Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte has ordered a probe on the outdated and expensive laptops bought by the Department of Education as discovered by the Commission on Audit in its report.
DepEd Undersecretary Epimaco Densing said that the department had submitted a fraud audit request to the COA on the issue.
“Since most of the information is beyond us, considering that these are PS-DBM transactions, and considering that these were transactions done by the previous officials, the Vice president and Secretary Sara Duterte has already permitted us to write a letter to Atty. Jose Calida, Chairperson of COA, to ask him for a fraud audit from COA,” Densing said.
RELATED STORY: COA flags DepEd laptop purchase worth Php 60k
COA flagged the Deped for its purchase of P2.4 billion worth of laptops through the PS-DBM that are outdated and expensive.
“Isa sa pinaka-importanteng proseso ng pag-procure ay ‘yung tinatawag nating market scanning. Ibig sabihin nito, kapag nagpo-procure ka, bago bumili, kailangan ang ahensya, in this case, PS-DBM, kailangan nagtatanong sa merkado kung magkano ba itong laptop na ito na ganito ang specification. Nung bumalik sila sa Technical Working Group, inilabas itong presyo na P58,000,” Densing said.
“The reason why we’re asking COA for a fraud audit is the reason why it was downgraded from 1.9 gigahertz to 1.8 gigahertz, and at the same time tumaas din ‘yung presyo and why is it IntelCeleron because we were very specific in the specifications of the laptop,” the education official added.
READ ON: Purchase of outdated laptops ‘great disservice’ to teachers says Sen. Gatchalian
For now, DepEd could not establish if there is anomaly until PS-DBM answers all allegations on their procurement.
“Nung nalaman namin ‘yan, nakakaramdam din kami ng galit kung sakaling totoo ‘yan at ayaw namin itong mangyari. Kaya ang direktiba sa’min ni Secretary Sara na paimbestigahan niyo na ‘yan para makita kung may iba pang kalokohan o wala,” Densing said.
