Senate blue ribbon subpoenas ex-LTO chiefs, firms over ‘disadvantageous’ IT deal

The Senate blue ribbon committee on Thursday issued a subpoena ad testificandum to compel former Land Transportation Office (LTO) chiefs, government officials, and private firms who have been linked to an allegedly disadvantageous information technology (IT) project to appear before it.

It was Senator Grace Poe and Senator JV Ejercito who pointed out during the probe that they cannot gather sufficient information as the former LTO officials and the relevant resource persons involved in the deal, specifically the representatives from LTO’s private contractor, Dermalog, were not around to participate in the investigation.

After their manifestations, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimente III, one of the senators who sought the probe, made a motion to subpoena the resource persons.

“Ang suggestion ko sana…let a subpoena be issued to all of them, not an invitation letter, Mr. Chairman. I-subpoena na po ‘yung mga yon—‘yung lahat ng mga hindi nagpunta ngayong araw at tsaka yung mga past leaders or heads ng LTO,” Pimentel said.

The motion was seconded by Poe and Ejercito.

During the opening of the investigation, Senate blue ribbon director general Rodolfo Noel Quimbo informed the panel that they have reached out to Dermalog through its email address registered with the Security and Exchange Commission.

The Senate panel learned that Dermalog’s officers were in Germany and that they only sent their legal counsel to attend the hearing.

Senate blue ribbon committee chairman Francis Tolentino then warned Dermalog’s legal counsel that he may be cited in contempt if his principals fail to appear before the panel.

The blue ribbon probe stemmed from a 2021 Commission on Audit report flagging the LTO for an "undue payment" made to IT contractor Dermalog, despite the incomplete turnover of deliverables for the P3.19 billion Road IT Infrastructure project.

According to the COA report, the contract for Component A of the IT project was perfected on May 28, 2018 and awarded to Dermalog Identification Systems, Holy Family Printing Corporation, Migrogenesis and Verzontal Builders, Inc. Joint Venture with a total contract cost of P3.146 billion.

The COA report found that all core applications had already been paid for although some of these core applications have yet to accommodate certain LTO transactions.

The core applications include the Driver’s Licensing System (DLS) and the Motor Vehicle Inspection and Registration System (MVIRS), which were included in Component A of the said IT project also known as the Land Transportation Management System (LTMS).

The COA report likewise stated that even before LTO's acceptance of the core applications, there were 25 existing issues on it that remained unresolved as of December 9, 2021. — BM, GMA Integrated News