The government is trying its best to re-open the Philippine economy and restore millions of jobs lost during the current pandemic. From fast-food restaurants to retail outlets and hotels, many Filipinos lost their jobs due to mobility restrictions spawned by COVID-19.
The country’s economic managers have offered several schemes to re-start the economy in order to give back the jobs taken away by the pandemic. For some 11,000 workers at the port of Calapan in Oriental Mindoro province, however, they may lose their jobs not because of the pandemic but due to a twist in the bidding procedure of the government.
Oriental Mindoro 2nd district Rep. Alfonso Umali Jr. is coming to the rescue of the beleaguered workers. He has urged the House of Representatives to conduct an investigation on what he calls the untimely conduct of public biddings on government ports, sea terminals and ports facilities by the Philippine Ports Authority under the agency’s new terminal leasing and management rules and regulations.
The lawmaker, a vice chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Committee, fears the new bidding rules will result in the termination of some 11,000 workers of the Calapan Labor Service Development Cooperative after the PPA discontinued the management contract to operate cargo handling and RORO services in the Port of Calapan City.
Umali naturally obtained the support of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines–Oriental Mindoro Chapter. “We firmly believe that CALSEDECO deserves to continue its services at the Port of Calapan City as manifested in (its) forty-two years of outstanding performance which (are) attested by their excellent track record coupled with various awards that it has received from Government Authorities and prestigious award-giving bodies,” wrote the group to PPA general manager Jay Daniel R. Santiago.
“We can certainly vouch the capability of CALSEDECO in providing services for Cargo Handling and Ro-Ro Operations and it is indeed our pride as Mindoreños to have been known as the ONLY surviving Cooperative in the Philippines to venture in this line of services at the waterfront,” says the the group.
The Oriental Mindoro league believes that allowing CALSEDECO to continue its services will protect and provide basic employment and livelihood for the poor port workers and their members.
“Thus, terminating the contract without assurance of renewal or extension would mean deprivation of the main source of livelihood of its members and grave organizational dislocation,” the group adds.
Grossly disadvantageous
Umali has called on the Committees on Good Governance and Public Accountability and on Transportation to conduct an investigation on the new bidding regulations, claiming they are “grossly disadvantageous to the government amid this lingering COVID-19 pandemic.”
Umali in his resolution identified five government ports whose contracts are allegedly being awarded by PPA officials “to a favored corporate entity.” The ports are Puerto Princesa Port, Ormoc Port, Tabaco Port, Legaspi Port and Calapan Port.
The Oriental Mindoro lawmaker claimed that the government would be deprived of huge sums of money due to the PPA’s choice of bidder, which usually didn’t even offer the highest bid for the projects.
He said the government could be losing P1.2 billion from the deals because the winning contractor “posted only a minimum bid despite the fact that there [were] other qualified bidders who posted higher bids.”
Umali declined to name the bidders. “These so-called ‘chosen few’ big companies are primarily focused on the PPA bidding with an intention to monopolize the management of the port,” he says.
“These big companies have already participated and awarded several ports [bid] out by the PPA as what occurred in the first eight [8] biddings where five [5] ports were awarded to a single corporate entity which posted online a minimum bid and whose net contracting capacity is inadequate to sustain long term operations,” he said in the resolution.
Umali says these companies are involved in domestic port operations as well as local shipping. “Their unrestricted access to and familiarity with the agency [PPA] give them full advantage in terms of participation in the bidding,” he said.
“Provincial port operators and their lowly port workers, on the other hand, have very limited, or have no success at all, thereby denying them of a fair opportunity to participate,” he added.
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