Local leaders and public officials ask Cebuanos to be more proactive in fighting corruption
PFMP’s technical assistance encourages transparency in government’s procurement process
In the 1990s, the education sector in the Philippines faced a major crisis. The Department of Education (DepEd) was accused of extensive corruption, in particular in the field of textbooks procurement (according to Philippine law the government is obliged to provide students with free textbooks) (Ramkumar 2010). At least three forms of corruption were suspected: officials were awarding overpriced contracts to unqualified bidders, suppliers were not honoring their contracts (many textbooks remained undelivered even after the government had paid for them), and some vendors were providing books of poor quality (Ramkumar 2010).
'If the mechanism of our government is working towards ensuring transparency and accountability, we might not even have to do what we have been doing as a civil society organization'
In 2001 there were a plethora of reports, disclosing that billions of pesos were lost in textbook scams, corruption in procurement, ghost projects in textbook delivery and school-building construction. In that year, G-Watch reviewed public sector performance in two key areas: textbook delivery and school-building construction.
The Department of Education (DepEd) has strengthened its partnership with the private sector to achieve its goal of solving the textbook shortage problem this year.