Ping: Duterte barking at wrong tree on new Senate building issue

President Rodrigo Duterte should be directing his queries on the issue of the new Senate building at the Department of Public Works and Highways and not the Philippine Senate, Sen. Panfilo Lacson said Tuesday.

Lacson said Duterte may have been “grossly misinformed,” thus failing to question the DPWH, which is the procuring and implementing agency of the project.

“It was the DPWH that prepared the Program Of Works, the Terms of Reference and all bid documents, conducted the bidding, awarded, prepared the contract, signed the contract, and issued the notice to proceed, including the cost of the building. The Senate representative was only an observer during the bidding process,” Lacson said in a statement.

Lacson added that after the notice of award was issued, he took time to “warn the contractor in the presence of some DPWH officials against giving SOP’s to anyone and in whatever form, particularly on the construction of the new Senate building.”

Duterte, in his public address aired Monday night, questioned the Senate on why the contractor for the project is the same one involved in controversial projects such as the Iloilo Convention Center and Makati City Hall Building II – both of which the Senate probed in the last administration.

Duterte and Senate Blue Ribbon Committee chairman Richard Gordon are locked in a word war over the Senate probe into irregularities hounding the government’s procurement of medical supplies to deal with the Covid pandemic.

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Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)