House Deputy Speaker and Batangas Rep. Ralph Recto on Wednesday urged President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. to put an end to the “pasa-buy” scheme in government purchases through the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM) and Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC).
The lawmaker said PS-DBM and PITC have become “two mega parking lots” of funds, which he said are “responsible for slow procurement of goods at higher prices.”
He made this call after noting the spate of Commission on Audit (CoA) reports linking the PS-DBM to questionable transactions.
“Pagdating sa aberya sa procurement, dalawang ahensya ang laging starring sa CoA reports. Itong PS-DBM at PITC, (When it comes to procurement issues, these two agencies share stellar billing in CoA reports) ” Recto claimed.
The two serve as state purchasing arms which other government agencies contract, for a fee, to buy a wide range of goods, including what Recto said are “planes, trains and automobiles.”
“There would have been no problem if the involvement of the two had led to faster procurement of quality goods at cheaper prices. But the opposite had happened,” he said.
As of August last year, PS-DBM and PITC owed their client government agencies P63.1 billion worth — almost evenly split between the two — of undelivered goods, equipment, and infrastructure.
CoA parlance
Recto explained that in CoA parlance, this amount represented “unutilized deposits and advance payments of government agencies.”