Addressing the gaps on government procurement
More than 20 years have passed since Republic Act 9184 or the Government Procurement Reform Act was enacted into law. Introduced by my father, the former Senate President Edgardo Angara, the GPRA was considered a world-class, landmark law for putting in place strong mechanisms to curb corruption in government procurement. In his sponsorship speech on the measure, my father described corruption as “a widespread cancer, entrenched and institutionalized throughout the bureaucracy, attending official transactions, big and small.” The World Bank estimated that between 1982 and 2002, the Philippines lost up to $48 billion to official corruption, an amount that could have covered the country’s budget deficit at the time and even provided a considerable surplus in return.