Still reeling from unresolved controversies over reported financial mismanagement that burst into the open last year, the management of the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital (CLMMRH) and its hospital chief Dr. Domingo Vega are currently being accused of committing another irregularity – this time in the procurement of medical oxygen and compressed air supplies.
BY KARL G. OMBION
SPECIAL REPORT
Bulatlat
Vol. VII, No. 20, June 24-30, 2007
BACOLOD CITY – Still reeling from unresolved controversies over reported financial mismanagement that burst into the open last year, the management of the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital (CLMMRH) and its hospital chief Dr. Domingo Vega are currently being accused of committing another irregularity – this time in the procurement of medical oxygen and compressed air supplies.
Dr. Benito B. Bionat, chief of clinics of CLMMRH, in an open letter denounced the irregularity, and called the alleged culprits as “pirates of the Caribbean inside the hospital.”
“Hocus-pocus bidding”
Bionat, together with the hospital chief administrative officer Bryan Baylon, an ex-seminarian and law graduate, told Bulatlat that the CLMMRH Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) instructed, May 17, the suppliers to submit by 3:00 p.m. on the same day their respective canvass forms for the purchase of 700 medical oxygen and 81 compressed air tanks. Unfortunately, the opening of the canvass failed to push through for lack of quorum. The BAC then announced that the canvassing would be reset for the following day, May 18 at 8:30 a.m..
On May 18, representatives of bidding companies Pryce Gases Inc. and SIG came on the scheduled time, and still there was no quorum. At 9:00 a.m., representatives of the two bidders were surprised when informed by the BAC that CEGASCO which had no representatives present during the canvassing were awarded the contract. However, when shown the documents, Theddy Galang of Pryce Gases Inc. noticed that the canvass price of CEGASCO in the amount of P300.00 ($6.41 based on the May 2007 average exchange rate of $1:P46.81) per cylinder had been stricken out with a ballpen. Superimposed over the original amount was a reduced figure amounting to P288.50 ($6.16).
On the same day, Elmer C. Balbin, legal counsel of Pryce Gases Inc. filed a complaint letter to Dr. Jose V. Revelo, chairman of the BAC, protesting the results of the canvassing on the grounds that the opening of the canvass was done without the presence of representatives of the company and suppliers, and that the erasure in the canvass price of the winning supplier raises grave questions on the integrity and honesty of the canvassing process. Balbin demanded that the canvassing results be disregarded and that suppliers be required to submit new canvass forms.
According to Baylon, he learned that a week after, BAC distributed new canvass forms. The BAC declared a “tie” because the price submitted by all the suppliers was the same at P350.00 (7.48) per cylinder. Baylon said that because there was a “tie,” BAC called all the suppliers during the same week to a draw lots to break the tie. But no one attended the scheduled draw.
Days after, Bionat, Baylon and a few other hospital personnel were surprised that the four suppliers SIG, Pryce, CEGASCO and A1 alternately delivered the medical oxygen and compressed air cylinders at P350.00 per cylinder, not P288.50 as the price of the supposed winning supplier CEGASCO indicated.
Baylon questioned why the four suppliers were made to deliver the cylinders when only one should have won in the canvassing. “This is highly irregular; there was irregularity on three counts, first CEGASCO won but was not awarded the contract; second there was a tie but there was no session to break it; and third, despite these, the contract was awarded to the four suppliers,” Baylon said.
“Who awarded them since all members of the BAC and its secretariat have already resigned in protest?” he also said. “Why deliver said supplies without approved purchase order?”
He insisted that the entire process of transaction was fraught with irregularity. “It was clearly an irregular expenditure, and Dr. Domingo P. Vega should be accountable for these as the Chief of Hospital!” he said.
Baylon, citing COA (Commission on Audit) Circular No. 85-55A Sept. 8, 1985, defined “irregular expenditure” as that which signifies an expenditure incurred without adhering to established rules, regulations, procedural guidelines, policies, principles and practices that have recognition in law. Irregular expenditures are incurred without conforming to prescribed usages and rules of disciplines. There is no observance of an established patterns, course, modes of action, behavior, or conduct in the incurrence of an irregular expenditure. A transaction conducted in a manner that deviates or departs from, or which does not comply with standards set, is deemed irregular. An anomalous transaction which fails to follow or violate appropriate rules of procedures is likewise irregular.
