A LABOR group on Thursday questioned Communications Secretary Martin Andanar, who heads the Presidential Communication Office, on his silence over the raging e-passport scandal rocking the state-owned APO-Productivity Unit.
Citing the contract with APO-PU is under Andanar’s supervision, the Philippine Association of Free Labor Unions called on Andanar to voluntarily step down to give President Rodrigo Duterte a free hand to look for a “more efficient replacement attuned to the challenges of the job.”
At the same time, PAFLU president Eleuterio Tuazon said the ongoing vilification campaign against the National Printing Office is a “vain and ill-advised attempt” to draw attention away from the questionable subcontract between APO-Productivity Unit and its private partner, the United Graphic Expression Corp.
“This [propaganda drive] is nothing but a deliberate effort to mislead the general public away from the more crucial issue of a blatant and shameless scheme to steal billions of pesos from the national coffers under the guise of improved passports,” Tuazon claimed.
He claimed it was not far-fetched to believe that Andanar has a hand in the smear drive against the NPO while at the same time, shielding APO-PU from public scrutiny on the unlawful passport deal with UGEC.
“But what is hard to understand is how come Andanar applies an opposing stance on APO-PU on one hand, and the NPO, on the other hand, considering that both state-run printing facilities operate under the umbrella of the PCOO,” Tuazon noted.
He pointed out that it would be understandable for Andanar to deny any involvement in the demolition job, but described as “untenable” the Presidential Spokesman’s silence on the spurious subcontracting arrangement between the APO-PU and UGEC.
The call to voluntarily resign came on the heels of the President’s announcement that Interior and Local Government Secretary Ismael Sueno has been fired “for loss of trust and confidence.”
The Chief Executive earlier enjoined Andanar to refrain from performing his task as presidential spokesman amidst his frequent run-ins with media practitioners and other quarters that did not take kindly to his statements and pronouncements on behalf of his boss.
The APO-PU labor union has reportedly sued Andanar’s predecessor, former secretary Herminio Coloma, for plunder arising from the alleged dubious disbursements amounting to P191 million during his watch as head of the PCOO.
Coloma has also been tagged as one of the principal architects of Malacanang’s policy shift removing the task of passport printing from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and handing it over to the APO-PU, despite the fact that APO-PU did not have the expertise and the equipment to do the job.
Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo, in a legal opinion issued at the behest of former Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr., said APO-PU committed administrative and criminal offense in engaging the services of UGEC.
Panelo said even a supplemental agreement would not legitimize the illegal subcontract between APO-PU and UGEC because the transaction was consummated in violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, the Administrative Code, and pertinent rules and regulations on government procurement.
Yasay disclosed that the move to take the BSP out of the passport equation was undertaken in October 2015 through the initiative of Coloma and Maria Montelibano, a close adviser of former President Benigno Aquino III.
Reacting to Panelo’s findings, the PAFLU said it is set to file graft charges against key officials of APO-P0 and UGEC for perpetuating the illegal act of printing passports through an unlawful outsourcing arrangement.
So far, the DFA has yet to release any statement regarding this issue.
But DFA spokesman Charles Jose has previously said that the DFA is not in the position to take up and assess the said joint venture agreement as its contractual obligations dictate that it will only deal directly with the new APO who is the main contracting party.
Jose also maintained that as far as the agency is concern, there is nothing irregular with its contract with APO, the group that bagged the multi-billion printing contract of electronic passport in 2015.
“As far as we’re concerned, there’s nothing irregular with our contract with APO; everything is above board,” he maintained.
He added that its contract with APO went through a thorough review by inter-agency group under the Department of Finance and other concerned agencies.