CT Leoncio bids 'altered' to show it lost contracts for Bicol infra projects —Andaya

House Committee on Appropriations chair Rolando Andaya Jr. on Wednesday alleged that the bids of "favored" contractor CT Leoncio Construction and Trading were altered "at the last minute" so it would not win contracts for projects in the Bicol Region.

Andaya made the remark as he got hold of several bidding documents involving CT Leoncio Construction and Trading as part of his committee's continuous inquiry into the supposed anomalies in the 2019 national budget under Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno.

According to Andaya, CT Leoncio Construction and Trading won the bidding for P1-billion worth of infrastructure projects in Sorsogon and Catanduanes under the 2019 National Expenditure Program (NEP).

The bidding results, however, were "altered" to show that other contractors submitted the lowest bid for the projects, he claimed.

"Documents submitted to me by the DPWH (Department of Public Works and Highways) last December showed that CT Leoncio submitted the lowest bid totaling P988,560,855 for 14 projects in Sorsogon and Catanduanes under the 2019 NEP," Andaya said.

"But a new list submitted by DPWH last Tuesday showed that CT Leoncio did not win any bidding for Sorsogon projects," he added.

Andaya believes that the bids were altered after CT Leoncio was implicated in the supposed anomalies in the budget.

"Kung noong 2017 at 2018, sobrang suwerte ang CT Leoncio sa mga bidding sa Bicol, sobrang malas naman yata sila ngayong 2019. Kahit isang proyekto, walang napanalunang proyekto ang CT Leoncio sa Sorsogon. Kataka-taka talaga," he said.

"This alteration of official documents is a serious criminal offense. We will try to unmask who may be held criminally liable for this offense when the House investigating panel resumes its probe on DBM (Department of Budget and Management) anomalies next month," he added.

According to Andaya, the early bidding of infrastructure projects for 2019 became possible after Diokno issued Circular Letter No. 2018-9 which instructed all heads in the executive, legislative and judicial branches to "undertake Early Procurement Activities from October to December 2018, upon the submission of the FY 2019 NEP to Congress."

These include the pre-procurement conference up to the post-qualification of bids and recommendation by the Bids and Awards Committees to award the contract to the winning bidder.

"This Diokno Circular eventually allowed the DPWH regional offices and district engineering offices to conduct bidding activities for the P75-billion infrastructure projects inserted in the NEP. Pirma na lang ni Presidente sa 2019 budget ang kulang, mapupunta na sa favored contractors ang mga proyekto," Andaya said.

Diokno, however, argued that it was Andaya who actually started the practice of bidding out government projects even before a budget bill is enacted into law.

“The conduct of early procurement activities, short of award, is not new. It has been allowed since 2009, under the Arroyo administration with Andaya as Budget secretary,” he said. —KG, GMA News