Requesting Entity: Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)

Issues Concern: Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) Membership

Details

Whether Division Chiefs in Offices and Bureaus without Assistant Bureau Director (ABD) positions are considered fifth ranking officials of DSWD for purposes of determining BAC membership.

[I]t is the plantilla of the agency that will define whether the position qualifies for regular BAC membership, and the determination of ranking should take into consideration the hierarchy of the plantilla positions present in the PE, and not whether an official has been appointed/designated/seconded and currently assumed or occupied the identified plantilla position.

DSWD Central Office’s Secretary, Undersecretaries, Assistant Secretaries, Bureau Directors, and ABDs occupy the positions of the first, second, third, fourth and fifth ranking officials, respectively, the Division Chief would be the sixth ranking permanent official, being the next position lower than the ABD. The identified ranking will remain even if there is no ABD appointed/designated/seconded to the position. Consequently, even in the absence of an ABD, as long as the entire organizational structure of the PE has an identified ABD position in the plantilla, a Division Chief in DSWD will remain a sixth ranking permanent official.

Whether a fifth ranking official may sit as an Alternate Member of the BAC, in place for the Procuring Entity’s (PE) fourth ranking official.

Section 11.2.4 of the IRR of RA 9184, x x x provides that [t]he Head of the Procuring Entity may designate alternate members to the BAC, who shall have the same qualifications as their principals as set in the Act and this IRR.

[T]he phrase, “the same qualifications as their principals”, should be understood together with the clause “as set in the Act and this IRR”. This means that the qualifications used in determining the principal are the same qualifications used in determining the alternate BAC me