Requesting Entity: Municipal Government of Talakag, Bukidnon

Issues Concern: Request for exemption from Section 10, Rule IV and Section 47, Rule XV of the Implementing Rules and Regulations Part A of R.A. 9184

Details

1. Whether or not the Municipality of Talakag may resort to alternative methods of procurement by reason of the impracticability of the requirement of Section 47, Rule XV of the IRR-A.

Under our jurisdiction, public bidding is the rule, and the use of any of the alternative methods is the exception. Consequently, alternative methods shall be resorted to only in highly exceptional cases as provided for in the IRR-A.

The import of Section 48 of the IRR-A is that, the procuring entity may resort to any of the alternative methods of procurement as prescribed under RA 9184 and its IRR-A, only whenever justified by exceptional conditions and if it is to promote economy and efficiency. Pointedly, the conditions referred to are limited to those which are explicitly provided in the law. Any condition, however exceptional, not included nor contemplated therein, is deemed to have not been considered by the law to warrant the use of the alternative methods of procurement.

Cursory reading of the RA 9184 and its IRR-A would yield an obvious resolution that the circumstances for which alternative methods of procurement is sought by the Municipality of Talakag is not among those contemplated by the law. Hence, appropriately, yielding to the prescription of Section 48.2 of the IRR-A, the municipal government should adopt public bidding as the mode of procurement.


2. Whether or not the GPPB may grant exemption from the application of some provisions of R.A. 9184.

The GPPB, being a creation of R.A 9184 can not exercise functions not granted to it by said law. Its mandate is to effectuate the purpose and intent of the Government Procurement Reform Act; thus, its operations are confined by the law and only within the scheme of implementing its provisions according to the legislative policy. Hence, requests for exemption are beyond its power to grant. It can not arrogate unto itself the power to grant exemptions in as much as it does not have the power to legislate nor determine the coverage of the law. At most, it may only render contemporaneous construction of the provisions of the law pursuant to its quasi-legislative fiat, and issue rules and regulations pursuant to its rule-making power.