Former Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio called on the government to include the “anomalous bidding” of the construction of the Kaliwa Dam in Quezon in its review of so-called “onerous” contracts between the government and private companies.
Carpio described the Kaliwa Dam project as the ‘mother of onerous contracts,’ citing a Commission on Audit memorandum on the bidding.
“In summary, it can be deduced that the two bidders/contractors were included merely to comply with the ‘at least three bidders’ requirement as stated under the Procurement Law. Likewise, the procurement of the project is with the semblance of a competitive bidding when in reality, it is a negotiated contract from the inception of the bidding process,” the COA memo said.
China during the Kaliwa Dam bidding submitted three Chinese contractors, namely the Consortium of Guangdong Foreign Construction Company and Yuantian Engineering Company (Consortium), Power Construction Corporation of China (PCCC) and China Energy Engineering Corporation (CEEC). The Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System, which conducted the bidding, limited the auction to the three Chinese contractors.
The first bidder, the Consortium, was disqualified because it did not submit the required documents, despite the clear instruction to bidders that failure to present the required papers would result in disqualification. One of the two members of the Consortium is a state-owned company of China, while the other, whose ownership is not clear, has undertaken many projects for the Chinese government.
“In short, the COA saw the “reality””•that the bidding was a sham. The Communist Party of China, which controls the three bidders, already chose from the very start CEEC as the winning bidder and instructed the other two bidders to simply disqualify themselves. The bidding was ‘lutong macau,’” added Carpio.
Bayan Muna chairman Neri Colmenares, quoting COA, cited an alleged intentional non-compliance to the qualification requirements, which resulted to CEEC winning the bid.