2020

PUBLIC PROCUREMENT ANALYTICS

A COMPILATION of CONCEPTS,
METHODS, and USE-CASES in the
PHILIPPINES
1st EDITION

pg. 1
 Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
You are free to use the contents of this document in any way permitted by the
copyright and related legislation that applies to your use. No permission is
required from the rights-holders for non-commercial use. Please credit and/or link
to www.OCDEX.tech and Layertech Labs.

Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or
implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions
that may have been made.
 Acknowledgment
This handbook is a compilation of methods, results, and learnings of Layertech Labs’
Procurement Analytics team and partners in the Philippines from years 2018-2020.

We would like to acknowledge the following partners, contributors and reviewers:

GAYON LGBTQI Organization, Bicol

Bicol University College of Science
Bicol University College of Engineering
Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry – Albay (Formerly Albay Chamber of Commerce
and Industry)

Lany Maceda, DIT Noel Layante

Jennifer Llovido, DIT Frei Sangil
Jocelyn Serrano Engr. John Raymond Barajas
Alan John Aliliano Engr. Pee Jay Gealone
Marvin Banton Engr. Nico Aspra
Sidney Bercasio Engr. Oliver Padua
Engr. Arpon Lucero, Jr. Vivien Suerte-Cortez
Engr. Marben Ramos

We are also grateful to all the participants of the workshops, focus group discussions, and
survey and interview respondents mentioned in this handbook for sharing ground
experiences, insights and recommendations. We would like to especially mention the
support of the Local Government Unit of Legazpi, its Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) and
its secretariat for sharing insights and working with Layertech Labs and partners on several
Open Contracting initiatives that led to the creation of this handbook.

Finally, we would like to acknowledge the support of Hivos in the Open Contracting project
of Layertech Labs from years 2018-2020. To know more about the Hivos Open Up Contracting
Program, please visit www.openupcontracting.org.

Compiled by:
Engr. Lenidy A. Mañago and team
 Preface
Fair, transparent, and efficient government procurement benefits the public. In this
information age, where insight generation from big data has proven to be powerful,
using the tools of Data Analytics can help ensure integrity and transparency in public
procurement.

From years 2018 to 2020, Layertech has worked under the support and grant of Hivos’
Open Contracting programme on improving government procurement data use and
disclosure. Layertech worked with the Local Government Unit (LGU) Legazpi city,
academic institutions such as Bicol University and Southern Luzon Technological
College, individual business owners and business organizations such as the Albay
Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Civil Society Organizations (CSO) such as
Gayon Bicol LGBTQI organization and their regional network.

This compilation was produced to share experiences and methodologies of

Layertech and partners, in mining government procurement data to answer
advocacy-related questions of CSOs; to generate business insights; to help suppliers
and procuring entities identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies in various procurement
stages; and, to uncover trends and red flags in the procurement process.

Target readers of this handbook are assumed to have basic working competency in
mathematics, statistics, and basic data manipulation. Working knowledge in coding
such as in R and Python, would allow the reader to better appreciate the use-cases
and replicate them.

Please NOTE that this handbook focuses on the data sources, filtering, and modelling
methods used. Links to the papers (published AND manuscripts) are provided at the
end of every use-case, and it is encouraged that the reader visit the links to view the
full papers and studies. Some of the papers featured in this handbook may be
updated, supplemented, and improved in the future.

A digital copy of this handbook is made available on the website: www.OCDEX.tech

and www.LAYERTECHLAB.com.

This project is supported by Hivos. The views and insights in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of Hivos.
 Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................1
PART I – PROCUREMENT ANALYTICS, CONCEPTS AND TOOLS ..........................................2
Open Contracting ........................................................................................................... 3
Procurement Process .................................................................................................... 13
Procurement Analytics .................................................................................................. 23
PART II – USE CASES and METHODOLOGIES ....................................................................30
Use-Cases ........................................................................................................................ 31
Inspecting HIV/AIDS-related Procurement .................................................................. 32
Business Intelligence for Bidders .................................................................................... 42
Inspecting University Procurement Timeline and Failed Biddings .............................. 62
SeeLog: A Public Procurement Monitoring Portal ....................................................... 79
Inspecting Philippiine Procurement Data During Covid-19 Pandemic ................... 86
Procurement Management of the Resources Used on Testing Covid-19
Cases in the Bicol Regional Diagnostics and Reference Laboratory ....................... 87
The Philippine Government Precautionary Measures through Procurement
of Covid-19 Related Items ….. ...................................................................................... 97
Proper Reaction in Securing Integrity on the Public Bidding of
Construction and Infrastucture Tenders Amidst the Covid-19 Pandemic .............. 108
SUC EATing Patterns: Crucial Indicators for an Effective
Implementation of Online Modes of Learning .......................................................... 123
Can the LGUs Respond to LSIs? A Classification System to Qualify
Capacity of LGUs to Act on Arrving Covid-19 Positive LSIs ...................................... 135

FINAL NOTES .....................................................................................................................147

 Introduction

The Handbook

This handbook provides sample cases and their corresponding Procurement Analytics
methodologies. Part I of this handbook discusses introductory tools and concepts of open
contracting, the procurement process, and a survey of documents, datasets, and tools used in
the use cases in part II.

Part II discusses the actual case studies and their results. References are provided at the end of
each case.

Part III of this handbook lists down references, related links, and resources for further reading. Some
of the information contained in this handbook are highly dependent on specialized knowledge.
However, effort to simplify explanations were undertaken by the contributors and editors.

Learning Objectives

This handbook can be used as a self-paced or group resource. Readers will explore how to:
▪ collect and process procurement datasets for decision support;
▪ observe basic techniques of procurement analytics in real-life Head Start examples;
▪ identify and articulate trends and patterns in data gathered over time;
▪ provide information from a variety of different backgrounds and levels of prior experience;
▪ create a “value-added” framework that presents strategies, concepts, procedures,
methods and techniques in the context of real-life examples;
▪ appreciate that learning takes time and competence take practice.

Delimitations

This handbook does not attempt to address all possible procedures or methods of analytics or
imply that it is limited to the contents of this handbook. Readers are urged to view this handbook
as a beginning resource; to supplement their knowledge on applied procurement analytics
procedures and methods over time as part of their on-going personal or professional
development. In addition, procedures and methods introduced does not provide assurance on
winning bids, bidding strategies are beyond the scope of this handbook. Finally, this handbook is
not meant to replace domestic policies and procedures.

pg. 1
 PART I

CHAPTER I

PROCUREMENT ANALYTICS,
UNDERSTANDING

CONCEPTS, AND TOOLS

PROCUREMENT
ANALYTICS

pg. 2
OPEN CONTRACTING
Each year, trillions of dollars are spent by governments procuring
goods and services from private suppliers and individuals. A significant
percentage of that fund is lost either by inefficiency, or corruption, or
both.

An essential principle of Open Contracting is transparency through the

publication and disclosure of information related to public tenders and
contracts. This way, fairness of the procurement process may be
constantly monitored by stakeholders, and hold governments
accountable for how they spend public funds.

Open Contracting is all about following the money across the entire
chain of public contracts to ensure fairness and accountability in the
process.

pg. 3
 OPEN GOVERNMENT DATA

Open data is a framework of data disclosure, such that it can be freely used, modified, and
re-distributed, not subject to copyright, or similar restrictions.1 According to definition2, when
we say a dataset is in “Open Data format”, it means that the dataset is:
✓ Published in the Public Domain
✓ Downloadable online without charge
✓ Machine Readable
✓ No monetary or any similar restrictions on its use
✓ Can be processed with at least one open-source software tool

Open government data (OGD) is open data that is produced by authorized government
institutions. Procurement datasets published in open data format is an example of OGD. In
open contracting, processing OGD allows stakeholders to inspect, in detail, the entire chain
of public procurement from planning, to tendering and award, and onto delivery and
implementation.

OPEN CONTRACTING DATA STANDARD (OCDS)

OCDS is a data standard in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) designed to facilitate

publication and analysis of data and documents related to all stages of a contracting
process. OCDS was developed by Open Contracting Partnership (OCP)3 for a structured
presentation of contracting data, to reflect the complete contracting cycle in a single,
universal format. OCDS is an example of OGD.

1
Open Data Handbook. https://opendatahandbook.org/guide/en/what-is-open-data/
2
Open Knowledge Foundation’s Definition of “Open” works. https://opendefinition.org/od/2.1/en/
3
OCP – http://www.open-contracting.org

pg. 4
OCDS describes in details the procedure of releasing contracting data and offers a
framework for governments to continuously collect and publish their information. Using the
standard, users and partners around the world can publish reusable, shareable, machine
readable data, to join those data with their own ones and analyze or share them.

Figure 1 shows the high-level structure and information contained in OCDS format, and Table
1 shows the corresponding mapping of the OCDS information requirements to Philippine
procurement documents.

01 - PLANNING
•Budgets, Project plans, Procurement Plans, Market
Studies, Public Hearing Information

02 - TENDER
•Tender notices, Specifications, Line items, Values,
Enquiries

03 - AWARD
•Award details, Bidder information, Bid evaluation,
Values

04 - CONTRACT
•Final contract details, Signed contract,
Amendments, Values

IMPLEMENTATION
•Payments, Progress updates, Locations, Extensions,
Amendments, Completion of Terms

Figure 1: OCDS High Level Data Structure

pg. 5
 Where to Get OCDS-prescribed information
in Philippine procurement documents?
OCDS BASIC OCDS INTERMEDIATE OCDS ADVANCED
PLANNING STAGE
Budget, Approved Annual Market Research, Market Analysis, Market
Procurement Plan (APP), Study, Environmental Impact Statement,
Approved Supplemental Annual Annual Statement of Indebtedness,
Procurement Plan payments and Balances (SIPB) (SDS),
Bidding Document for Design and Build
Scheme, Project Procurement
Management Plans (PPMPs), Medium
Term Public Investment Program (MTPIP),
Regional Development Investment Plan
(RDIP), Muti-Year Obligational Authority
(MYOA), Needs analysis or Historical data,
Feasibility Study, Technical Specifications,
Scope of Work, Detailed Engineering,
Program of work, Terms of Reference
BIDDING STAGE
Invitation to Bid (IB), Request Bid Documents, Bid Document: Form of Technical Envelope of
for Expression of interest, Bid Contract and General and Special Submitted Bid (List of
Documents, Technical Conditions of Contract, Supplemental Registered Suppliers, List of
Specifications, Scope of Work, Bulletin, List of Pre-selected suppliers or Registered Contractors, List of
Program of work, Terms of Consultants Licensed Contractors, List of
Reference, Detailed Special Licenses Issued, List of
Engineering Document Temporary Licenses Issued,
List of Extended Government
Registration Certificates
Issued, PCAB License, DTI
name registration papers, Sec
Registration Papers) Omnibus
Sworn Statement,
Consolidated File of
Blacklisted Suppliers,
Contractors and consultants,
Drawings, Envelope 1 and 2 of
Submitted Bids as indicated in
Instruction to Bidders, Letter
of Withdrawal of Bid

pg. 6
 AWARDING STAGE
Notice of Award (NOA) Abstract of Bids as calculated, Post Technical and Financial Bid of
Qualification Summary Report, BAC winning bidder, Bid Results,
Resolution recommending the award request for reconsideration,
BAC resolution resolving the
protest, Bid Documents,
Technical Envelope of
Submitted Bid
CONTRACTING STAGE
Notice to Proceed Contract Agreement, Notice to Terminate, Contract Agreement, Bid
Bid Document: Completion Schedule or Security, performance
Delivery Schedule security, Sub-contractor
agreement
IMPLEMENTATION STAGE
Certificate of Completion, Project Implementation report, CPES
Certificate of acceptance, Report, Annual Audit Report
Inspection and Acceptance
Report

Table 1: OCDS Mapping to Philippine Documents

What are the Benefits of Using OCDS formatted Datasets?

✓ Makes analysis of contracting metadata more convenient and efficient;

✓ Renders data interoperable, and assures better link among multiple systems;
✓ A great tool in fighting corruption as it enables transparent data presentation and
exchange;
✓ OCDS serves as a structured guide for procurement data collection.

pg. 7
 ELECTRONIC-GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT SYSTEMS (E-GPS)

IMPORTANCE OF E-GPS in PUBLIC PROCUREMENT and ANALYTICS

The World Bank e-Procurement Toolkit4 defines e-GPS as:

“The collaborative use of information and communications technologies by government agencies,

the bidding community, regulatory and oversight agencies, other supporting service providers, and
civil society in conducting ethical procurement activities in the government procurement process
cycle for the procurement of goods, works, and services and the management of contracts, thereby
ensuring good governance and value for money in public procurement and contributing to the
socioeconomic development of a country”

In performing analytics, an important first step is to identify data sources and define a
systematic method for extracting the data it houses. In public procurement, E-GPS is a
candidate for sourcing official procurement data.

