Budget and Management Secretary Amenah Pangandaman on Friday urged the House of Representatives to give her agency a chance to bring the Procurement Service-Department of Budget and Management to its “old glory.”
During the deliberation of the 2023 National Expenditure Program, AMBIS-OWWA Partylist Representative Lex Anthony Colada asked Pangandaman about her stand on the proposal to abolish the PS-DBM.
“Do you subscribe to the same persuasions, to the same motivations which moved the good senator from Ilocos Norte to come out with that proposal (to abolish the PS-DB)?” he asked.
Colada is referring to the proposed measure filed by Senator Imee Marcos calling for the abolition of the PS-DBM.
In her response, Pangandaman said she will defer the decision to the Congress if they really wish to do so.
“But let me just say that during the time when I was with Secretary (Benjamin) Diokno in 2017 to 2019, one of the benefits of the PS-DBM, is actually the savings that the government incurred during the time, which is worth P18 billion,” said Pangandaman.
“So I think if we give a chance to PS-DBM and if we clean the process and the system of the procurement of PS-DBM, maybe we can go back to its old glory,” she added.
Pangandaman also expressed her confidence in the new leadership of the agency, which is now headed by lawyer Dennis Santiago.
“We appointed someone who is very respectable in the area, which is Atty. Dennis Santiago, so we already had we already have programs on how to fix PS-DBM,” she told the lawmakers.
So if I may, if you’ll be giving us a chance to at least clean PS-DBM we will highly be happy with that,” she added.
The call for the abolition of the PS-DBM stemmed after the PS-DBM had become the center of controversy anew over its involvement in the procurement of alleged overpriced laptops for the Department of Education.
On Thursday, Senator Risa Hontiveros also expressed her intent to file a resolution to abolish the PS-DBM due to “P6.5 billion worth of irregularities under procurements” of the agency across multiple government agencies.