DPWH: Fuel costs, rising prices weigh on failed classroom bids

MANILA, Philippines — Rising fuel prices and contractors’ concerns over project costs have contributed to failed bidding attempts for classroom construction projects under a P21.4-billion agreement between the Department of Education (DepEd) and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

This was reported by DPWH Undersecretary Lara Marisse Esquibil on Friday during the Senate finance subcommittee hearing on DepEd’s proposed 2027 budget.

“I’ll just say here already, we’ve been encountering quite a few failure of biddings. They’ve been concerned with the costing of classrooms with fuel price increases,” Esquibil said.

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“So they were a bit market sounding, gave us some feedback that it was quite low,” she added.

According to Esquibil, of the P21.4 billion covered by agreements, only P1.87 billion worth of projects had reached stages involving prospective bidders, postqualification or award.

The DPWH had also advertised projects worth around P7 billion covering approximately 2,000 classrooms. Although contractors had attended pre-bid conferences, the agency was still awaiting bid submissions for some of the projects.

Because of this, Esquibil said the agency was grouping projects more strategically to reduce contractors’ mobilization costs and make the contracts more attractive to prospective bidders.

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LGU, DPWH-led projects

Sen. Bam Aquino, chair of the Senate finance subcommittee, questioned the slow progress and asked whether funds could be redirected to the local government-led classroom construction program if the DPWH-led projects continued to struggle.

Education Secretary Sonny Angara said P7 billion had already been transferred and could no longer be returned to DepEd, while the remaining P13 billion had yet to be transferred.

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Aquino asked DepEd and the Department of Budget and Management to consider whether funds not yet transferred could still be allocated through another implementation arrangement, depending on the progress of the DPWH-led program.

The senator sought an update before the Senate’s Nov. 24 plenary deliberations on the DepEd budget, with classroom constructions among the key priorities identified by senators present in the hearing.

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A DepEd presentation showed that a P65.4-billion classroom construction program targeted 18,950 classrooms, including 6,000 under DPWH-led implementation and 10,671 under the local government unit-led program.