Implementation of the Open Contracting Data Standard in e-GPS can streamline

procurement analytics. By including the OCDS in e-GPS by design, or upgrading an existing
system to account for OCDS, an e-GPS will become more transparent and also facilitate
business intelligence, analysis, data sharing, and monitoring that will assist policy makers and
procurement practitioners in improving value for money, integrity, fairness and performance
of public contracts. Figure 2 outlines the benefits of implementing an OCDS module in e-
GPS.

Saving Time
and Money

Structured
Transactional
Transparency
Procurement
Data

OCDS

Interoperable
with other Business
gov't systems Intelligence

Figure 2: Benefits of using OCDS in eGPS5

4
World Bank e-Procurement Toolkit Accelerating E-procurement Solutions http://www.eprocurementtoolkit.org/
5
Image and definitions referenced from Open Contracting Partnership portal

pg. 8
 FILTERING PhilGEPS DATA COLUMNS

The 2016 implementing rules and regulations of the Republic Act 9184, also known as
Government Procurement Reform Act (GPRA) designates the Philippine Government E-
Procurement System (PhilGEPS) as the country’s official E-GPS.6 PhilGEPS is the sole, definitive,
source of Philippine procurement data, making it a key information source for Procurement
Analytics.

In the PhilGEPS’ Open Data portal, procurement information is uploaded in quarterly

increments, in Excel (.xlsx) format.7

The PHILGEPS DATA COLUMNS

The Philippine procurement datasets posted in PhilGEPS has a total of 40 data columns, each
row/observation corresponds to one line item. The default column headers are outlined in
Table 2.

PHILGEPS COLUMNS Notice Type Invitation to Bid or Request for

Quotation
DEFAULT
DEFINITION/DETAILS Business Category Business Category for
COLUMN TITLE
Item/Service to be procured
Organization Name Name of the procuring
entity/office/agency Funding Source Where the funds to procure the
item/service will come from
Reference ID Tender reference ID. Unique per
tender Funding Instrument Legal basis for use of funds
Solicitation No. Documentary identifier
Notice Title Title of the tender published in Procurement Mode Mode of procurement. Either
the tender notice Public bidding, Negotiated
Procurement, Direct Contracting,
Publish Date Date of publication of the tender
or Shopping
notice to PhilGEPS
Trade Agreement Guiding rules and regulations for
Classification Procurement Classification. Either
the procurement.
under Goods, Civil Works, or
Services Approved Budget of Maximum allowed budget for the
the Contract contract (numerical)

6 Implementing Rules and Regulations of GPRA Law. https://www.gppb.gov.ph/laws/laws/RevisedIRR.RA9184.pdf

7 Last accessed: August 3, 2020.

pg. 9
Area of Delivery Geographical Area where the Award Type Type of award document issued
items/services will be delivered (Award notice)

Contract Duration Duration of contract (numerical) UNSPSC Code UNSPSC code for the line item8
UNSPSC Description UNSPSC description for the line
item
Calendar Type Type of calendar for duration
(either days, months, etc.) Awardee Corporate Name of the awardee
Title company/supplier
Line Item No Identification number for line
items in a tender. Line item is Contract Amount Amount of contract awarded to
unique per tender. the winner

Item Name Name of the line item Contract No Contract identification number.

Item Desc Description of the line item Publish Date Date the award was published in
(Award) PhilGEPS
Quantity Quantity of the line item
Award Date Date of award, as shown in award
UOM Unit of measure for the quantity document
column.
Notice to Proceed Date of issuance of Notice to
Item Budget budget allotted for the line item Date Proceed document
(numerical)
Contract Effectivity Date when the contract will start
PreBid Date Date of Pre-bid Date to take effect
Closing Date Date of closing the bidding Contract End Date Date when the contract will end
Notice Status Status whether tender is closed, Reason for Award Reason for giving the award to
awarded, or cancelled the winning bidder (ex. Lowest
Award No. Award identifier calculated responsive bid, etc.)

Award Title Title of award document Award Status Status of award (Posted,
updated, etc.)

Table 2: Default PhilGEPS Columns (last accessed: August 3, 2020)

MAPPING PHILGEPS TO OCDS DATA FORMAT

PhilGEPS datasets are not uploaded in OCDS format9. However, it is possible to convert the
excel files in the portal to JSON/OCDS. Layertech and partners in Legazpi City mapped the
PhilGEPS dataset to OCDS-fields, as shown in Figure 3. The conversion schematic was used
as a general guide for partner researchers and developers to create localized tools that
automatically convert PhilGEPS data into OCDS formatted JSON files.

8 9
United Nations Standard Products and Services Code As of August 3, 2020

pg. 10
 Use OCDEX Admin to
dataframeExport NEW
START convert CSV to
dataframe to CSV file
OCDS/JSON

Perform filtering and

Download Datasets
dataframe operations
from END
to isolate rows of
www.Philgeps.gov.ph
interest

standardize headers, Ingest to R IDE as a

convert to CSV dataframe

Figure 3: General Schematic of PhilGEPS to OCDS/JSON Conversion

HOW TO FILTER PHILGEPS DATA WITH R AND R STUDIO?

PRE-REQUISITE: R and an R IDE (R Studio, for example) must be installed in the computer. The
official installers can be download ded from the following links:

R - https://cran.stat.upd.edu.ph
R Studio - https://www.rstudio.com

pg. 11
STEP 1 – Go to www.PHILGEPS.GOV.PH and go to the “Open Data” Section and download
the Excel file of interest in the “Standard Reports” section.

STEP 2 – The files are in XLSX format. Export the files to CSV. Make sure that the rows do not
have blanks on the top. The top row will automatically become the ‘header’ once it is
ingested in R Studio. So, make sure the top row is the row that contains the column labels.

STEP 3 – Ingest the CSV file in RStudio as a dataframe.

STEP 4 – Now that the file is ingested as a dataframe in R, it is now possible to perform basic
operations on the dataset. For example, filter the name of the agency of interest.

DATA_FRAME_NAME_NEW<-subset(DATA_FRAME_NAME, ColumnName==”ParameterHere”)

example:

JUL_SEP_2018_sub <- subset(JUL_SEP_2018, Organization.Name=="DEPARTMENT OF

HEALTH - REGIONAL OFFICE V")

The resulting dataframe from the example above contains only the data from Department
of Health Regional Office 5. Do note that the strings are case sensitive. Because there are
duplicate names of agencies with different spellings, it is best practice to list all unique
agency names before doing a filtering.

Once filtered, it is possible to remove columns, count occurrences, join two or more
dataframes, and more.

STEP 5 – Once satisfied with the final dataframe, save the resulting filtered dataframe as a
CSV file through the following commands:

write.csv(DATA_FRAME_NAME, file=”PREFERRED_FILE_NAME.csv”

This is because, there is a big chance that someone else who isn’t familiar with R needs the
same dataset produced by the filtering.

STEP 6 – Finally, share the cleaned datasets in the OCDEX repository using an ADMIN
account.

EXPORTING OCDS FILES FROM OCDEX

CSV files ingested in OCDEX portal can be exported and downloaded as OCDS/JSON files

pg. 12
PROCUREMENT PROCESS
The procurement process can be modelled as a business
process, with identified actors, a systematic flow, compliance
monitoring requirements, data generation, event triggers and
conditions. By studying the process, it is possible to measure its
compliance (to country laws), its efficiency, identify
bottlenecks.

pg. 13
 THE PROCUREMENT CYCLE

The public procurement process aims to award contracts to the most qualified
contractors/suppliers given the terms laid out by the procuring entity. The procurement
cycle starts with identifying the procuring entiy’s needs and available resources, and ends
with successful service delivery by the winning contractor. It is an end-to-end transaction,
making sure that the need is sufficiently addressed given the available budget.

Identify Needs and

Budget
(PLANNING)

Monitor
Bidding, Evaluation
Implementation and
and Selection
Feedback

Qualification check
Contract
of winning bidder
Implementation /
and awarding pf
Supply Delivery
contract

Contract signing

Figure 4: Procurement Cycle

Legal Framework
Public procurement is governed by a legal framework that defines the process and its actors.
The legal framework differs from country to country. In the Philippines, the legal framework
for public procurement is Republic Act 9184, also known as Government Procurement
Reform Act and its Implementing Rules and Regulations.

Key Actors in the Public Procurement Process

Government Agencies
These are the actors and agencies outside of the procuring entity, mandated by the law to
operationalize, create policies, and assess compliance of procurement process to the legal
framework.

pg. 14
In the Philippines, examples of these agencies are:
AGENCY MANDATE
Government Procurement An independent, inter-agency body with private representation,
Policy Board (GPPB) tasked to formulate and amend public procurement policies, build
capacity of government procurement actors, and conduct annual
assessment of the current rules’ effectiveness. 10
Philippine Government E- The country’s sole, official, e-procurement system that houses and
Procuremnet System manages all government procurement data entered into the online
(PhilGEPS) system.

Commission on Audit Principal duties of the commission include examination of

(COA) government expenditures, promulgation of accounting and
auditing rules on use of government funds, submit annual reports on
the financial condition of the government, and recommend
measures to improve efficiency and effectiveness of government
operations.11

End User
The end user is the specific office or section within the procuring entity that directly utilizes
the goods/services procured. In the case of infrastructure, the end user is the office or section
that directly uses or manages the built infrastructure.

Bids and Awards Committee

In the Philippine procurement law, the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) is the body within
the procuring entity responsible for assessing the qualification of bidders and selecting the
most qualified and responsive bidder within the given budget limit.

Approving Bodies
A winning bid, once selected by BAC, will have to be reviewed and approved by the Head
of the Procuring Entity (HoPE). In some cases however, there is a need for the approval of
the legislative body of the procuring entity (e.g. the City/Municipal Council in the cases of
Local Government Units) in the form of a resolution granting the HoPE authority to enter into
contract with a selected contractor.

Public
Ultimately, the beneficiaries and recipients of government services are the public. The
public’s role in the procurement process is the assessment of the quality of service delivery,

10
Official GPPB Website. https://www.gppb.gov.ph/about-gppb.php
11
COA official Website. https://www.coa.gov.ph/index.php/2013-06-19-13-06-03/principal-duties

pg. 15
feedback and reporting to the procurement entity to improve the next iterations of the
process.

Similarities and Differences between Public and Private Sector Procurement12

Public and Private sector procurement processes are very similar, but there are key
differences that the researcher/analyst must take note of. Both procurement processes aims
to acquire goods and services with the best possible efficiency and value-for-money.
However, the main difference is that the goal of public procurement is conducted to support
government services in order to provide public services, while private sector procurement is
meant to support the principal business objective, which is to generate profit. This does not
mean that the private sector does not seek social benefits, its just not the business’ primary
goal.

Another key difference is source of funding. Public procurement uses public funds while
private sector uses funds of the company owners and/or shareholders.

Finally, public sector procurement is required to comply with government procurement law
while private sector is required to comply with commercial rules and regulations and
company policy. Therefore, the monitoring of process compliance also differs between the
two. Public procurement is subject to public scrutiny while private procurement is usually
open only to key actors within the company or in some cases, external auditors.

PUBLIC PROCUREMENT PRIVATE PROCUREMENT

Legal Framework Government procurement Corproate Laws (external) and
law Company policy (internal)
Principal Objectives Public service delivery Support business process to
generate profit
Funding Public funds Shareholder/Owner funds
Monitoring Monitoring is done internally Internal company monitoring
and externally. All procuring
entities have inspectorate
/monitoring teams.

12
Chapter 1 Public Procurement: Principles, Categories and Methods
Procurement Classroom Series Vol #2 by Jorge A. Lynch T.
https://leanpub.com/procurement-principles-categories-and-methods/read

pg. 16
 FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF PUBLIC PROCUREMENT

The following are fundamental principles as defined in article 9 of United Nations Convention
Against Corruption (UNCAC)13

Transparency
Transparency involves publicity of procurement opportunities, disclosure of rules to be
followed, public and visible undertaking of the procurement process, and provision of a
system for monitoring to allow stakeholders to monitor the entire procurement process.

Competition
Competition means that bidders act independently, and compete for the opportunity by
offering the most favorable terms. Competition leads to lower prices and improved quality
of goods and service delivery.

Objective Criteria in Decision-Making

This refers to the elimination of biases and prejudices in crafting tenders and selecting
suppliers.

Similarly, RA 9184 or Government Procurement Reform Act of the Philippines,

highlights the following procurement principles:

• Competitiveness/Competition
• Transparency
• Streamlining use of Public Procurement
• Public Monitoring
• Accountability

13
United Nations Guidebook on Anti-Corruption in Public Procurement and Management of Finances (2013)

pg. 17
UNAC suggestions to ensure above principles are upheld in procurement

Public Distribution of Information

Contract opportunities must be publicly distributed to maximize competition and value for
money.

Publication of Conditions for Participation

Procedures and award conditions must be published, to ensure that companies submit
bids that match the procurement entity’s needs. This also allows verification whether
conditions for award are in line with the procurement laws, rules and regulation, thereby
allowing timely challenge in case the law has not been followed.

Use of Objective and Predetermined Criteria for Decision-Making

Criteria for contract award must be thoroughly specified ahead of time, allowing bidders
to assess their chances of winning the bid.

