Softer rules, P600M budget set for rebidding of CCMC

All contractors are invited to join the rebidding of the new Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC) project – even the lowest bidder that was earlier disqualified.

This scenario opened after an earlier “safeguard” condition that required participating bidders to have completed a similar hospital project in the last five years was scrapped.

These are among the agreements made by the new special Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) for CCMC during a meeting last Tuesday at the office of Mayor Michael Rama.

City Legal Officer Jerone Castillo said the city will follow minimum requirements under the law.

“It’s an open and competitive bidding. We will be requiring from the bidders only the minimum requirements provided under Republic Act  9184 and the GPPB (Government Procurement Policy Board),” said Castillo, justifying the changes.

“The law doesn’t state a time frame for similar projects (undertaken in the past).”

This time, the contract price for the CCMC will tap a P600 million budget and not just P300 million for Phase 1, said Castillo.

“Hopefully by the end of April, the Program of Works and Estimates is already finished and by first week of May we can start the rebidding. Our target for the start of the construction is July,” Castillo said.

Castillo said even without the old 5-year requirement, the city can assure proper implementation of the project.

“In the  implementation, the city government will have the contractor following the design for the hospital,” he said.

The first bidding for the hospital project for P300 million was declared a failure by Mayor Rama in December last year.

This followed major controversy  over discrepancies in the bid documents and “misrepresentation” that led to the disqualification of the lowest bidder, a  joint venture of WTG Construction and Manila-based A.M. Oreta Company Inc.m which gave a bid of P275 million.

The special BAC is still headed by City Engineer Jose Marie Poblete after its revamp by the mayor.

Councilor Mary Ann delos Santos was dropped from the committee as representative of  the “end user-requisitioner” or Mayor Rama.  She was replaced by CCMC director for medical services Dr. Gloria Duterte.

In the earlier bidding for the P300 million first phase of the new CCMC,  the bid committee  adopted a special requirement for contractors to have had experience in  building a similar hospital project worth P300 million in the last five years.

This criteria was put in place by the CCMC special committee headed by delos Santos to ensure the contractor would have the expertise and track record for the job.

A lower standard is required under section 23 of the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of RA 9184 or the Government Procurement Reform Act.

“The prospective bidder must have experience of having completed at least one contract that is similar to the contract to be bid, and whose value, adjusted to the current prices using the NSO consumers price indices, must be at least 50 percent of the ABC to be bid,” states the IRR.

Qualified to join the bidding for infrastructure projects are duly licensed Filipino proprietorships. Partnerships, corporations and cooperatives or joint ventures should be 75 percent owned by Filipinos.

They must also have a satisfactory Certificate of Final Acceptance, Certificate of Completion or Constructors Performance Evaluation Summary (CPES) Final Rating.

Mayor Rama was irked by what he called the “premature” announcement of  the disqualification of WTG and Oreta by Councilor delos Santos.  He upheld the BAC’s decision but revamped the bidding committee after that.

In a motion of reconsideration, WTG general manager Willy T. Go went after De Los Santos’ head saying she was not a qualified member of the BAC because she was not a plantilla position employee.

The contractor also complained that the five-year requirement of the BAC was “arbitrary and overly restrictive” compared to what was stated in the law.

He said the condition of the bidding that a bidder must have completed a single largest contract similar to the CCMC project in the amount of P300 million in the last five years was “arbitrary and overly restrictive.”