PDAF Watch Report: Computers at P217,500 each for Luzon IT projects

**CaMoTe!!!** · March 22nd, 2007 10:38 PM

This is something thats not really surprising. Borrowing from PERC, it had
been bad all along! I just hope we can furnish the names of legislators
whose PDAF is tainted with graft. But the last sentence in the article
seemed a bit naive to me. Whew! Ronnie
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More pork graft exposed --
PCs at P217,500 each for Luzon IT projects
By Volt Contreras
Philippine Daily Inquirer
March 22, 2007

MANILA, Philippines -- Dubious pork barrel expenditures have gone techie.

A civil society report on the use of congressional pork barrel uncovered at
least six information technology (IT) projects in Luzon in which basic,
"unbranded" personal computers installed in public schools were allegedly
bought at P217,500 each.

An unbranded PC with licensed software would normally cost just around
P50,000 at the most, noted the first installment of "PDAF Watch," an
initiative of the Caucus of Development NGO Networks (Code-NGO).

The "overpriced" IT projects were found in Metro Manila, Southern Tagalog
and Central Luzon.

Pork barrel, a source of kickbacks, is a fund appropriated in the national
budget to help lawmakers curry favor with voters by identifying the projects
that will be funded by their pork barrel allocations.

PDAF, or Priority Development Assistance Fund, is the pork barrel allocated
to members of the House of Representatives and senators.

It is mainly used for projects on a menu set by the Department of Budget and
Management, such as health care and education. Congressional Allocation
(CA), also a pork barrel, is mainly for infrastructure projects.

A congressman representing a district is allocated P65 million in PDAF a
year and a party-list representative, P35 million. A senator gets P200
million in PDAF.

Shabbily built roads

In a presentation Wednesday, Code-NGO officers said PDAF Watch "monitors"
from around the country, who worked on the project between 2005 and 2006,
reported the following:

. Of the 64 road projects nationwide that were covered by the report, 18
projects, or 28 percent, were found "defective" when inspected less than a
year after their completion. The shabbily built roads already had potholes,
cracks, or thinning layers of concrete or gravel.

. Of the same sample, two road projects were actually nonexistent yet
declared "completed" in documents the volunteers had obtained from the
Department of Public Works and Highways.

. The cost of the defective roads totaled P14 million, or 17 percent of the
P84.6 million spent for the 64 roads in the sample.

. Of the seven IT projects monitored, six had PCs costing P217,500 each
"even though their parts were unbranded" or could be had for much lower
prices in the market.

Raise awareness

The report was dubbed the "first phase" of PDAF Watch, with the next edition
expected to be released after the May elections.

The project aims to raise public awareness of how the controversial funds
were actually being used, and to influence legislation that will make the
projects more transparent, according to Code-NGO executive director Sixto
Donato Macasaet.

In a parallel effort, PDAF Watch volunteers wrote all the 235 members of the
House (including the 25 party-list representatives) and 23 senators in
October 2005, requesting information on their pork-funded projects under the
2004 budget.

Only 20 solons cooperated

One year later, after a follow-up letter and several phone calls to their
office, only 20 lawmakers, or 8 percent of the total number of House members
and senators, bothered to furnish Code-NGO with documents.

"It is apparent that there is a big area for improvement in the transparency
of the PDAF/CA projects of Congress," Macasaet said at a forum at the Ateneo
de Manila University in Quezon City.

He said his group "encourages prosecution" and would be willing to assist
others who would like to use the PDAF Watch findings as basis for filing
graft cases before the Office of the Ombudsman.

Not necessarily liable

Macasaet conceded, however, that even among the ranks of the PDAF Watch
volunteers, many would think twice about elevating the matter to the court
and be publicly identified for security reasons.

He also explained that lawmakers were "not necessarily liable (may
kasalanan)" if projects in their districts funded by pork or financed under
their name began to smell fishy.

**chua_riwap** · March 22nd, 2007 10:45 PM

Meron pa! Yung lamp posts na ginamit sa Mandaue, Cebu (Asean Summit) P220k ang isa!

**Alpha_One** · March 22nd, 2007 10:53 PM

Lupit ng mga PC na yan ah. The last time I priced a "money's-no-object" system (just for fun, didn't actually buy it), I managed to rack up a Php179k "bill". Including the 32" LCD TV I'm "connecting" the computer to.

**boybi** · March 22nd, 2007 11:09 PM

Talagang mahal mga PC na yan. Yan ang mga first 8-Core CPUs na dinevelop ng Intel :bwahaha:

**Alpha_One** · March 22nd, 2007 11:13 PM

...with NVidia Quad-SLI! Spoiled yang mga batang yan ah...

**boybi** · March 22nd, 2007 11:17 PM

Originally Posted by Alpha_One

...with NVidia Quad-SLI! Spoiled yang mga batang yan ah...

Nakita siguro nila yung ad dito sa sidebar ng Tsikot: Study hard.....Play harder! :bwahaha:

**oldblue** · March 23rd, 2007 12:55 AM

may 17,500 pa. malamang built-in video yan at ang presyo lang talaga eh 17,500 hehehe

**mikmik316** · March 23rd, 2007 04:29 AM

grabe na ngayon ang kotong... dati nasilip ko ang OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT 130,000 pesos per PC delivered... thinking the price of the PC is 30k max... tsk tsk

**CVT** · March 23rd, 2007 07:03 AM

Dapat sa mga iyan,- ibinibitin ng patiwarik.

Tapos, ipakain sa hantik!

Pera natin iyan, ha!

2201:attack:

**Syuryuken** · March 23rd, 2007 07:19 AM

Yan ang isang rason kung bakit ko tinatanggihan order ng local government dito. Anlalaki ng patong ng mga Supply Officer iba pa yung patong ng mga boss nila. Ang 80 Gig na harddisk umaabot ng 15k samanatalang 3k lang yun.