Effective Systems of Domestic Review

Having a system of review, including a system of appeal, ensuring legal recourse and
remedies in the event that rules of the procurement procedures are not followed.

Responsibilities of Public Officials

Have ethics rules and regulations for public officilas, procurement officers and personnel,
and assess their compliance, training, and capacity to follow these rules.

RECOMMENDED TIMELINE IN PHILIPPINE PROCUREMENT

The 2016 Implementing Rules and Regulations of the GPRA law sets minimum, maximum,
and recommended days for every procurement stage, depending on procurement
classification. Procurement line items are generally classified into either Infrastructure, Goods
and Services, and Consulting Services.

Definition from the RA9184:

Infrastructure

“construction, improvement, rehabilitation, demolition, repair, restoration, or

maintenance of roads and bridges, railways, airports, seaports, communication
facilities, civil works components of information technology projects, irrigation,
flood control and drainage, water supply, sanitation, sewerage and solid waste
management systems, shore protection, energy/power and electrification

pg. 18
facilities, national buildings, school buildings, and other related construction
projects of the government.”

Goods

“all items, supplies, materials, and general support services, except consulting
services and infrastructure projects, which may be needed in the transaction of
public businesses or in the pursuit of any government undertaking, project or
activity, whether in nature of equipment, furniture, stationery, materials for
construction, or personal property of any kind, including non-personal or
contractual services, such as repair and maintenance of equipment or furniture,
as well as trucking, hauling, janitorial, security, and related or analogous services,
as well as procurement of materials and supplies provided by the procuring
entity for such services.”

Consulting Services

“services for Infrastructure Projects and other types of projects or activities of the
Government requiring adequate external or technical and professional
expertise that are beyond the capability or capacity of the government to
undertake such as but not limited to: advisory and review services; pre-
investment or feasibility studies, design, construction supervision, management
and related services, and other technical services or special studies.”

pg. 19
Below are visual timelines for the procurement of Goods and Services, Infrastructure Projects,
and Consulting Services:

Prescribed Procurement Timeline for Goods and Services

*CD = calendar day/s

Pre-Procurement
conference Post Invitation to Bid
(Optional for ABC<2M) MIN: 7 CD
MIN: 1 CD* MAX: 7 CD
MAX: Whenever Necessary

Deadline for Submission

Pre-Bid Conference and Receipt of Bids / Bid
(Optional for ABC<1M) Opening
MIN: 1 CD MIN: 1 CD
MAX: Whenever Necessary
MAX: 45 CD

Bid Evaluation Post-Qualification

MIN: 1 CD MIN: 2 CD
MAX: 7 CD MAX: 45 CD

Approval of Resolution/
Issuance of Notice of Contract Preparation and
Award Signing
MIN: 1 CD
MIN: 1 CD
MAX: 10 CD
MAX: 15 CD

Approval of Contract by Issuance of Notice to

Higher Authority Proceed
MIN: 1 CD MIN: 1 CD
MAX: 30 CD MAX: 7 CD

pg. 20
Prescribed Procurement Timeline for Consulting Services
*CD = calendar day/s

Pre-Procurement
conference Post Request for Expression Eligibility Check and
(Optional for ABC<2M) of Interest Shortlisting
MIN: 7 CD MIN: 1 CD
MIN: 1 CD* MAX: 7 CD MAX: 20
MAX: Whenever Necessary

Pre-Bid Conference Deadline for Submission

(Optional for ABC < 1M) Bid Evaluation
and Receipt of Bids
MIN: 1 CD MIN: 1 CD
MIN: 1 CD
MAX: 21 CD
MAX: Whenever Necessary MAX: 75 CD

Approval of Ranking by
HoPE/Notification of
Negotiation Negotiation Post Qualification
MIN: 1 CD MIN: 2 CD
MIN: 1 CD
MAX: 10 CD MAX: 30 CD
MAX: 2 CD (for Approval)
3 CD (for Notification)

Approval of Resolution / Contract Preparation Approval of Contract by

Issuance of Notice of
and Signing Higher Authority
Award
MIN: 1 CD MIN: 1 CD
MIN: 1 CD
MAX: 10 CD MAX: 30 CD
MAX: 15 CD

Issuance of Notice to
Proceed
MIN: 1 CD
MAX: 7 CD

pg. 21
Prescribed Procurement Timeline for Infrastructure Projects
*CD = calendar day/s

Pre-Procurement
conference Post Invitation to Bid
(Optional for ABC<2M) MIN: 7 CD
MIN: 1 CD* MAX: 7 CD
MAX: Whenever Necessary

Deadline for Submission

Pre-Bid Conference and Receipt of Bids / Bid
(Optional for ABC<1M) Opening
MIN: 1 CD MIN: 1 CD
MAX: Whenever Necessary
MAX: 50/65 CD

Bid Evaluation Post-Qualification

MIN: 1 CD MIN: 2 CD
MAX: 7 CD MAX: 45 CD

Approval of Resolution/
Issuance of Notice of Contract Preparation and
Award Signing
MIN: 1 CD
MIN: 1 CD
MAX: 10 CD
MAX: 15 CD

Approval of Contract by Issuance of Notice to

Higher Authority Proceed
MIN: 1 CD MIN: 1 CD
MAX: 30 CD MAX: 7 CD

pg. 22
PROCUREMENT ANALYTICS
Procurement Analytics use quantitative methods to derive

TOOLS
actionable insights and outcomes from data. It involves the
capture and use of data to support fact-based decision making.
It reports typically on what has happened in the past and
creates estimates, using the predictive analytics based on
historical data to guess what will happen in the future.

Effective harvesting and analysis of procurement data can

streamline public procurement markets, reduce waste and graft,
and give citizens confidence that their governments are
spending tax money wisely.

pg. 23
Where to Get
Procurement Data?

Philippine Government E-Procurement System (PhilGEPS)

Official Philippine Government Procurement Datasets
LINK: https://www.philgeps.gov.ph/

Electronic Freedom of Information Portal (e-FOI)

Various Government Data, reseased by Request
Official Government LINK: https://www.foi.gov.ph/
Data Repositories
(Online) Procuring entities post procurement information in their
respective official websites. You may check the website of the
procuring entity you are interested in.
You may also check reputable websites such as official
university repositories/open data portal.

OCDex Public Procurement Analytics Portal

Procurement Analytics resource center, maintained by
volunteer researchers and analysts
External Data LINK: www.OCDEX.tech
Repositories

If the data you are looking for is not available online, you may
use the EFOI portal to make a request OR, you can go to the
office of the procuring entity and submit a letter of request for
data.

Request for Documents

To supplement your data collection, you may request for

expert interviews with stakeholders.
Expert Interviews and
Focus Group Discussions

pg. 24
 tract data

Data Quality Assessment: from

Is my Procurement Dataset Ready for Analysis?

Accuracy

A basic requirement for analysis is having an accurate dataset. This means that the dataset
being analyzed is truthful, and representative of the actual events that happens in the
procurement process. One way of ensuring accuracy is evaluating the source of the
dataset. Ensure that the source of data is legitimate and trustworthy. It is good practice to
note where the data was downloaded, the time and date of access and revision. It also
helps to know the method of collection, noting the assumptions that the data
collector/publisher based the collection on.

A list of suggested procurement data repositories for the Philippines is found on part III of this
handbook.

Completeness

Dataset distribution and completeness is essential in analytics. If a dataset has significant

missing data especially on columns of interest, the insights drawn from it may be skewed.
Therefore, understanding the nature of missing data and conducting pre-processing on the
dataset is important. By rule of thumb, suggested imputation for missing data are as follows:

MISSING DATA IMPUTATION METHOD

Under 10% Any method can be applied, complete case method is least preferred
for MCAR14: All available data, hot deck case substitution, regression
10% to 20% method
For MAR15: Model-based imputation
For MCAR: Regression method
Over 20%
For MAR: Model-based imputation
Table 3: Rule of Thumb for Imputation 16

14
Missing Completely at Random
15
Missing at Random
16
Multivariate Data Analysis Textbook

pg. 25
Consistency

The measurement of the variables in the dataset must be consistent. If a field is measured in
centimeters, all values under that column must be in centimeters. Otherwise, aggregating
the column leads to skewed results. Another common consistency problem in Philippine
government datasets is the DateTime column values. Some values are labelled
mm/dd/yyyy, while others are dd/mm/yyyy. In such cases, the dataset must first be pre-
processed, ensuring that all values in the column follow the same format.17

Timeliness and Relevance

It is important that the dataset contains values that are relevant to the research question or
the analysis objective. Timely data produces timely and relevant insights, allowing
stakeholders and decision makers to quickly act on the possible concerns raised by the
analysis.

ANALYTICS TOOLS TO EXPLORE

This list contains the tools and platforms used by the researchers in this compilation to pre-
process and process procurement datasets.

Microsoft Excel (https://www.microsoft.com/en/microsoft-365/excel)

Excel is a proprietary spreadsheet

program, developed by
Microsoft. The software is primarily
used by researchers in
procurement analytics, because
PhilGEPS datasets are under this
software’s file format (.xlsx).
Opening the file under Excel can
give the user a good, general
look of how the dataset looks like.

17
A common tool used by the researchers featured in this handbook is the R Package: Lubridate.
https://lubridate.tidyverse.org/

pg. 26
Excel can be helpful in basic pre-processing procurement data and generating graphs, but only
for a small number of rows (maximum of 50 to 100 rows). Any more than that can be difficult to
manage on Excel alone. Excel can convert XLSX files to CSV and other spreadsheet file formats.

Figure 4: Screenshot of the PhilGEPS dataset on Excel

R Studio (https://rstudio.com/)

R studio is a free and open-sourced

statistical software environment for R.
Using R, researchers were able to ingest
PhilGEPS datasets into Data Frames and
perform filtering, basic operations,
imputation, and aggregation. For the use
cases featured in part II of this handbook,
the primary software used for pre-processing and processing procurement data is R and R
Studio.

pg. 27
 Figure 5: Screenshot of the R Studio interface

R studio has a wide variety of downloadable packages which can be used to pre-process
the dataset, build models, and generate visualizations. A screenshot of the R Studio interface
is shown above.

Tableau (https://www.tableau.com/)

Tableau is an analytics platform with an easy and intuitive

interface. Tableau both has a paid and public version. In
using public version, however, you will need to save your
work by logging into your Tableau online account. A
screenshot of the Tableau Public interface is shown below.

Figure 6: Screenshot of the Tafbleau Public interface

pg. 28
Tableau Prep Builder allows users to clean and shape datasets using a visual interface. Then,
Tableau Desktop (or Public) is used to visualize pre-processed dataset in the same visual,
drag-and-drop interface.

OCDex (https://www.ocdex.tech/)

OCDex is an online repository of machine-

readable procurement datasets, visualization and
data conversion tools developed by Layertech
Labs and partners. Users can download pre-
processed datasets in the portal, under the public
domain. The portal also houses references, guides,
and use-cases developed by the team to help researchers analyze Philippine procurement
data.

Figure 7: Screenshot of the Tableau Public interface

pg. 29
 PART II

USE-CASES
and
METHODOLOGIES

pg. 30
 USE CASES
There are many definitions of a use case. For example, Ivar
Jacobson defines a use case as “description of a set of
sequences of actions and variants that a system performs that
yield an observable result of value to an actor.” (Jacobson,
et. al., 1999, p.41). In this handbook we will simply define use
case as a requirements-gathering technique of all the ways
an end-user wants to use a system.

In this section, we will introduce use-cases of Philippine

procurement data, and how its analysis answered questions
and addressed key information needs of various stakeholders
for decision support.

pg. 31
INSPECTING HIV/AIDS-RELATED PROCUREMENT
The role of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in the awareness and
prevention of HIV/AIDS is critical in ensuring effective and inclusive
programmes. Most CSOs working on HIV/AIDS awareness and
prevention advocacy needs to constantly coordinate with the local
health authorities both in conducting activities and in acquiring
related items and supplies. Timely and effective coordination, and
ensuring availability of supplies is required for an effective campaign
against HIV/AIDS.

In this study, the researchers engaged a Civil Society Organization,

GAYON LGBTQI, who is working on HIV/AIDS prevention and
awareness in Bicol Region. The researchers used collected, processed,
and visualized official government procurement data, in order to
answer the key information requirements of the CSO.

FULL PAPER AVAILABLE

This paper was presented at the International Conference on Machine Learning and Soft
Computing 2020, at Haiphong Vietnam on January 17-19, 2020. The proceedings are published in
the following: DOI: 10.1145/3380688.3380719

pg. 32
Why HIV/AIDS?
From 2009, the number of persons increased by two (2) newly diagnosed with HIV per day
and 32 in 2018. One thousand seventy-two (1072) new HIV antibody seropositive individuals
were reported to the HIV/AIDS and ART Registry of the Philippines in October 2018, with 16%
having clinical manifestations of advanced HIV Infection at the time of diagnosis. In 2018,
majority of those with HIV-related reported cases belonged to 28 years old age-group and
29% cases are among the youth aged 15-24 years old. Notably, 57% of the mode of
transmission among children and adolescents from January 1984 to October 2018 is from
males having sex with males only, followed by 21% of males having sex with both males and
females.

