The Senate blue ribbon committee on Thursday issued a subpoena advert testificandum to compel former Land Transportation Office (LTO) chiefs, authorities officers, and personal companies who’ve been linked to an allegedly disadvantageous info expertise (IT) mission to seem earlier than it.
It was Senator Grace Poe and Senator JV Ejercito who identified through the probe that they can’t collect enough info as the previous LTO officers and the related useful resource individuals concerned within the deal, particularly the representatives from LTO’s non-public contractor, Dermalog, weren’t round to take part within the investigation.
After their manifestations, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimente III, one of many senators who sought the probe, made a movement to subpoena the useful resource individuals.
“Ang suggestion ko sana…let a subpoena be issued to all of them, not an invite letter, Mr. Chairman. I-subpoena na po ‘yung mga yon—‘yung lahat ng mga hindi nagpunta ngayong araw at tsaka yung mga past leaders or heads ng LTO,” Pimentel said.
The motion was seconded by Poe and Ejercito.
During the opening of the investigation, Senate blue ribbon director general Rodolfo Noel Quimbo informed the panel that they have reached out to Dermalog through its email address registered with the Security and Exchange Commission.
The Senate panel learned that Dermalog’s officers have been in Germany and that they solely despatched their authorized counsel to attend the listening to.
Senate blue ribbon committee chairman Francis Tolentino then warned Dermalog’s authorized counsel that he could also be cited in contempt if his principals fail to seem earlier than the panel.
The blue ribbon probe stemmed from a 2021 Commission on Audit report flagging the LTO for an “undue payment” made to IT contractor Dermalog, regardless of the unfinished turnover of deliverables for the P3.19 billion Road IT Infrastructure mission.
According to the COA report, the contract for Component A of the IT mission was perfected on May 28, 2018 and awarded to Dermalog Identification Systems, Holy Family Printing Corporation, Migrogenesis and Verzontal Builders, Inc. Joint Venture with a complete contract value of P3.146 billion.
The COA report discovered that each one core purposes had already been paid for though a few of these core purposes have but to accommodate sure LTO transactions.
The core purposes embody the Driver’s Licensing System (DLS) and the Motor Vehicle Inspection and Registration System (MVIRS), which have been included in Component A of the stated IT mission also referred to as the Land Transportation Management System (LTMS).
The COA report likewise said that even earlier than LTO’s acceptance of the core purposes, there have been 25 current points on it that remained unresolved as of December 9, 2021. — BM, GMA Integrated News
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
