{"id":208226,"date":"2019-04-03T02:49:08","date_gmt":"2019-04-03T06:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=208226"},"modified":"2019-04-03T02:49:21","modified_gmt":"2019-04-03T06:49:21","slug":"prrd-orders-review-of-all-govt-contracts-with-private-firms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/04\/03\/prrd-orders-review-of-all-govt-contracts-with-private-firms\/","title":{"rendered":"PRRD orders review of all gov\u2019t contracts with private firms"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: President Rodrigo Roa Duterte presides over the 36th Cabinet Meeting at the Malaca\u00f1an Palace on April 1, 2019. ACE MORANDANTE\/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— President Rodrigo R. Duterte has ordered the Office of the Solicitor General, the Department of Justice, and all legal departments to review all contracts entered into by the government with private corporations and\/or countries, Malaca\u00f1ang said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said this review will determine whether there are \u201conerous provisions\u201d in the contract that would put the Philippines in a disadvantage or would violate the Constitution.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll contracts, existing contracts. They will have to be subjected to scrutiny,\u201d Panelo said in a Palace briefing but did not determine which particular contracts or how many of them will be up for review.<\/p>\n

Panelo assured that the controversial Chinese loan agreements will be covered by the review.<\/p>\n

However, he maintained that the PHP3.69-billion Chico River Pump Irrigation Project and the PHP4.2 billion Kaliwa<\/p>\n

Dam are aboveboard.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWith respect to Chico and Kaliwa it has passed through many agencies — Commission on Audit, Department of Finance,\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

Panelo allayed fears that the review of all government contracts would have an impact on potential investors saying that it will only \u201cforewarn\u201d them not to engage in onerous transactions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will forewarn them that they cannot enter into any agreement that is in violation of the Constitution or a public policy,\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe President has alerted whoever will be entering into an agreement that they should be very careful in agreeing with whoever they are contracting with, with respect to existing laws and the Constitution,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Panelo also assured that government will not incur potential penalty from canceling agreements noting that if an agreement was made in violation of the law, then it is considered void ab initio or invalid.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Panelo maintained that all government contracts were reviewed \u201cthoroughly\u201d despite the call to review them again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can always go back to it; but as far as the Department of Finance is concerned, it\u2019s above board and they have explained it extensively at that,\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

According to Panelo, the review \u201cwon\u2019t take long\u201d since legal departments could already be reviewing contracts.<\/p>\n

Gov\u2019t vs. Maynilad<\/strong><\/p>\n

Duterte\u2019s call to review all government contracts with private firms stemmed after he learned that government had to pay at least PHP3.4 billion to water concessionaire Maynilad after losing an arbitration case in 2018.<\/p>\n

Maynilad won over the government at the High Court of Singapore for revenue losses in relation to the unimplemented water rate adjustment. However, the Philippine government opted not to appeal its decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe (Duterte) found out that during the Ramos administration, there was a contract between Maynilad and Republic of the Philippines and in that contract, the government, the Republic of the Philippines was prohibited into interfering, intruding into the terms of the contract,\u201d Panelo explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why we lost in the arbitration tribunal and I think we were made to pay PHP3 billion something because according to the ruling the government intervened and by reason of the intervention Maynilad suffered damages,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Panelo said the President could not believe how such a contract would impose a ban on the government to take government action with respect to water supply and distribution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere could be collusion between lawyers of government and lawyers of the private company (Maynilad). We cannot do that, we have to prosecute them,\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

Panelo said the reason for review is to ensure that the fate suffered by government in the case versus Maynilad would not happen again.<\/p>\n

\u201cKaya mo ire-review yung kontrata ng iba kasi<\/em>\u00a0baka\u00a0merong ganun ding<\/em>\u00a0provision (That\u2019s why we\u2019re calling for a review on all contracts because there might be a similar provision as the one in the Maynilad case),\u201d Panelo told reporters in an interview after the briefing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— President Rodrigo R. Duterte has ordered the Office of the Solicitor General, the Department of Justice, and all legal …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":208229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208226"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":208233,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208226\/revisions\/208233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}