Rising fuel, other costs led to failed classroom construction bids – DPWH

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 during the Senate finance subcommittee hearing on Friday 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.

Article continues after this advertisement

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

FEATURED STORIES

NEWSINFO

NEWSINFO

NEWSINFO

According to Esquibil, of the P21.4 billion covered by the agreement, only P1.87 billion worth of projects had reached stages involving prospective bidders, post-qualification 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.

Article continues after this advertisement

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

“Doon natin siya ilagay sa kabayong tumatakbo, huwag doon sa kabayong hindi gumagalaw,” Aquino said.

Article continues after this advertisement

(We should put it in the hands of the one that’s moving, not the one that’s standing still,)

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.

Aquino asked DepEd and the Department of Budget and Management to consider whether the untransferred funds could still be allocated through another implementation arrangement, depending on the progress of the DPWH-led program.

Aquino 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.

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.

The presentation listed the DPWH-led projects as under procurement, while the LGU-led program had 8,295 classrooms covered by 437 memorandums of agreement, with projects at various procurement stages.

Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.

Your subscription has been successful.

The government has been working to address a classroom backlog previously estimated at around 165,000. The Senate panel called for faster implementation and closer monitoring of construction targets. /gsg