Figure 8: Modes of transmission among

children and adolescents, Jan 1984-Oct
2018, taken from DOH HIV/AIDS& ART
Registry

250

200

150

Figure 9: Recorded Cases of HIV in Bicol Region

100

50

0
2016 2017 2018

Similarly, an increasing trend of HIV cases in Bicol Region is observed from 2016 to 2017,
with Camarines Sur having the highest case count of 80 cases, followed by Albay with 71
cases. With the situation at hand, DOH and CSOs are taking actions to prevent the spread
of HIV by providing free and confidential counseling, referral to treatment hubs, awareness
trainings, and community-based screenings.

pg. 33
CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS AND GROUND-BASED ACTIVITIES

Gayon, as an organization,
has the following mission:

1. To promote better policies

<Information Requirements> or ordinances that will protect
the rights of LGBTs

2. To promote prevention
awareness on STI/HIV/AIDS

3. To promote acceptance of
LGBTs through education

4. To strengthen the
organization by broadening
the membership base, and

5. To mobilize resources to
finance and support LGBT
activities

CSO participation is strongly linked to reducing inequalities, poverty alleviation, and more
effective implementation of activities in the ground due to the n CSOs like Gayon Bicol work
with the Department of Health in their HIV/AIDS Advocacy. They request for test kits which
they use for community-based screening and HIV/STI/AIDS Information Education
Campaigns. They also frequently receive training from the government agency, many are
about HIV/AIDS and Reproductive Health.

Information Requirements:

• How many HIV Testing kits, condoms, lubricants, etc. is the agency
procuring?

• How long does the procurement process normally take?

• Budgetary requirements inclusions and exclusions of the agency (for

crafting proposals)

• Ensuring quality of trainings conducted (e.g. conducive training

location, etc.)

pg. 34
 METHODOLOGY

Web Scraping using R

Procurement data of DOH 5 from 2016-2018 was collected through Philippine Government
Electronic Procurement System (PhilGEPS) website.

PHILGEPS
DATA

LAYERTECH
VISUALIZED
INITIATE and DATA
ITERATE

FEEDBACK
AND CSO USE
MONITORING

Figure 10: Web Scraping using R Overview

Using R Language, data filtering was conducted on all HIV-related PhilgGEPS data sets from
2016-2018 using keywords HIV and AIDS in all 40 columns, and then checked and filtered for
duplicate rows. The number of raw data collected were 4671 line items.

To ensure the reliability of data, procurement documents were reviewed from the official
website of the DOH RO5 and validated it through the electronic Freedom of Information
(eFOI) portal.

Data Filtering

The PhilGeps datasets collected is in machine-readable format consisting of 40 columns, but

with inconsistent value formats, agency names, and contains missing data of over 10%.

pg. 35
 Figure 11: PhilGeps Data Filtering Process

The .csv files were ingested to R Studio as data frames, cleaned, imputed, and filtered by
listing all the unique agency names and standardized for uniformity. Only rows with DOH
Region 5 as the procuring entity were selected for processing. The newly-cleaned data
frames were compiled by agency and converted into .csv file and afterwards uploaded the
categorized data sets to OCDex.tech to provide open data to future researchers.
As to data sets, above shows that only rows from years 2016 to 2018 were processed,
resulting to a total of 4671 line items. From the collected datasets, it was observed that out
of 4671 line items, only 2013 line items were successfully awarded. Of the 4671 line items,
only 38 items are related to HIV/AIDS, 22 of which were recorded as successfully awarded.

pg. 36
 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

How Many test Kits are they Procuring?

DATE OF QTY UNIT SENT BY

YEAR yNAME TOTAL COST SUPPLIER TOTAL
PURCHASE (unit = test) COST DOH MAIN

HIV Ag-Ab EIA/CLIA,

with compatible J & JK Medical
March 28
machine service 14,400 90.25 1,299,600 Equipment
2016
provision for the Trading Services
duration of the tests
2016 16890 45,690
HIV Ag-Ab EIA/CLIA,
with compatible J & JK Medical
March 28
machine service 14,400 237 3,412,800 Equipment
2016
provision for the Trading Services
duration of the tests
J & JK Medical
May 26,
2017 HIV Ag-Ab EIA/CMIA 80.95 1,942,800 Equipment 26310 50,310
2017 24,000
Trading Services
J & JK Medical
March 5, HIV Ag-Ab EIA/CLIA
2018 24,000 81.49 1,955,760 Equipment 5340 29,340
2018 100s
Trading Services

Table 4: No. of Test Kits Purchased by DOH

Data shows that DOH region 5 receives HIV Ag-Ab EIA/CMIA test kits from DOH Main. The
agency received a total of 48,540 individual test kits from DOH Main from 2016 to 2018, the
breakdown shown below. In parallel, DOH region 5 procured a total of 76,800 worth of
individual test kits from two suppliers. Document requested revealed that for 2016, there is
no delivery of test kits from DOH Main, but only 563 units were used on the same year, with
surplus of 877 units. Of the five recorded procurements, three were procured through public
bidding while the other two were procured via ‘alternative mode’ and Repeat order.

PROCURED BY DOH RO5 FROM DOH MAIN TOTAL

60,000

50,000

40,000

30,000

20,000

10,000

0
2015.5 2016 2016.5 2017 2017.5 2018 2018.5

Figure 12: HIV Test Kits Availabiliy in DOH Region V

pg. 37
What and How Much is the Agency Spending on HIV-related procurement?

Table 5: Average Costs per Business Category

As shown in table above, PhilGEPS data revealed that laboratory supplie s and equipment
(445,947.04 Php) obtained the highest average cost per line item based on the awarded
procurements and this is in consonance with HIV transactions (1,380,765.00 Php). This was
followed by catering services (358,860.14 Php) for DOH-5 procurements as a whole, while
medical supplies and laboratory instruments (992,975.00 Php) for HIV cases in particular.

How Long is the Process?

Figure below shows the standard procurement process, as stated in the Philippine
Government Law. The first step is to publish the list of items to be procured, followed by pre-
bidding, closing of bid, and awarding of bid. Once awarded, the winning bid will undergo
post-qualification, and then the award is published, before the winning contractor is given
the notice to proceed document.

Figure 13: Standard Procurement Process, GPRA Law

pg. 38
Findings revealed in Figure14 that the computed average procurement timeline consumes
per process by DOH 5 were at least 7.43 days from date of publication to pre-bid process,
13.75 days from pre-bidding to its closing date, 53 days from the closing date to its award
date, 51.95 days were also spent from the date of award to its publish date of award. Results
however showed that the deferment of process occurs on the notice to proceed which
raises questions on the process transparency and efficiency of the delivery of goods and
services. The data shows that the Notice to Proceed is issued by an average of 27 days
earlier than the publishing of the award in PhilGEPS.

Figure 14: Computed Procurement Timeline for DOH 5

Almost similar findings were made on the computed procurement timeline for HIV/AIDS
transactions. They only vary on the award date which took 41.9 days and longer period of
116.81 days on the publication of winning bidders as compare to other transactions. It is sad
to note however that the notice to proceed issuance raises even bigger process integrity
and transparency issues by being posted 110.07 days before Publish Date of Award.

Figure 15: Computed Procurement Timeline for HIV/AIDS

pg. 39
On May 22, 2019, the final results were presented to the members of the LGBT community
in Bicol region with hands-on demonstration of the OCDex portal and its features, including
a crash course on Data Analysis and how to interpret graphs and tables. The participants
exchanged stories, lessons, and practical uses of data in their campaign against HIV/AIDS,
and how they can better work with the Department of Health region 5 to battle the
increasing number of HIV/AIDS diagnosis in the region.

CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS

Results however showed that the deferment of process occurs on the issuance of Notice
to Proceed which raises process transparency and integrity issues on delivery of goods and
services on all procurement modes. However, this can also be interpreted as an issue with
the Publishing of the Award on PhilGEPS, which can be further examined to correct this
process aberration. To make the data and visualization tools freely accessible to the public,
an automated OCDex platform was developed by Layertech Labs. The study
recommends that online tools are important especially for cases on HIV/AIDS because of
social stigma. It makes users more comfortable to browse HIV/AIDS-related documents in
private; every government project from PhilGEPS dataset can be made available anytime,
and can be reviewed in detail (e.g. see contract amount, contract period, etc.),
anonymously and privately; delivery and procurement requisitions may be properly
planned, helping CSOs to effectively schedule their advocacy activities; average award
prices, savings, can be used as guides in crafting proposals, or in requesting for higher
budget allocations to deliver the goods and trainings needed for their advocacy;
potentially problematic stages in the procurement can be estimated and prepared for;
by looking at the details, CSOs can monitor the value for money by ensuring the quality of
service delivery commensurate to it; and, CSOs can formulate evidence-based requests,
complaints and proposals to Department of Health and to other agencies, for that matter.

Information/Data sources used in this use-case:

Aggregated costs and timeline data – PhilGEPS dataset (ABC, unit costs, timestamps)
Test kits delivered to DOH-region 5 – Requested from DOH RO5 via EFOI portal
Test kits procured by DOH-region 5 – PhilGEPS dataset (ABC, status, item cost &
description)

pg. 40
REFERENCES
INSPECTING HIV/AIDS-RELATED PROCUREMENT

Department of Health, Philippines Addresses Rising Trend in New HIV Infections. www.doh.gov.ph,
retrieved September 2019.

Department of Health, Philippines Addresses Rising Trend in New HIV Infections. www.doh.gov.ph,
retrieved September 2019.

Department of Health, Philippines Addresses Rising Trend in New HIV Infections. www.doh.gov.ph,
retrieved September 2019.

Global Healthcare Exchanges, Data Analytics Add Value to Healthcare Supply Chain
Management. https://revcycleintelligence.com/features/data-analytics-addvalue-to-healthcare-
supply-chain-management/. August 17, 2018.

Department of Health, HIV/AIDS & ART Registry of the Philippines. https://www.doh.gov.ph/sites/

default/files/statistics/EB_HA RP_Report_January2019.pdf, retrieved September 2019.

Department of Health, HIV/AIDS & ART Registry of the Philippines. https://www.doh.gov.ph/sites/

default/files/statistics/EB_HA RP_Report_January2019.pdf, retrieved September 2019.

Philippine Information Agency, DOH Steps Up Campaign on HIV-AIDS Awareness, Prevention as

Cases Rise in Bicol. https://pia.gov.ph/news/articles/1007937, retrieved September 2019.

Rozados, I.V. and Tjahjono, B., 2014, December. Big data analytics in supply chain management:
Trends and related research. In 6th International Conference on Operations and Supply Chain
Management, Bali.

Gunasekaran, A., Papadopoulos, T., Dubey, R., Wamba, S.F., Childe, S.J., Hazen, B. and Akter, S.,
2017. Big data and predictive analytics for supply chain and organizational performance. Journal of
Business Research, 70, pp.308-317.

Melvin Tan H.C. and Wee-Leong Lee, Evaluation and Improvement of Procurement Process with
Data Analytics. International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications, Volume 6,
No. 8, 2015.

Amir Mostafa Heidari, Exploration of Big Data in Procurement - Benefits and Challenges, Master’s
Thesis, Aalto University School of Science, April 2018.

Department of Budget and Management, Philippine Government E-Procurement System Home

Page. https://www.philgeps.gov.ph/index.html. September 2019.

Government Policy Procurement Board, The 2016 Revised Implementing Rules and Regulations of
Republic Act no. 9184. https://www.gppb.gov.ph/laws/laws/RevisedIRR.RA9184.pd f, retrieved
September 2019.

Vance, Ashlee (6 January 2009). "Data Analysts Captivated by R's Power". New York Times. Retrieved
6 August 2018.

FOI Dialogues with City Government of Legazpi’s Bids and Awards Committee, Facilitated by
Layertech Labs, August 2 and 3, 2018.

pg. 41
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE FOR BIDDERS
Business intelligence (BI) is the practice of systematically transforming raw
data into useful information, which an organization can use to make
informed decisions, monitor performance, and optimize resources. BI can
unravel a clearer picture of what exactly is happening in a business
process, narrow down potential bottlenecks, and serve as a guide in
asking the right questions. BI can be used in public procurement. With BI
for example, bidders can see exactly how much governments are
spending, what exactly are their governments spending on, how long does
the procurement process take, where are the bottlenecks in the process,
and how projects and services are being acquired and delivered. Getting
a hold of these trends and insights offers a strategic advantage to
suppliers, contractors, locators, in planning for their bids, or in deciding
whether to invest in a particular local government based on the
procurement climate.

pg. 42
 PROVINCE OF ALBAY AND PROFILE

( map taken from google maps )

Albay is a province located in the Bicol Region, southeastern of Luzon Island of the
Philippines. The Province is composed of 15 municipalities and 3 component cities, the
capital being Legazpi city. The population of Albay18 is 1,233,423 and a total land area of
2,554.06 sq. km.

