G. PUBLIC PROCUREMENT What is public procurement?

o Public procurement refers to the purchase by

governments and state-owned enterprises of goods, services and works. As public procurement
accounts for a substantial portion of the taxpayers’ money, governments are expected to carry it out
efficiently and with high standards of conduct in order to ensure high quality of service delivery and
safeguard the public interest. o Defined as the acquisition, whether under formal contract or not, of
works, supplies and services by public bodies. It ranges from the purchase of routine supplies or services
to formal tendering and placing contracts for large infrastructural projects. EXAMPLES: ✓ Backdoor
Deals — instead of focusing in the government-owned companies, some officers sell business contracts
to private corporations in higher amount. ✓ Malversation of Public Funds — the offender
misappropriates public funds for his own personal use or allows any other person to take such public
funds for the latter's personal use. Such example is Abad’s case, where he bought the whole area of Sta.
Mesa, making it slower to build the infrastructure. The Skyway is supposed to be built there so the
government bought Abad’s property but instead he made them pay for a high price, that’s why the
infrastructure becomes/became expensive. ✓ Bribes — DPWH bribes in order to win contract public
sector is obliged to procure goods and services from companies with at least 60% Philippine ownership.
Just think of the times wherein infrastructures such as roads cost handful of money but then it doesn’t
look that amount; infrastructures that are to be built are expensive but low-quality materials are used.
In this case, the Yolanda Housing program way back Noynoy’s term. H. NATURAL RESOURCES The
Philippines is indeed rich in minerals, agricultural soils and even animals. However, it seems like we are
not the one who are utilising our God-given resources. EXAMPLES: ✓ Rice Shortage — Farmers are paid
at an outrageously low price. That’s why most of them are still struggling. We import rice and then sell it
at a high price, depending on the demand. Usually these are kept in warehouses/storage houses for a
long, long time (that’s why some of them get soiled) and they’re not gonna put it out in public unless,
UNLESS there would be times that they are sure the demands will skyrocket and if that happens, they’ll
sell it at a higher price. NFA doesn’t seem to be legit at these times, tbh. ✓ Mining and Illegal Logging —
Did you know that most of the mining corporations here in the Philippines are foreign-owned? They
don’t even care about what they’re ruining because they only need the resources. DENR have put a raise
to this (such as Gina Lopez’ time, remember?) but then the national government still seem to be deaf at
its pleas—they kept giving these ungrateful tycoons permit to mine and destroy our nature! Ms. Gina
Lopez was and advocate for this and openly fought for our land’s resources, but what happened? She
was removed from the position. Rest in peace, warrior. ✓ Delayed Irrigation Projects — In relation to
the farmers, they are supposed to be given proper irrigation so that they’ll have an easier take on
planting rice and any other activities that needs irrigation, as well as multiply the produce of the farmers
and to stop the importing. The government only kept mentioning these in the news, but did something
really happen? Instead of creating irrigations, they just pocket the money because they don’t really care
about the farmers—they won’t really care unless the same happened to them.