Requesting Entity: Occidental Mindoro State College (OMSC)

Issues Concern: Disclosure of Relations

Details

Whether a bidder is prohibited to participate in a bidding opportunity if one of its corporate officers is the sibling of a board member of the procuring entity, and whether the concerned board member can execute a notarized Letter of Intent to abstain from voting or participating in the deliberation for the award of contract.

Section 47 of the revised Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of Republic Act (RA) No. 9184 automatically disqualifies a bidder from participating in the procurement activities of a Procuring Entity when such bidder is related by consanguinity or affinity within the third civil degree to the Head of the Procuring Entity (HOPE), members of the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC), the Technical Working Group (TWG), and the BAC Secretariat, the head of the Project Management Office (PMO), or the end-user unit, and the project consultants, if any. For purposes of State Universities and Colleges (SUCs), the HOPE pertains to its governing board, which is the Board of Trustees.

[T]he disqualification of bidders pursuant to Section 47 of the IRR of RA 9184 is based merely on the existing relationship between the bidder and the aforementioned procurement official. xxx. Hence, notwithstanding the inhibition made by the officers or employees concerned, the cause-and-effect link between relationship and disqualification is not severed by the supposed corrective measure.

[T]he concerned bidder is automatically disqualified to submit a bid and to participate in any procurement contracts of OMSC since one of its officers, the Corporate Secretary, is related to one of the members of the Board of Trustees of OMSC by consanguinity within the third civil degree. The voluntary inhibition and non-participation of the identified Board of Trustee in the deliberation of the Board does not remove his blood relationship with one of the Directors of a would be bidder.