The main industry in the entire province is agriculture, producing crops like coconut, rice,
sugar, and abaca, as well as handicrafts making. Tourism is also a major focus by the local
governments in the province19. In the recent years, Information Technology – Business Process
Management services (IT-BPM) is also being explored by the city of Legazpi to provide more
jobs for its constituents.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT UNITS (LGU) EXPLORED IN THIS REPORT:

Provincial Government of Albay City Government of Legazpi City Government of Ligao
City of Tabaco Municipality of Bacacay Municipality of Camalig
Municipality of Daraga Municipality of Guinobatan Municipality of Jovellar
Municipality of Libon Municipality of Malilipot Municipality of Malinao
Municipality of Manito Municipality of Oas Municipality of Pio Duran
Municipality of Polangui Municipality of Rapu-Rapu Municipality of Sto. Domingo
Municipality of Tiwi

18
As of 2010 census Philippine Statistics Authority official website
19
Information from Albay provincial government official website

pg. 43
The Questions

Interviews and focus group discussions with a number of contractors in Albay from 2017-
2019 revealed the following common questions that potential bidders ask, in consideration
whether to submit a bid to an open tender or not:

1. What are the local governments buying?

2. How much are the local governments spending?
3. How long is the procurement process from posting of tender to contracting?
4. Who and how many are currently supplying the local governments?
5. How many bidders participate in every tender?
6. How long do governments pay awarded suppliers after successful delivery?

Due to constraints in the availability of procurement data, the BI can only help answer the
first four questions. The remaining two questions will be tackled in the recommendations
section of this report.

Data Source and Processing

The Government Procurement

Reform Act (GPRA) and its
Implementing Rules and Regulations
require procuring entities to post
procurement information in PhilGEPS.

PhilGEPS continuously releases these

procurement datasets in quarterly
increments as excel files,
downloadable for free in the
PhilGEPS official open data portal.

For this BI run, we use the datasets from the official PhilGEPS open data portal.

Please note that PhilGEPS dataset uploaded in the PhilGEPS open data portal is the SOLE
SOURCE of DATA used in this report. While the dataset does not have consistent field formats
and requires standardization, this study assumes that all data from PhilGEPS are ACCURATE.

pg. 44
Question #1:
What are the Local
Governments in Albay Buying?
The datasets in the PhilGEPS portal are fragmented (quarterly), contains thousands of rows
from procuring entities all over the Philippines. Furthermore, the dataset values have
inconsistent procuring entity names, date and time formats. Before processing the data for
BI, the datasets were pre-processed, standardized, to ensure “clean” datasets for
processing, visualization, and analysis. As shown in the schematic diagram above, the first
step is to isolate all rows related to the target procuring entities (in this report’s case, 19 Local
Government Units from Albay Province).

This report used data from Years 2016 to 2018.

The datasets are then ‘cleaned’ and visualized using R environment.

Figure 16: The Top Business Categories in Albay LGUs by Number of Tenders Posted from 2016-2018

pg. 45
The TOP 10 business categories according to the number of tenders posted by LGUs in Albay
are shown in Figure 16. The most frequent purchase is under Construction Projects and
Materials category, followed by Food and Catering, Office Supplies, Medical Supplies and
Medicines, Vehicles, General Merchandise, Newspaper and Printing, IT, (general) Services,
and Agricultural Products and Equipment.

While Figure 16 shows a general picture of the business categories of the entire Albay
Province’s purchases, it is helpful to see how each LGU in Albay Province contributes to
these numbers. Figure 17 shows the breakdown of Figure 16 per LGU, while Figure 18 shows
the percent contribution of each LGU to the top business categories in Albay Province.

Figure 17: The Top Business Categories in Albay, Classified by LGU from 2016-2018

In Figure 17, we can immediately see that the highest number of tenders under each
category are primarily from the Province of Albay and City of Legazpi (except for Food and
Catering, which is from Municipality of Tiwi, and Information Technology, from Albay
Provincial Government).

For a food catering business for example, the likelihood of a tender opening under its
business category would be higher in Tiwi Municipality than in Legazpi City.

pg. 46
Figure 18: Percentage of the Top Business Categories in Albay, Classified by LGU from 2016-2018

Figure 19: LGU-View of The Top Business Categories in Albay by Number of Tenders Posted from 2016-2018

pg. 47
 Figure 20: Percentage of Business Categories of Tenders posted by LGUs in Albay from 2016-2018

Figure 19 is another visualization focusing on each local government, and how many
tenders they are posting per business category. If a business is geographically locked to a
municipality or city in terms of delivery, this view might be more interesting, to understand
the opportunity to participate in its target LGU’s procurement.

Figure 20 is an LGU-view of Figure 18, showing the percentage of each business category in
the total tenders posted by each LGU. This view can be helpful in identifying buying patterns
of a select LGU in Albay.

For example, if a business is geographically catering to the Municipality of Rapu-Rapu

(Island) only, the most frequent tenders for these are under the ‘General Merchandise’ and
‘Food and Catering’ business categories.

pg. 48
Question #2:
How Much Are the Local
Governments in Albay Spending?

Figure 21: Average Approved Budget of Contract Per Business Category in Albay LGUs from 2016-2018

Figure 21 shows the average Approved Budget of Contract (ABC) per business category in
Albay LGUs, and Figure 22 shows the collective Average ABCs of each LGU in Albay.

Figure 22: Average Approved Budget of Contract Per Business Category of all Albay LGUs from 2016-2018

pg. 49
As seen in Figure 22, the average ABCs of each LGU is not uniform across the different
business categories. Figures 23-32 shows a more specific, business-view of the budget of
each Albay LGU per business category.

Figures 23-32 shows significant variation among the average ABCs of the business categories
across the LGUs in Albay. When estimating for the average ABC of an incoming tender, it is
advisable therefore, to look at the disaggregated view of the average ABCs per business
category.

Figure 23: Average Approved Budget of Contract of Construction Projects

and Supplies of all Albay LGUs from 2016-2018

Figure 24: Average Approved Budget of Contract of Food, Catering

and Events of all Albay LGUs from 2016-2018

pg. 50
 Figure 25: Average Approved Budget of Contract of Office Equipment
and Supplies of all Albay LGUs from 2016-2018

Figure 26: Average Approved Budget of Contract of Medicine, Medical Equipment

and Supplies of all Albay LGUs from 2016-2018

pg. 51
Figure 27: Average Approved Budget of Contract of General Merchandise of all Albay LGUs from 2016-2018

Figure 28: Average Approved Budget of Contract of Vehicles, Vehicle Parts and
Accessories of all Albay LGUs from 2016-2018

pg. 52
Figure 29: Average Approved Budget of Contract of General Services
of all Albay LGUs from 2016-2018

Figure 30: Average Approved Budget Contract of Newspaper, Printing

and Advertising of all Albay LGUs from 2016-2018

pg. 53
Figure 31: Average Approved Budget of Contract of Information Technology and
Computer Parts of all Albay LGUs from 2016-2018

Figure 32: Average Approved Budget of Contract of Agricultural Products and

Equipment of all Albay LGUs from 2016-2018

pg. 54
 Figure 33: LGU-View of Average Approved Budget of Contract Per Business Category
of all Albay LGUs from 2016-2018

Figure 33 is an LGU-view of figure 22, and a summary of Figures 23-32, showing the average
ABCs of each business category.

If a business is more interested in a specific LGU, the LGU-view figures may be more
appealing and insightful compared to the business-views. On the other hand, if a business is
more interested in the business category as a whole, the business-view offers a more
appealing format.

NOTE: In general, Provincial Governments and City Governments have bigger budgets
and needs than municipalities, with more expenditures, thereby resulting in more and
higher tenders posted and larger average Approved Budget of Contract.

pg. 55
Values vs Frequency

Figure 34: Relative Value-Frequency Chart of All Business Categories in Albay from 2016-2018

Figure 34 is a value-frequency chart of the top business categories in Albay. Construction-

related procurement is noticeably higher both in value and in frequency of tender posting
for all LGUs in Albay.

Removing the ‘Construction’ business category in the picture, we get a zoomed-in version
of the relative value-frequency chart in Figure 20. In this zoomed-in chart, the relative value-
frequency classifies vehicle purchases in the high-value, low-frequency quadrant, the
‘Medical Supplies’ in the high-value, high-frequency quadrant, ‘Office Supplies’ in the low-
value, high-frequency quadrant, and the rest in the low-value, low frequency quadrant.

Figure 35: Relative Value-Frequency Chart of All Business Categories,

except Construction, in Albay from 2016-2018

pg. 56
Question #3:
How Long is the Procurement
Process from Posting of Tender
to Contracting?

When are the LGUs posting tenders?

Figure 36: Temporal graph of Tenders Posted by Albay LGUs from 2016-2018

Figure 36 shows a graph of tender posting, each series/line representing a business

category. The trends of all business categories are similar to each other, with ‘Agriculture’
and ‘Construction’ business categories having the most similar tender posting patters.

It is also worth noting that the number of tenders posted spike from the month of July, going
up until December, while the lowest number of tenders are posted from February to June.

Please note that the flat line in Figure 36 shows ZERO tenders posted, due to the barangay
elections, which restricts LGUs to post tenders during the elections and the transition period
of the newly-elected officials.

pg. 57
How Long is Albay’s Procurement?

Figure 37: Average Procurement Timeline of Albay LGUs from 2016-2018

Figure 37 shows the approximate number of days from posting of tender to contract end
date, per business category. Table 6 shows the average number of days for each
procurement step, for each business category. Please note that the negative values in the
table either mean that the step is made earlier than the prior step, or an input error by the
procuring entity in PhilGEPS interface.

The graph shows the same pattern for all business categories, except for construction
projects which takes approximately a week longer compared to other business categories,
from the closing date to the award date. The major difference between the business
categories arises when the procuring entity issues the ‘Notice to Proceed’ document, up to
the contract’s end.

pg. 58
 Business Category Date of Pre Bid Closing Award Publish Notice to Contract
Publish Date Date Date Date of Proceed End Date
Award

Information Technology 0 5 6 13 21 -59 28

and Computer Parts

Construction Projects, 0 6 5 21 28 -40 90

Supplies and Materials

Vehicles, Vehicle Parts 0 6 8 13 19 -37 36

and Fuels

Office Supplies, Devices 0 5 7 6 22 -33 12

and Equipment

Services 0 7 5 7 21 -32 27
Medical Supplies and 0 6 5 10 20 -30 20
Medicine

General Merchandise 0 5 3 13 23 -29 -15

Agriculture 0 8 1 11 17 -15 48

Newspaper, Printing, and 0 4 3 8 19 -4 19

Advertising Services

Food and Catering, 0 5 5 7 11 39 -5

Events, Venue and
Lodging

Table 6: Average Number of Days Per Procurement Step of Albay LGUs from 2016-2018

Bidders may want to take note of the potential bottleneck in the issuance of the Notice to
Proceed, and/or Publishing of Awards. Possible reasons for these bottlenecks include post-
qualification assessment issues and posting issues in PhilGEPS, as raised in focus group
discussions with LGUs.

pg. 59
Question # 4
Who and How Many are Supplying24
:
the Local Government?

Figure 38: Tender to Supplier Ratio of Albay LGUs from 2016-2018 with the exception of Legazpi and Pio Duran

Figure 38 shows the ratio of tenders posted to the unique suppliers awarded per business
category. For example, a potential bidder would want to look for business categories with
more tenders and little suppliers.

Figure 38 shows that the business categories ‘Construction Projects and Supplies’, ‘Vehicles
and Vehicle Parts’, and ‘Newspaper Printing, and Advertising Services’ have smaller number
of supplier-to-tender ratio, compared to other business categories. On the other hand,
business categories ‘Agriculture’, ‘Medical Supplies and Medicine’, General Merchandise’
and ‘Information Technology’ have the highest number of unique suppliers relative to the
number of tenders posted.

The corporate names of winning suppliers are also available in the PhilGEPS dataset.

pg. 60
 RECOMMENDATIONS AND FINAL NOTES

Please be reminded that this report uses ONLY data from PhilGEPS. It is recommended that
this be layered and compared vis a vis other industry-related data and visualizations, for a
more complete picture.

Business Intelligence can be an extremely useful and powerful tool for decision making, but
in itself, it is not a one-time cure-all. Business Intelligence guides us in asking the right
questions, narrowing down potential bottlenecks and issues in a process, and monitoring
immediate and long-term effects of activities in a business process.

The number of bidders per tender is not available in the PhilGEPS dataset. However, if
LGUs have these data, the number of bidders per tender can be compared to the
number of unique winning suppliers, as well as the number of tenders posted under a
business category. This will answer Question #5. Similarly, if LGUs store records of the dates
where awarded suppliers are paid, this data can answer Question #6.

REFERENCES
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE FOR BIDDERS

Grossman, W. and Rinderle-Ma, S. (2015) Fundamentals of Business Intelligence. Springer

Philippine Statistics Authority (2012) Overview of the Region: The Province of Albay. Available at:
http://nap.psa.gov.ph/ru5/overview/albay/default.html (Accessed: 21 August 2019).

Albay Provincial Government (no date) About Albay. Available at: http://albay.gov.ph/about/
(Accessed: 21 August 2019).

