Suer is winning, not losing, bidder

This refers to the news item titled “Losing bidder to sue Robredo over failed fire-fighting deal.” (Inquirer, 1/13/12)

Allow us to correct the wrong impression that the title of the news item suggests.

The news item identified our company, Kolonwel Trading, as the one that is suing. Kolonwel, however, is not the losing bidder. It is in fact the winning bidder.

The facts are as follows:

1. The Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) invited bids for the supply and delivery of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) comprising of firefighter’s helmets, firefighter’s coats, firefighter’s trousers, firefighter’s gloves and firefighter’s boots for 2010. The submission and opening of bids took place way back on Oct. 27, 2010, or more than one year ago.

2. Confident of the new and clean direction that the “matuwid na daan” ushered, our company partnered with a Korean company, In Seung Apparel Co. Ltd., to participate in the bidding, under a joint venture.

3. Our joint venture emerged as the “Lowest Calculated Responsive Bidder.”

4. The BFP Bids and Awards Committee was reconstituted three times successively to ensure that the review of the bidding results would be exhaustive and aboveboard.

5. All three different sets of BAC membership found and declared Kolonwel/In Seung the Lowest Calculated Responsive Bidder.

6. The BAC recommended the award of the contract correspondingly to Kolonwel/In Seung. Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo subsequently approved such award. Robredo, after all, is the approving authority for contracts above P7 million under an existing policy/circular of the Department of the Interior and Local Government.

7. The losing bidders have not filed any motion for reconsideration, nor any protest under the bidding rules (Republic Act 9184 and its IRR).

8. Oddly, without the benefit of any existing protest to rely on, the officer in charge of the BFP, Supt. Samuel R. Perez, took cognizance of two letters that were sent one year after the bidding by two losing bidders to stop the procurement. In effect, Perez has constituted himself as the prosecutor and judge to pass upon the grievance of the two losing bidders which, incidentally, are long-time suppliers of the BFP.

9. Then, Perez declared the bidding a failure on Dec. 28, 2011—more than a year after the opening of the bids. How a government agency can prolong and delay a bidding process, only to declare it a failure after more than a year, does not speak well of its efficiency or of its dedication to public service. As early as 2009, the BFP made known its urgent need for fire-fighting products to enhance its capability to deliver the services the public needs. The fire-fighting products were the subject of the bidding.

Doing away with the bidding after more than a year has set back the capability of the BFP by two years.

—PETER GO CHENG,

representative,

Kolonwel/In Seung joint-venture, 675 Sabino Padilla St.,

Binondo, Manila