the standard Philippine Bidding Documents for Goods that state: “Payments shall be made only upon a certification by the [head of the procuring entity, to the effect that the goods have been rendered or delivered in accordance with the terms of this contract,] and have been duly inspected and accepted.”
He added that “10 percent of the amount of each payment shall be retained by the [procuring entity to cover the supplier’s warrant obligations under this contract,] as described in GCC Clause 17.”
In its 2021 Consolidated Annual Audit Report for the Department of Transportation, the Commission on Audit flagged the LTO “for the undue payment given to the foreign information technology (IT) contractor Dermalog, despite incomplete turnover for the P3.19-billion Road IT Infrastructure project.”
Pimentel, in the resolution, also revealed various “unresolved issues” that have disruptions in the operations of various LTO sites, including the slow processing of documents in getting a driver’s license and its renewal, “as well as registration of vehicles, which have been attributed to its new IT system.”
The minority leader saw the urgency in conducting an inquiry amid reports that two vehicles bearing the same plate numbers were registered in the foreign-made IT platform of the LTO’s Land Transportation Management System (LTMS).
That was not the first time the system had alleged inaccuracies in its database after an individual was prohibited from renewing his driver’s license due to a motorcycle violation reflected in his LTMS account.
In an interview with GMA’s 24 Oras in August 2022, Leonyl Salvador said he was surprised to see an unpaid motorcycle violation in the LTMS which allegedly happened in Iloilo way back 2018.
Salvador claimed he does not drive a motorcycle, nor had ever been to Iloilo.
In October 2022 the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority was shocked when it found out that a towed rundown truck had a valid LTO registration, which prompted the agency to investigate how worn-out vehicles can pass the registration process without being detected in the LTMS.
The LTMS is part of the P3.19-billion Road IT Infrastructure project awarded to the joint venture of German IT firm Dermalog and its local partners in May 2018.