Requesting Entity: Office of the City Legal Officer City Government of Pasay

Issues Concern: Contract Extension for General Support Services

Details

Whether the City Government of Pasay can validly extend the ongoing contracts for its various general support services even before substantially undertaking activities for its procurement, as required under Section 4.3 of the Revised Guidelines on the Extension of Contracts for General Support Services (Guidelines).

The failure of the City Government of Pasay to commence procurement for its general support services, even if caused by the non-enactment of its annual fiscal budget, does not constitute substantial undertaking of procurement activities required under the Guidelines.

Section 4 of the Guidelines provides the conditions that procuring entities must comply with in order to be able to extend the duration or effectivity of contracts that are about to expire, among which is that the procuring entity must have substantially undertaken the procurement activities required prior to award of the new contract under Republic Act No. (RA) 9184 and its revised Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR). The condition for having substantially undertaken procurement activities entails that the extension is undertaken due to circumstances beyond its control and the procuring entity cannot award a new contract within a month after the expiration of the original contract. These two conditions contemplate a situation where the procuring entity has exerted substantial efforts to procure a new contract, but for reasons beyond its control, cannot award the same.