Philippine Government E-Procurement System (2019) Open Data. Available at: https://www.
philgeps.gov.ph/opendata.html (Accessed: 21 August 2019).

The R Foundation (2019) The R Project for Statistical Computing. Available at: https://www.r-project.org/
(Accessed: 21 August 2019).

Government Procurement Policy Board (no date) Republic Act 9184: Government Procurement Reform
Act PDF Document. https://www.gppb.gov.ph/laws/laws/RA_9184.pdf (Accessed: 21 August 2019).

Invited Private Sector Representatives of Albay, Legazpi LGU BAC Members (2018) Stakeholders
Meeting: Forum – Oriental Hotel, 21 May.

Invited Private Sector Representatives of Albay (2018) Focus Group Discussion– Venezia Hotel, 11 June.

Individual Contractor in Albay (2017) Conversation with Layertech, 22 February.

pg. 61
INSPECTING UNIVERSITY PROCUREMENT
TIMELINE AND FAILED BIDDINGS
Bicol University (BU) is a State and Research University located in in the Bicol
Region, established in 1969. The university has six campuses all over the region.
It is an ISO 9001:2008 certified institution, with certificate no. TUV 100 05 1782.
From 1998, BU was classified as level IV state university by Department of
Budget and Management (DBM) standards, and is one of the 22 leading
universities in the country. BU is declared CHED’s Center for Development in
Nursing Education, Center for Development in Fisheries Education, Center for
Training Excellence (College of Education), and Center for Higher Education
Research.

BU is part of Government Procurement Policy Board (GPPB)’s list of Duly Authorized

State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) to conduct official procurement training on
the Philippine Bidding Documents for National Government Agencies, Government
Financial Institutions, Government Owned and Controlled Corporations, Other State
Universities and Colleges in their respective regions.20

20
https://gppb.gov.ph/issuances/Resolutions/19-2004.pdf

pg. 62
 DATA SOURCE AND PROCESSING METHODOLOGY

DATA SOURCE

PhilGEPS - The Government Procurement Reform Act (GPRA) and its Implementing Rules
and Regulations require all government procuring entities, state universities included, to post
procurement information in the Philippine Government EProcurement System or PhilGEPS.
PhilGEPS continuously releases these procurement datasets in quarterly increments as excel
files, downloadable for free in the PhilGEPS official open data portal.

DATA PROFILE

There is a total of 3245 observations (line items) with Bicol University MAIN as the procuring
entity, extracted from the official PhilGEPS dataset from years 2016 to 2018 (3 years). Figure
1 shows the breakdown of the mode of procurement for all line items (both awarded and
failed). Majority of the line items are procured via small value procurement. This is expected,
as there are more small valued line items in terms of frequency in the dataset (e.g. office
supplies, pens, broken down into line items). The next largest mode of procurement is Public
Bidding.

Among these 3245 line items, there are 1498 line items that are declared successfully
awarded.

Figure 39: Mode of procurement for all line items in the Bicol University dataset from 2016-2018

pg. 63
Among the 3245 line items, 783 line items were procured by Public Bidding. And breaking
down the 783, there are 362 line items that were successfully awarded and 421 line items
that were not awarded or declared failure of bidding. What are these failed items?

Figure 40: All Public Bidding line items- 362 awarded items versus 421 not awarded

Figure 41: Classification for the line items that have not been awarded thru Public Bidding

Of the 421 line items that were not awarded successfully thru Public Bidding, 85% belong
to Goods classification, 7% to Civil Works classification, 6% to General Support Services
and 2% to Consulting classification.

pg. 64
Figure 42 shows the breakdown of these 421 failed line items by Business Category. We see
that majority of the failed bidding line items belong to Office Equipment, Supplies and
Consumables, followed by IT Supplies, closely followed by Laboratory Supplies, Construction
Projects and Materials, and Drugs and Medicine and Medical Supplies.

Figure 42: Failed Bidding Items by Business Category

PROCESSING METHODOLOGY

Figure 43 shows the general processing schematic used in this study. Bicol University data is
extracted from PhilGEPS, pre-processed and processed using R Environment21. The resulting
papers and datasets are uploaded to OCDex.tech for future use of interested organizations,
individuals, or researchers.

The analysis part of this study comprises of two layers:

1. Timeline Compliance Check Using Historical Data – Pre-processed historical data is
visualized and compared side-by-side to the minimum and maximum number of days
prescribed by the GPRA-IRR for every stage of the procurement process.

21
Commonly used statistical software for Data Processing and Analysis

pg. 65
2. Multivariate Data Analysis - Multiple Linear Regression and Logistic Regression is used to
detect Influential stages/factors in overall procurement timeline and rate of award/fail
in public bidding.

Figure 43: General Processing Schematic used in this study

Scope and Delimitation

This study assumes that the dataset extracted from the PhilGEPS portal is official and
accurate. Should there be inaccuracies brought by the PhilGEPS dataset itself, such
inaccuracies will not be taken into account. Validation interviews from Bicol University are
conducted by the team to give context to the visualizations and results. We assume that
their statements are truthful and accurate.

Please note that PhilGEPS dataset uploaded in the PhilGEPS Open Data Portal is the
SOLE SOURCE of DATA used in this report. While the dataset does not have consistent
field formats and requires standardization, this paper assumes that all data in the
PhilGEPS dataset are OFFICIAL and ACCURATE.

pg. 66
RECOMMENDED VS. ACTUAL
PROCUREMENT TIMELINE
RESULTS AND VISUALIZATION
STAGE ABC > 1M ABC <1M

STAGE 1 Date of Publish – Pre-Bid Date of Publish – Closing Date

STAGE 2 Pre-Bid – Closing Date Closing Date – Award Date
STAGE 3 Closing Date – Award Date Award Date to Notice to Proceed
STAGE 4 Award Date to Notice to Proceed --
STAGE TOTAL Date of Publish to Notice to Proceed Date of Publish to Notice to Proceed

Table 7: The Procurement Process from Date of Publish to Issuance of Notice to Proceed

For this analysis, we only consider all AWARDED line items from 2016 to 2018. Using the GPRA-
IRR’s prescribed timeline as guide, the entire procurement stage from “Date of Publish of
Tender” to “Issuance of Notice to Proceed” is grouped into four stages as shown in Table 7.

Due to the information limits of the PhilGEPS dataset, the number of days from each
available PhilGEPS column were calculated and classified into stages. Procurements with
ABC above 1 million pesos have four stages, while procurements with ABC below 1 million
pesos have three stages.

CLASSIFICATION 5FILTERED OBS w/ ABC > 1M FILTERED OBS w/ ABC <1M

Civil Works 22 27

Goods 81 1078

Consulting Services 0 24

Table 8: Subsets of all awarded rows from 2016 to 2018, classified by ABC and Classification

NOTE! The “Award Date” to “Publish Date of Award” is a common problematic stage in most
procuring entities in the entire PhilGEPS dataset. This is why we remove the “Publish Date of
Award” stage, and create a separate measurement of number of days from the Award stage.
This stage has been excluded from the primary stages calculated in this report.

pg. 67
As shown in Table 8, the dataset was split into five (5) subsets, per classification, and whether
the Approved Budget of the Contract (ABC) is greater than 1 Million PHP or less than 1 Million
PHP. There are NO Consulting services procured over 1 Million PHP from 2016 to 2018.

Procurements with ABC > 1M: GOODS

Figure 44: Procurement of Goods with ABC > 1 M PHP (Average Trend)

Figure 45: Procurement of Goods with ABC > 1M PHP (Outliers Included)

As shown in Figure 44, Bicol University follows prescribed timeline in the IRR for all four
procurement stages of Goods procurement with ABC over 1 Million PHP. If outliers are
included and the procuring entity wants to further optimize the process, the point of
improvement is in stages 3 and 4, as shown in Figure 45.

pg. 68
Procurements with ABC > 1M: CIVIL WORKS

Figure 46: Procurement of Civil Works with ABC > 1 M PHP (Average Trend)

Figure 47: Procurement of Civil Works with ABC > 1M PHP (Outliers Included)

The same with Goods with ABC over 1 Million PHP, ✔️ average trend of procurement timeline
of Civil Works with ABC over 1 Million PHP follows the prescribed timeline of the GPRA IRR. If
outliers will be considered, the procuring entity may want to inspect the outlier/s of stage 3.

pg. 69
Procurements with ABC < 1M: GOODS

Figure 48: Procurement of Goods with ABC < 1 M PHP (Average Trend)

Figure 49: Procurement of Goods with ABC < 1 M PHP (Outliers Included)

For procurement of Goods with ABC below 1 Million PHP, average trend of procurement
timeline follows the prescribed timeline of the GPRA IRR. Figure 49 suggests inspecting stages
2 and 3 of this category to address outliers.

pg. 70
Procurements with ABC < 1M: CIVIL WORKS

Figure 50: Procurement of Civil Works with ABC < 1 M PHP (Average Trend)

Figure 51: Procurement of Civil Works < 1M PHP (Outliers Included)

For procurement of Civil Works with ABC < 1 Million PHP, the average timeline follows the
prescribed timeline of the GPRA IRR. For this sub-category, we notice that outliers are mostly
on the slightly ‘early’ than the prescribed minimum line and only in stage 3 that there is delay.

pg. 71
Procurements with ABC < 1M: CONSULTING SERVICES

Figure 52: Procurement of Consulting Services < 1M PHP (Average Trend)

Figure 53: Procurement of Consulting Services <1M PHP (Outliers Included)

Procurement of Consulting Services under 1 Million is slightly on the minimum end of the
prescribed timeline. When the researchers consulted with the Bids and Awards Committee
Chair on Goods Procurement about this trend, it was stated that BU do not normally
procuring consulting services, except for projects in partnership with National Government
Agencies.

pg. 72
The following experiences were also stated during the interview:

• Posting difficulties using the PhilGEPS system. Posting can be difficult during office
hours (due to PhilGEPS system downtime, or inavailability of internet connection due
to frequent power outages or internet issues brought by frequent typhoons in the
area22.) Many times, the BAC staff had to post/update tender information at 12
midnight when the system’s response is relatively faster.23

• On good average compliance trends, they attributed the success to BU being a GPPB
certified training institution, and their desire and initiative to constantly improve and
make the process more efficient despite the occasional setbacks.

• BU has de-centralized procurement system that gives more fiscal autonomy to

department/cluster heads, reducing bottlenecks in the process.

• BU has a procurement management office with designated personnel to streamline

process, especially contract management.

• BU’s BAC personnel are designated in their positions relatively longer, compared to
some Local Government Units with relatively higher turnover of personnel due to
changing administrations. This may have resulted in their BAC personnel garnering
more hours of training, experience, and expertise.

• Sometimes, they experience delayed Project Procurement Management Plan (PPMP)

submissions from end-users, causing overall process delays.

22
Legazpi city’s geographical location makes it prone to typhoons and rising sea levels.
23
On August 2, 2018, the BAC Secretariat of Legazpi City shared exactly the same experience, posting at 12 midnight
just to comply with the posting requirement.

pg. 73
UNDERSTANDING FAILED BIDDINGS:
What Failed, and Why?

Article 1 Sec. 3 of the GPRA LAW expresses support for extending equal opportunity for
eligible private contracting parties through Public Bidding.

Figure 40 shows that of 783 line items, only 362 were successfully awarded through Public
Bidding. In this part of the analysis, all failed and awarded bidding line items were analyzed
using multivariate techniques to show possible influential factors that affect successful
procurements through public bidding.

Logistic Regression Modelling:

Logistic regression is used to model dichotomous outcome variables (true/false), as a linear

combination of both categorical and continuous predictor variables (UCLA, 2020). By
modelling the pre-processed dataset extracted from PhilGEPS, we inspect the relationship
of the predictor variables, and how each one affects the likelihood of a public bidding
tender’s success for Bicol University.

Predictor Variables Used24:

• Approved Budget of the Contract (ABC) – continuous variable

• Procurement Classification – factor of 4 levels (Goods, Civil Works, Consultation, and

• Business Category – factor of 5 to 32 levels (further Classified into 14 levels ~ 5 levels,

from 32 levels)25

24 The predictor variables used were selected in consideration of the experience of the procuring entity, as well as the availability of
the columns in the PhilGEPS dataset. We listed down what is BOTH interesting to them, and what is available.
25 Runs with and without the Business Category predictor were made, including varying factor levels, lowest is 5. Different output

models were assessed via predictability and goodness-of-fit. We could not discredit Business Category as its insights have a very strong
practical value. Ultimately, this study prioritizes practical applicability.

pg. 74
What did the Logit model show?

Table 9 shows the commonly appearing factors and their respective coefficients to be
significant in determining whether a bid will be approved or failed:

Significance Coefficient Estimate

*** Fixture, Furniture and Appliances 3.417

*** Laboratory Supplies and Equipment 2.493

*** Construction Projects and Materials 2.586

** Approved Budget of Contract 6.979e-08

** Aircon and Electrical Supplies 2.001

** Internet, Information Technology and Related Parts and Accessories 2.161

** Hotel, Lodging and Catering 2.135

** General Maintenance Services 4.287

* Printing, Books and Other Publications 1.761

Table 9: Significant Coefficients in the General Logistic Model – Run 1

What does Table 9 mean? In general, the logit model tells us that these are what affects the
likelihood of a Public Bidding tender to succeed. For example, if the Public Bidding tender is
under the Business Category of “Fixture, Furniture, and Appliances”, a sofa, for instance, it is
more likely to be procured successfully via Public Bidding, compared to a Catering Service
Tender (given all other factors equal, such as ABC). Approved Budget of Contract (ABC)
also has significance. This means that the possibility of successful award increases by a factor
of 6.979e-08 for every unit increase of the ABC.

