ONLY one company submitted a bid on Friday for the P1.59-billion project aimed at upgrading the country’s civil registry services, the last one under the Aquino administration’s public-private partnership (PPP) program.

Unisys Public Sector Services Corp. was the lone bidder for the Phase 2 of the Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) Civil Registry System Information Technology Project (CRS-ITP).

“There are three qualified players, but only one decided to submit. We were hoping more than one would submit,” Andre C. Palacios, executive director of the PPP Center, told reporters at the sidelines of the bidding held in Quezon City.

“If there’s competition, then you get the best price. When there’s only one, you need to serve parameters to say whether it’s good or bad,” he added.

Two other pre-qualified bidders, Morpho-Filmetrics-Frey Consortium and PNJ Partnership Consortium, did not participate in the bidding.

The bid submitted by Unisys will still undergo evaluation. If the bid is deemed compliant, the contract is scheduled to be awarded on July 26, and signed by September.

Phase 2 is expected to take two years to develop, including the construction of a new building and the development of the entirely new IT system.

The winning bidder for the CRS-ITP will finance, design, develop, operate and maintain the civil registry system for the PSA. It will collect, access, store, maintain and manage civil registry documents and the specimen signatures of all city and municipal registrars using imaging technology.

The project also includes production of vital statistics and will make the civil registry services available nationwide.

The contract for Phase 1 of the CRS-ITP, which began more than a decade ago, expired in 2012. It was extended twice, first in 2015, and now up to March 2017.

The National Economic and Development Authority Board, chaired by President Benigno S. C. Aquino III, approved the project on July 15, 2015.

Earlier, the PPP Center denied criticisms that the project is a “midnight deal.”

“This project is definitely not a midnight deal for PSA… This project is urgently needed and the concessionaire should be on board by September 2016,” Mr. Palacios was quoted as saying in a statement.

Mr. Palacios maintained a 6-month transition period is needed to ensure a transfer to the new contractor without any disruption in the PSA’s civil registry services.

10 June 2016
By R.S.C. Canivel