By Jeffrey G. Damicog
The Department of Justice has found nothing irregular with its contract with the security agency owned by the family of Solicitor General Jose Calida.
“I talked to the people in charge of procurement in the Department of Justice. Of course, I cannot speak with the other agencies with which Solgen’s company dealt but as far as the DoJ is concerned, we looked into our records,” Guevarra said in an interview over CNN Philippines. “I examined all the records pertaining to the procurement and all of these were regular on their face,” he said.
The Justice Secretary said that Vigilant Investigative and Security Agency was chosen by the DoJ for the security contract through the required public bidding.
“Because this is a public bidding and all we need to comply with are the pertinent regulations under the Government Procurement Reform Act. And all of these were followed, the start of the bidding up to the end,” he said.
Guevarra said among the security firms which joined the bidding, Vigilant had the “lowest and responsive bid among so many among a number of bidders.”
“There would be conflict of interest if the winning bidder would have any relation to the head of the agency, to the head of the bids and awards committee, to the head of the box secretariat, to the agency implementing the procurement within the third degree of affinity or consanguinity and none was found,” Guevarra said.