Increasing the ABC would, without a doubt, be more attractive to bidders. However, logit
models can give us guide values as to how much exactly should we increase ABC, (not too
much…) just enough to maximize probability of having a successful public bidding.

Similarly, the Business Categories with significant negative coefficients26 can be inspected in
context, as to why these Categories lessen the probability of a successful bid.

A 70-30 training and testing split dataset was used to train the general model, and check its
predictions (whether a line item will be successfully awarded or not given the predictor

26
Other runs with changing levels yield negative coefficients.

pg. 75
variables) using the decision boundary predicted value > 0.5. The model resulted in the
following confusion matrix on Table 10:

Predicted in TEST Dataset

AWARDED FAILED TOTAL

Actual in TEST AWARDED 82 13 95

Dataset FAILED 33 68 101
196 rows tested
Table 10: Confusion Matrix for the Logit Model

Accuracy = 76.53% accuracy

Misclassification Rate =23.47% misclassification rate/error rate
Sensitivity or True Positive Rate (or Recall): 86.32%
Specificity or True Negative Rate: 67.33%
Precision: 71.3%

Figure 54: ROC Curve for the General Model

NOTE for V1! The specifics of the methodologies used are available separate research
papers. This report may be updated, as soon as the DOI is available.

pg. 76
It is worth noting that during the interview with BAC Chairman for Goods of the procuring
entity, he specifically noted having problems with low ABC estimates. When a line item’s
ABC is too low, minus the tax27, vendors become uninterested, resulting in failure of biddings.
Increase in ABC increases the probability of having a successful bid. It was also noted in the
interview that end user PPMPs can sometimes under-estimate the market price of the items,
resulting in lower ABC than what a successful bidding may require. The run results agree with
the suggestion of the BAC chair interviewed, on the need to strengthen the end users’
capacity on creating optimal Project Procurement Management Plans (PPMP) with optimal
estimates.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

Having an automated internal monitoring system, with Official Government Data at its core
is a powerful decision support system, especially for process optimization. Furthermore, the
use of Government Data addresses a key data source requirement, which is accuracy and
data authority.

This study greatly encourages the release of good-quality open data as it can become a
powerful layer of decision support for government procuring entities. As shown in this use-
case, BU was able to specifically pin-point outliers, deviations from the ‘normal’, and inspect
influential factors in ensuring success of public biddings. BU was also able to showcase the
results of their previous procurement streamlining initiatives.

Just like in process optimization, doing analytics is continuous and regular. With new data
generated, influenced by new actions taken, the ‘influential factors’ also change. This
requires for automation and constant analysis and inspection of official procurement data
to ensure constant improvement, known as ‘KAIZEN philosophy’ in Six Sigma28 terminology.

27
Tender ABC does not include taxes, as taxes are paid to the government. It doesn’t make sense for the government
to pay to itself. Hence, the less in tax is reflected in lower ABC.
28
Popular set of tools and techniques to constantly improve business processes, used by companies worldwide.

pg. 77
REFERENCES
INSPECTING UNIVERSITY PROCUREMENT TIMELINE AND
FAILED BIDDINGS
Bigornia, J. (2020) Interview Meeting with BAC Chair for Goods, Prof. Jerry Bigornia: Bicol University ADMIN Office,
14 January, 2020.

Bicol University (2019) Bicol University Official Website. Available at: www.Bicol-u.edu.ph (Accessed: 7 July 2019).

Government Procurement Policy Board (no date) Republic Act 9184: Government Procurement Reform Act PDF
Document. Available at: https://www.gppb.gov.ph/laws/laws/RA_9184.pdf (Accessed: 17 January 2020).

Government Procurement Policy Board (no date) Government Procurement Reform Act Implementing Rules
and Regulations PDF Document. Available at:

https://www.gppb.gov.ph/laws/laws/RevisedIRR.RA9184.pdf (Accessed: 17 January 2020).

Grossman, W. and Rinderle-Ma, S. (2015) Fundamentals of Business Intelligence. Springer

Philippine Government E-Procurement System(2020) Open Data. Available at: https:// www.philgeps.gov.ph/
opendata. html (Accessed: 17 January 2020).

The R Foundation (2019) The R Project for Statistical Computing. Available at: https://www.r-project.org/
(Accessed: 2 January 2020).

Truscott, W. (2003) Six Sigma Continual Improvement for Business: A Practical Guide. Amsterdam: Butterworth-
Heinemann.

UCLA Statistical Consulting Group (2020) Logit Regression R Data Analysis Example. Available at https://
stats.idre.ucla.edu/ other/mult-pkg/faq/general/faq-how-do-i-citeweb-pages-and-programs-from-the-ucla-
statistical-consulting-group/ (Accessed: 17 January 2020).

pg. 78
 SEE-LOG: A Public Procurement
Monitoring Portal
Alan Aliliano, Noel Layante, Sidney Bercasio, Marvin Banton

Information technology (IT) is now deeply integrated into our day-to-

day lives. Over the years, IT revolutionized information gathering,
dissemination, completely changing the landscape for global
communication. And because of the increased interconnectedness
and improvements in communication, transparency has also
improved. See-Log is a public procurement monitoring portal
designed and developed by a group of Information Technology
students from Bicol University College of Science, in partnership with
Layertech Labs.

UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

THIS IS A 2019 UNDERGRADUATE THESIS BY COMPUTER SCIENCE/INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGY STUDENTS OF BICOL UNIVERSITY, COLLEGE OF SCIENCE.

pg. 79
Publication of data
is NOT ENOUGH?
SEELog developers observed that while Philippine procurement information is published
online, many stakeholders do not access or use these data. Some of the reasons include:

• Files are too large for download (for areas with little to no internet connectivity)
• Users do not have the technical capacity to filter dataset with 40 columns and
thousands of rows (mostly opened via MS Excel)
• Users are finding it difficult to understand contents and what the values mean

The developers therefore, concluded that while Philgeps data is ‘available’, it is not easily
‘accessible’. With such findings, the researchers believed that a well-managed, web-based,
Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS)-based, Monitoring System that uses data
visualization can improve the current state on how the taxpaying public understand the
procurement process of the Philippines.

DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY

Extreme Programming (XP)

Figure 55: XP Process

pg. 80
Phase 1: Planning

The secondary sources of data were gathered from books, journals, theses and online
websites. The sample forms provided by the Office also served as the secondary sources.
These samples provided the needed information regarding to the flow of transactions that
helped the researchers design the features of the portal.

Phase 2: Design

Software design is the process of transforming user requirements into appropriate abstracts
which helps the researchers in designing, coding and implementing the developed
software. It is important to create a design structure that organizes the logic in the system so
too many dependencies in the system can be avoided. This was where the researchers
determined the requirements of the proposed system, which can be presented by the
various modules based on the presented objectives.

SeeLog Modules:

Compliance Monitoring Module. This module allows users to upload the JSON file that
contains the tender details. It checks if the uploaded tender details has complied with the
Philippine procurement law and the OCDS readiness. This module will create a reliable and
accurate compliance monitoring system that will check the documents based on the
standard. Procuring entities can also rate their contractors based on their performance.

Freedom Wall Module. This module provides a storytelling of procurement data through
visualizations for the public. This is to bridge the gap between citizen and city governments,
and civil organizations.

Flagging Module. This module provides marker on those tender that has discrepancies or
anomalies. Which does not fit the standards given and those that are reported by the public.

Phase 3: Coding

The Coding Phase constitutes the most important phase in the Extreme Programming life
cycle. XP programming gives priority to the actual coding over all other tasks such as
documentation to ensure that the customer receives something substantial in value at the
end of the day. The researchers created the database design so that the process of
producing a detailed data model of a database will be clear. The logical data model
contains all the needed logical and physical design choices and physical storage
parameters needed to generate a design in a data definition language, which can then be
used to create a database.

pg. 81
In developing the software, the researchers found Hypertext Pre-Processor (PHP) easy to use
for the programming language that was designed for creating dynamic websites. PHP
language is flexible and fairly forgiving, making it easy to learn. In translating the
complicated data of the procurement documents, the researchers used the JavaScript
Object Notation (JSON) to follow the Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) that is being
used also by other countries.

PHP is a general purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development.
It generally runs on a web-server, taking PHP code as its input and creating web pages as
output. It can be deployed on most web-servers, many operating systems and platforms,
and can be used with many relational database management systems. It is available free
of charge, and the PHP Groups provide a complete source code for users to build, customize
and extend for their own use.

The languages used in designing the system were the Hypertext Mark Up language (HTML)
and the Cascading Style Sheet (CSS). Apache HTTP Server was also used. It supports a variety
of features, many implemented as compiled modules which extend the core functionality.

Figure 56: Development Framework Used

Phase 4: Testing

The testing of the software with the client and making of test cases were done to ensure
that the software has complied with the requirements of the client and to find out if the
system’s features worked and had no bugs or defects.

pg. 82
 Table 11: Software Requirement

Table 11: Hardware Requirements

Phase 5: Listening

The basis of extreme programming is a continuous mechanism of customer involvement

through feedback during the development phase. This is the phase where the client testing
of the software takes place. Feedback from the customer and the project manager is
essential for future iterations on the software. The basis of feedback is the customer
acceptance tests. Each feedback of the customer that specifies revised requirement
becomes the basis of a new design, and the process of design-coding-tests-listening repeats
itself. If the customer remains satisfied with the test results the iteration ends there.

User stories is a very high-level definition of a requirement, containing just enough information
so that the developers can produce a reasonable estimate of the effort to implement it. It is
a great source of information on what features are still needed or what needs to be
changed. It is shown in the table below the user stories that the researchers have gathered
regarding the system.

Figure 57: Sample Screenshot of SeeLog POC Version

pg. 83
Software Deployment Feedback

Measurement and assessment of the level of conformity of SeeLog based on ISO 9126-1
standards.

The pilot roll-out was tested by 20 users, coming from Civil Society Organizations and the City
Government of Legazpi. Evaluation results are as follows:

Table 13: Sample Evaluation Results of SeeLog

Figure 58: Contractor Rating Feature

pg. 84
 Figure 58: Agency View Feature

Figure 58:Freedom Wall Feature

Currently, SeeLog portal is in it Pilot phase, and integrations with OCDEX portal is being
explored.

REFERENCES
SEELOG: A PUBLIC PROCUREMENT MONITORING PORTAL

Aliliano, M. Banton, S. Bercasio, and N. Layante (2019) See Log: Open Contracting Data Standard Based
Procurement Analytics Portal, Bicol University College of Science, Computer Science and Information
Technology Department , Undergraduate Thesis.

pg. 85
INSPECTING PHILIPPINE PROCUREMENT
DATA DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Because of COVID-19 crisis, pandemic response related
procurements are being expedited, subject to the simplified
guidelines on negotiated procurement under emergency cases
issued by GPPB 29. While fasttracking procurement is understandable,
it is likewise important to maintain integrity of the process, preventing
abuse of funds in the time of calamity. In May 18, 2020, Layertech
opened an open call for proposals on Procurement Analytics on
COVID-19 related procurement data. The selected proposals were
awarded micro grants from Hivos and technical assistance from
Layertech labs.

The following are case studies submitted by the selected proposals.

29
https://www.gppb.gov.ph/negotiatedprocurement_emergencycases.php

pg. 86
PROCUREMENT MANAGEMENT OF THE RESOURCES USED ON
TESTING COVID-19 CASES IN THE BICOL REGIONAL
DIAGNOSTIC AND REFERENCE LABORATORY (BRDRL)
Jennifer Llovido, Lany Maceda, Jocelyn Serrano
College of Science, Bicol University, Legazpi City Albay, Philippines

With the number of COVID-19 cases increasing exponentially, a large number of

people are getting infected worldwide, in the Philippines as well as the Bicol Region.
In this health crisis, availability of sufficient life-saving goods and services such as
testing is essential in the fight against the COVID-19. Hence, supporting the health
response including the procurement, allocation and management of essential health
facilities and products ensuring that utilization of such limited resources are being
managed efficiently is crucial. It is in this context that the study was conducted to
analyze available data from the Department of Health (DOH) Data Drop (DOH, 2020)
and DOH Regional Office V (DOH-RO V) to evaluate how existing resources are being
managed.

