Ombudsman suspends DICT exec over alleged conflict of interest in P1.55B contracts

The Office of the Ombudsman on Wednesday placed Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Undersecretary for E-Government David Almirol Jr. under a six-month preventive suspension over an alleged conflict of interest involving government contracts worth around P1.55 billion.

In its seven-page order, the Ombudsman said that the suspension stemmed from the pending administrative complaints of grave misconduct, conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service and a criminal complaint for alleged violation of Republic Act No. 6713 or the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees.

The complaints were based on a report by the DICT Internal Audit Unit dated June 2025 flagging a possible conflict of interest involving the hiring of former Multisys personnel and the award of contracts to other related companies, considering that Almirol founded Multisys Technologies Corporation (Multisys) in 2010.

Almirol also served as its president and chief executive officer for more than a decade before his appointment as DICT Undersecretary for E-Government in August 2022 and would later lead the development and rollout of the eGovPH Super App.

“Further investigation of the Office of the Ombudsman revealed that at least eight DICT contracts were awarded to companies with financial relationships with Multisys. From November 2023 to May 2025, the DICT awarded eight eGov-related contracts to several related companies totaling to about P1.55 billion,” the Ombudsman said.

“These contracts covered information and communications technology consultancy, e-government application deployment, web-based messaging services, cloud infrastructure, data center colocation and software subscriptions,” the Ombudsman added.

In addition, the Ombudsman said Multisys’ audited financial statements showed revenues from the related companies for managed services, and that the audited financial statements report revenue from the other companies “for managed services of P110.8 million in 2023 and P514.6 million in 2024”.

Records also showed that Almirol did not divest immediately after his appointment to the DICT based on Multisys' General Information Sheet (GIS) notarized on October 27, 2022 and received by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on November 2, 2022.

The GIS showed that respondent listed Almirol as a stockholder of Multisys holding 49.21% of the stocks and was only removed from the list of Multisys stockholders in a subsequent GIS notarized on November 18, 2022 and received by the SEC on November 21, 2022.

"The Ombudsman found strong evidence supporting the administrative charges against Almirol. Almirol’s continued stay in office could prejudice the investigation, particularly given his control and custody of documents and evidence relevant to the case," the Ombudsman said.

"The Order is immediately executory and the suspension shall remain in effect until the termination of the administrative adjudication," it added. —LDF/BM, GMA News