Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 15) — Education officials asked state auditors to look into the alleged irregular purchase of pricey and outdated laptops for public school teachers.
The fraud audit request was in light of the red flag raised by the Commission on Audit on the laptop purchase, through the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM), worth ₱2.4 billion. Auditors said the laptops were overpriced and installed with outdated and slow Intel Celeron processors.
“Considering that these are PS-DBM transactions and these are transactions done by previous officials, the Vice President & Secretary Sara Duterte has already permitted us to write a letter to the chairperson of the Commission on Audit to ask him for a fraud audit. We have officially transmitted that letter today,” Education Undersecretary Epimaco Densing told reporters on Monday.
The department previously said it coordinated with PS-DBM for documents to respond to COA.
“While we are not declaring that there is a fraudulent transaction that happened at that time, we are also not saying that there is none,” Densing said.
“In fact, kaming andito ngayon nakakaramdam din kami ng galit. Kaya ang direktiba samin ay paimbestigahan na yan para makita kung may anomalya o wala” he added.
[Translation: We are also angry. That is why the directive for us is to have this investigated to know if there is anomaly or none.]
DepEd said the laptop purchase was not in the 2021 budget as funds came from the Bayanihan 2 law. The agency then decided to tap PS-DBM for the transaction.
Densing said future purchases will no longer be coursed through the PS-DBM.
COA guidelines allow the filing of cases against liable officials based on fraud audit report findings.
Meanwhile, DepEd also launched the Oplan Balik Eskwela command center, a help desk for concerns related to the new school year.
Out of over 47,000 public schools, DepEd said 90% are expected to hold in-person classes beginning Aug. 22.
Schools have until October to transition from blended to full face-to-face learning, which will be required by November except for identified exempted schools.
As of 7 a.m. Monday, over 20.6 million students enrolled in basic education schools nationwide.
Concerns may be raised through the DepEd contact numbers:
LANDLINE (area code 02)
8636-1663
8638-7531
8633-1942
8635-9817
8638-7529
8634-0222
8638-7530
8638-8641
CALL OR TEXT:
0919-456-0027
0919-456-0027
Email:
depedactioncenter@deped.gov.ph
