Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson asked Department of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, noting that each unit of the testing instrument bought by the government is double the price of those acquired by Project ARK- a private sector initiative on COVID-19 testing.
According to the document presented by Lacson, Project ARK purchased six units of Sansure Nucleic Acid Extractor, which costs ₱1.75 million each, while the government’s Automated Nucleic Acid Extraction Machine (Thermo Scientific King Fisher Flex) costs ₱4 million per unit, in which the country acquired a total of 10 machines.
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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 19) — The government procurement of ‘overpriced’ COVID-19 testing machines was questioned by a senator on Tuesday, during the hearing of the Senate committee of the whole on COVID-19 pandemic response.
“Bakit mas mahal ang bili ng gobyerno kaysa sa bili ng private sector? Bakit mahigit doble?” Lacson asked the DOH.
[Translation: Why is the purchase of the government more expensive than of the private sector? Why is it more than double?]
Compatibility issues
The health secretary said it is a matter of compatibility with Philippine laboratories.
“’yong Thermo Scientific is a US brand compatible with the US-real time PCR machine which the Philippine labs have procured in the past. So incompatible kung puro Sansure ang bibilhin,” he said.
[Translation: The Thermo Scientific (Thermo Scientific King Fisher Flex) is a US brand compatible with the US real-time PCR machine which the Philippine labs have procured in the past. It will be incompatible if we buy Sansure.]
Duque was also quick to clear out that DOH did not directly purchase the machines, instead it needed the help of PS-DBM or the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management.
“I would also like to underscore the fact that none of these was directly procured by the DOH. We had to ask the support of the PS-DBM precisely because at around that time when we were beginning to ramp up our testing capacity, there were 56 of our people who had to be put in quarantine.”
Brand specific APR
On the other hand, Department of Budget and Management Undersecretary Lloyd Christopher Lao explained that the PS-DBM can only procure based on the APR (agency purchase request) issued by the agency requiring them to procure.
Lao confirmed to Lacson that the specifications on the brand of testing machines was decided by the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) and the DOH.
“Based on our experience sa procurement law, we don’t do that. In Bayanihan Act, pwede po. Kasi it should be based on the decision of the agency like DOH, RITM, kailangan I-validate. So pag sinabi nila na ito bilhin niyo, di kami makaka decide noon,” Lao said.
[Translation: Based on our experience in the procurement law, we don’t do that. In the Bayanihan Act, we can. It should be based on the decision of the agency like DOH, and RITM, to validate. If they say that we should buy this, we can’t decide on it.]
Lao added that if the APR issued was of a generic brand, the process will be asking all providers to bid. The agency will then buy from whoever offers the lowest price.
“But since the APR issued to us is very specific and brand based, we can only buy that specific brand which is in this case, is Thermo Science King Fisher,” he said.
Meanwhile, Duque assured Lacson that the DOH will cooperate fully in case an investigation will have to take place.
