Mobile solutions provider Omniprime Marketing, Inc. has filed before the Office of the Ombudsman a motion for preventive suspension against Customs Commissioner Alberto Lina for cancelling the bidding for the P650-million IT project of the Bureau of Customs (BOC).
In a motion submitted to the Ombudsman on September 14, Omniprime, represented by lawyer Atty. Joel Butuyan, sought Lina’s preventive suspension as “his continued stay in office will most definitely prejudice” the graft and corruption case filed by the company against Lina and two former Customs officials last July.
Omniprime said the preventive suspension order is aimed at inhibiting Lina “from using his office to intimidate or influence witnesses or to tamper with records that might be vital to the prosecution of the case against him.”
Last July 2, Omniprime filed a graft and corruption case against Lina, former BOC deputy commissioner for Management Information System and Technology Group (MISTG) Primo Aguas, and former customs commissioner Guillermo Parayno, for allegedly violating Section 3(e) of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act following the cancellation of the BOC IT project, a move allegedly made in favor of a company owned by Lina, E-Konek Pilipinas.
READ: Lina, two other ex-BOC officials charged with plunder
In its motion, Omniprime said Lina showed “manifest partiality, crystal clear conflict of interest, and bad faith” when he cancelled the Integrated Enhanced Customs Processing System (IECPS) and National Single Window (NSW) Phase 2 project and “unduly benefited losing bidder E-Konek Pilipinas” where Parayno is president and Lina holds a 96.47% stake.
The cancellation “gravely prejudiced the Joint Venture of Omniprime Marketing Inc. and Intrasoft International, Inc., which has been declared as the Highest Rated Bid and with whom the DBM Procurement Service Bids and Awards Committee have already negotiated”, the complainant noted.
Omniprime said the charge against Lina involves “dishonesty, oppression or grave misconduct or neglect in the performance of duty”, noting that the commissioner’s “guilt is strong”.
The complainant said the cancellation of the bidding procedure, which has already reached contract negotiation stage, “is a stumbling block to the integration of the Customs system into the ASEAN Single Window, in non-observance of the Philippines’ international obligations to the ASEAN.”
The cancellation also deprives the Filipino people of a much deserved transparent, efficient, and graft- and corruption-free customs service, Omniprime said.
The complainant noted that the writ of preliminary injunction earlier granted by the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 47 establishes Omniprime and Intrasoft’s “clear legal right” as a bidder.
READ: Court halts cancellation of P650M BOC computerization project
It said the cancellation was “made without any justifiable basis” and Lina’s May 6 letter of discontinuance and abandonment of the procurement in order to “conduct a review of the project was clearly based on flimsy grounds, and not because there was a significant change in the physical & economic conditions that warranted the cancellation of the PNSW2 Project.”
Omniprime said the testimony of BOC MISTG officer-in-charge Angelica Sarmiento “clearly shows that there were no other matters left undiscussed in the contract negotiation for the procurement” and that she was not consulted on the issue of the project cancellation.
Lina had cancelled the bidding and said the agency was going to use the Automated System for Customs Data (Asycuda) instead because it is cheaper and already being used by other countries.
