By Jerry E. Esplanada
Inquirer
Last updated 09:44pm (Mla time) 09/19/2007
THE LEADER of a militant teachers group has called on Congress to investigate alleged irregularities surrounding the P500-million call center laboratory project of the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd).

The supposed irregularities included an “apparently” rigged bidding, the ballooning of the project cost by an additional P200 million from its original pricetag of P300 million, and irregular cash advances amounting to P75 million, Alliance of Concerned Teachers chairman Antonio Tinio alleged.

“All the signs of plunder are there,” Tinio claimed.

The ACT leader called on both the Senate and the House of Representatives to conduct an investigation.

League of Filipino Students president Vencer Crisostomo urged an investigation by independent bodies.

Gonzalo Duque, president of the 160-member Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities, said he would look into the matter.

Duque is now in the United States and was contacted by phone.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer, parent company of INQUIRER.net, tried but failed to reach CHEd acting chairman Romulo Neri and his predecessor, ex-CHEd head Carlito Puno, for comment on Tinio’s allegations.

Flagship project
Neri’s staff said that he has already ordered an investigation into the commission’s Integrated Multisite Business Process Outsourcing Incubation Contact Centers (IMBPO-ICC), otherwise known as call center laboratory development project, to check if the project was on track.

The IMBPO-ICC is a flagship project of the Arroyo administration.

Puno earlier ordered the implementation of the project. He proposed government funding for the project during the stint of then budget secretary Emilia Boncodin.

But the budget of the campus-based IMBPO-ICC was only approved and released to the CHEd during Neri’s term as budget department head.

The ambitious project aims to assist state universities and colleges in setting up their own call center training laboratories.

However, the commission allegedly jacked up the cost of the project by allowing schools to build separate buildings for the call center laboratories, according to Tinio.

Base on CHed documents obtained by the Inquirer, the commission gave the original P300-million deal to a group composed of E-Services Global Solutions Inc., Drishti Philippines Inc., Information Transmission Computer Corp. and Hillmarc’s Construction Corp.

The losing bidders were ePLDT and another consortium which groups Informatics, Ione Resources Five 9, Suma Kumagia and the Singaporean firm Sandz Solution, the documents stated.

The commission also advanced more than P45 million in payments to E-Services Global Solutions, the project contractor, for the supposed civil works it had accomplished, the CHEd documents also showed.