MANILA – Senate Committee on Finance, chaired by Senator Grace Poe, has initiated an investigation into the alleged breach of contract between the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) concerning the printing of National ID cards.
According to Philippines News Agency, during the PSA’s budget deliberation, Poe emphasized the necessity of the findings after the Commission on Audit (COA) highlighted potential violations. The COA’s concerns involved BSP’s alleged subcontracting of the National ID card printing to AllCard, despite an explicit clause against subcontracting in the agreement. “This is actually a grave concern because if they blatantly violated the memorandum of agreement, that’s something that can cancel out the entire agreement. I mean, BSP might be liable for something here,” Poe stated.
PSA Civil Registrar General Dennis Mapa revealed that the PSA had disbursed PHP1.4 billion to the BSP for the production of the cards, priced at PHP50 each, covering about 90 percent of the 55.5 million cards agreed upon. “The information that they gave us is that they terminated the contract of AllCard for the production of the blank national ID,” he informed Senator Poe during the hearing.
Senator Poe expressed concerns over the terminated contract and AllCard’s previous involvement in delays with the Land Transportation Office’s (LTO) driver’s license cards, raising questions about repeated contracting despite previous issues. “For sure, senators will look into this, that despite lots of complaints over the IDs and also lots of complaints on the driver’s license, yet we still contracted AllCard? It’s like we allowed them to fool us again,” Poe remarked.
The BSP has defended its actions in a statement, clarifying that their personnel were in charge of operations, with AllCard merely providing equipment, raw materials, and technical support. The BSP also noted that the COA’s annual review report on BSP did not mention any findings related to subcontracting, contradicting the audit claims concerning the PSA.