The study mainly aims to determine and analyze the procurement transactions made
by the Department of Health Regional Office V on testing COVID-19 cases in the Bicol
Regional Diagnostic and Reference Laboratory (BRDRL). Particularly, this intends to
provide statistics on the specimens processed by the Bicol Regional Diagnostic and
Reference Laboratory. It also assessed the procurement management of the
resources being purchased by the DOH for use of BRDRL to facilitate the COVID -19
testing and identified the procurement needs of BRDRL through DOH that ma y further
enhance their operation on specimen testing.
.

pg. 87
 BACKGROUND OVERVIEW

Specific Objectives
1. To provide statistics on the specimens processed by the Bicol
Regional Diagnostic and Reference Laboratory;

2. To assess the procurement management of the resources being

purchased by the DOH for use of BRDRL to facilitate the Covid -
19 testing; and,

3. To identify the procurement needs of BRDRL through DOH that

may further enhance their operation on specimen testing.

pg. 88
 METHODOLOGY

The study employed the data analytics methods by observing the steps as depicted
in Figure 59 such as data scraping, data pre-processing, data processing and analysis
and data validation. The evolution from data sources to analysis and validation of
results passed through these steps.

Figure 59: Data Processes

Data Scraping. Data collection was done by scraping data from the DOH Data Drop
dated July 11, 2020. Specifically data on testing aggregates was utilized with 3,781
rows and 16 fields. In relation to COVID-19 procurement details, data were provided
by the Department of Health Regional Office V. Said data was composed of PR No,
particulars, Approved Budget for the Contract (ABC), Contract Amount and Status of
approximately 109 procurement activities from March until May 2020.

Data Pre-processing. Data cleaning of data scraped included filtering testing data
from the BRDRL. 94 rows were filtered from the Data Drop with reporting dates from
April 8, 2020 until July 10, 2020. Fields found relevant on the analysis of aggregate
testing data were the facility_name, report_date, daily_output_positive_individuals,
daily_output_negative_individualsdaily_output_unique_individuals,daily_output_sam
ples_tested, cumulative_unique_individuals, cumulative_samples_tested, and the
remaining_available_tests. Other irrelevant fields and with NULL entry were either
corrected or discarded. For the DOH RO V procurement data, only COVID-19 related
activities were considered from the procurement data from March to May 2020.

pg. 89
Data Processing and analysis. After the completion of data pre-processing, the data
were sorted, summarized and visualized. A plot of the specimens tested daily at BRDRL
was visualized by plotting the daily_output_unique_individuals values versus the
daily_output_samples_tested. A graph of the cumulative number of specimens tested
daily at BRDRL was likewise prepared by plotting the cumulative_unique_individuals
daily values versus that of the cumulative_samples_tested. Further, the BRDRL daily
testing results was plotted with the scraped values for daily_output_positive_
individuals, and the daily_output_negative_individuals. Finally, the remaining PCR
testing kits of BRDRL was visualized with the scraped values for the remaining_
available_tests. On the other hand, the procurement activities provided by the DOH
ROV undergone processing by categorizing each activity according to its purpose,
then computing for the sum and percentages needed for analysis.

Data Validation. The results of the study were sent to DOH ROV for feedback and
validation before presenting the results to various stakeholders through a public forum.
Comments and suggestions were taken into consideration. Further improvement shall
be considered on the processing of next iteration of the stu dy.

SALIENT FINDINGS

Statistics on the specim ens processed by the Bicol Regional Diagnostic and Reference
Laboratory;

Figure 60: Data Specimens Tested Daily

pg. 90
Figure 60 presents the total specimens processed daily with results which could either
be positive, negative, equivocal or invalid as well as sum of all unique individuals
tested resulting positive or negative released from 6pm the previous day to 6pm of the
reporting date. BRDRL started with a testing capacity of 34 samples per day since the
laboratory had only one PCR machine. May 16-25, 2020 has zero samples tested since
testing at the Bicol Regional Diagnostic and Reference Laboratory (BRDRL) for
coronavirus disease 2019 stopped when Typhoon “Ambo” damaged the exhaust duct
at the roof of the facility. With the two RT-PCR machines donated by the LGU Legazpi
and a private donor, the laboratory in BRDRL can already test 380 to 420 samples per
day, but so far 182 is the highest number of total specimens processed in a day, hence
testing capacity has not yet been maximized and according to DOH RO V, Bicol has
‘zero backlog’ in COVID-19 testing.

The cumulative number of samples tested which refers to the sum of all specimens
tested with validated results from the start of laboratory operation up to the reporting
date is presented in Figure 61. Further, the cumulative number of unique individuals
tested which is the total number of unique individuals who underwent COVID-19
testing, regardless of result, accumulated since the start of operations in the
laboratory is likewise presented. It should be noted however, that since an individual
may have to undergo the testing more than once, the 2 or more specimen results will
only be counted once. As of July 10, a total of 5988 samples and 5629 unique
individuals were tested.

Figure 61: Cumulative Number of Samples Tested Daily

Procurement Management of the Resources Being Purchased by the DOH for Use of
BRDRL to Facilitate the COVID-19 Testing

The remaining COVID-19 tests that can be conducted by the BRDRL based on the PCR
testing kits they currently have is presented in Figure 62. It is evident that as of July 10,
2020, 18,865 tests can still be conducted. It implies that there are available testing kits
to conduct COVID-19 testing with Bicol having ‘zero backlog’ in testing.

pg. 91
 Figure 62: BRDRL Remaining PCR Testing Kits

The awarded procurement activities of DOH Regional Office V in relation to COVID -

19 is presented in figure 63. DOH RO 5 awarded COVID-19 Procurement Activities

Figure 63: DOH RO5 Awarded COVID-19 Procurement Activities

These are the resources being purchased by the DOH for use of BRDRL to facilitate the
COVID-19 testing. It is apparent that the biggest procurement cost is on purchase of
laboratory supplies followed by conduct of COVID-19 related campaigns, purchase
of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), purchase of laboratory equipment a nd
conduct of COVID-19 prevention activities. For laboratory supplies the highest cost is
on purchase of the Viral RNA Extraction kit & Consumables with an approved budget
contract of approximately 4 million which is used for testing COVID -19 specimens in
BRDRL.

pg. 92
COVID-19 campaign activities on the other hand refer to placement of Radio/TV
Infomercials as well as various signages for COVID-19 response and containment.
Procurement of PPE refers to procurement of surgical gowns, surgical mas ks, goggles,
coverall, shoe cover and head cover which are vital in the conduct of the testing
procedures. Further, laboratory equipment includes purchase of equipment such as
LED Digital Dry Bath / Dry Block Heater and finally, COVID -19 prevention activities
includes activities like accommodation or quarantine for health workers and
technicians from NCR as well as anti-bacterial fogging/misting treatment to ensure
that the workplace is properly disinfected, ventilated, and maintained as part of
infection control procedures.

The Procurement Needs of BRDRL through DOH that may Further Enhance their
Operation on Specimen Testing

From the identified COVID-19 related procurement activities of DOH RO V,

approximately 8.6 Million worth or 77% is already awarded, 2.5 Million which is 23% is
waiting for quotation and 41,000 or 0.37% has a quotation that is above the approved
budget as presented in Figure 64. This shows that most of the requested items to be
purchased has been already awarded and that procurement of resources by the DOH
Regional Office V for use of BRDRL to facilitate the COVID-19 testing is well managed
with Bicol having ‘zero backlog’ in testing and available PCR testing kits. The remaining
23% procurement needs are presented in figure 63.

Figure 64: DOH RO5 Status of Purchase Requests for COVID-19 Procurement Activities

pg. 93
 Figure 65: DOH RO5 COVID-19 Procurement Needs

The procurement needs of BRDRL through DOH Regional Office V to further enhance
their operation on Covid-19 specimen testing is presented in Figure 65. These are the
resources being requested by the DOH for use of BRDRL to facilitate the COVID-19
testing which are either still waiting for quotation or has quotation above the
approved budget for the contract. It is evident that the biggest procurement cost is
on purchase of laboratory supplies followed by purchase of Personal Protective
Equipment (PPE), conduct of covid19-related campaigns, purchase of laboratory
equipment and repair of Covid-19 laboratory at BRDRL.

CONCLUSIONS

Based on the foregoing findings, the study concluded that DOH Regional Office V so
far had shown to have managed well their COVID-19 related procurement activities
for BRDRL based on data scraped from the DOH Data Drop and procurement data
provided by the DOH ROV with Bicol having ‘zero backlog’ in testing and with
available PCR testing kits which can be partly attributed to the strong partnership with
the LGU of Legazpi City. Other local government units may replicate the partnership
of Legazpi City with DOH. Likewise, innovative partnerships with business and civil
society are needed since it is a fact that the DOH cannot win the fight in stopping the
spread of COVID-19 without the cooperation and support of stakeholders and the
public. Early detection and isolation of new COVID-19 cases is critical to managing
potential outbreaks, especially as the government is considering gradually lifting
quarantine measures. This makes testing all the more vital.

pg. 94
What’s Next?
During an emergency like the COVID-19 crisis, procurement procedures need to be as
fast as possible as it adheres to the rules on Negotiated Procurement (Emergency
Case) by simplifying its process as stipulated in the GPPB Resolution No. 03 - 2020,
however, emergency procedures still need to be public and open. Although the
Department of Health Regional Office V was able to provide some procurement data
as requested, yet, it would have been more beneficial if said data are disclosed
publicly online, in the GPPB online portal, or in their websit e. With this, the study
recommends that open procurement data such as the Annual Procurement Plan FY
2020, request for quotation, technical specifications, purchase order, and notice of
award be made available to public since it may enable fairer competiti on among
companies, identify red flags, as well as deliver better services for governments and
citizens. Publishing data for each step of the contracting process is highly
recommended to promote transparency and accountability. COVID -19 procurement
strategies need to be rapidly updated to form a global, digital and data -driven plan
since how the government manages emergency public procurement will play a major
role in how COVID-19 be contained and how many lives can be saved. Finally, it is
also suggested for PhilGEPS or the procuring entity to establish an online platform to
allow for an online submission and receipt of bids for procurement modalities by all
procuring entities.

Perceived impacts of the study

The findings of the study could serve as feedback to the Department of Health
Regional Office V on their procurement management of the resources used on testing
COVID-19 cases in the Bicol Regional Diagnostic and Reference Laboratory (BRDRL)
during this pandemic. Further, the utilization of data analytics in this study could serve
as guide to future researchers on the importance of analyzing data sets and how it
could give meaning to a simple data, translating data on hand to meaningful stories,
thereby building a model for a data-driven decision making. Finally, this could provide
an open data accessible to the community members while reinforcing scientific
cooperation. Being a researcher requires inspiration, commitment and dedication.
Without these, no research shall be accomplished and realized. As Microsoft co-
founder Bill Gates said and we quote “I believe in innovation and that the way you
get innovation is you fund research and you learn the basic facts.” Hence, this
research will only find its meaning when shared with other s and others learned from it.

pg. 95
COMMENT AND READ MORE ABOUT THIS PAPER: https://www.ocdex.tech/procurement-
management-of-the-resources-used-on-testing-covid-19-cases-in-the-bicol-regional-diagnostic-and-
reference-laboratory-brdrl/

REFERENCES
PROCUREMENT MANAGEMENT OF THE RESOURCES USED
ON TESTING COVID-19 CASES IN THE BRDRL

[1] WHO. (2020, July 18). WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Dashboard. Retrieved July 19,
2020, from https://covid19.who.int/

[2] UNDP. (2020, May 14). Coronavirus disease COVID-19 pandemic. Retrieved May 29, 2020 from:
https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/coronavirus.html

[3] Home - COVID 19 PH Official Website. (2020). Retrieved May 29, 2020, from http:// www.
covid19.gov.ph/

[4] DOH CHD - Bicol. (2020, July 18). Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/doh bicol/
photos/pcb.3328469547176372/3328469000509760/

[5] http://www.doh.gov.ph/covid19tracker

pg. 96
THE PHILIPPINE GOVERNMENT PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES
THROUGH PROCUREMENT OF COVID-19 RELATED ITEMS
Lany Maceda, Jennifer Llovido, Jocelyn Serrano
College of Science, Bicol University, Legazpi City Albay, Philippines

With the widespread of COVID-19 as an infectious disease caused by

a newly discovered coronavirus, the Philippines had a large number
of confirmed cases reported from early of this year up to the present.
This research deemed it necessary to determine and analyze the
procurement transactions made by the Philippine Government as
response measures during the first quarter of the Covid-19 pandemic
occurrence in the country. This may serve as baseline data in the
preparation of the Annual Procurement Plan (APP) and/or the
supplemental one to respond to Covid-19 crisis. Particularly, this
intends to identify the items procured during the first quarter by the
government agencies as response measures to Covid-19 pandemic.
It also evaluates the transaction details of the procured items, and
determine the response measures initiated by the government
agencies as precautionary to the spread of Covid-19.

pg. 97
 RATIONALE

Specific Objectives
1. To identify the items procured during the first quarter by the government
agencies as response measures to Covid-19 pandemic;

2. To evaluate the transaction details of the procured items; and,

3. To determine the response measures initiated by the government

agencies as precautionary to the spread of Covid-19.

pg. 98
 METHODOLOGY

This research employed the data analytics methods by observing the steps as
depicted in Figure 66 such as data scraping, data cleaning, data processing, and
data analysis and iteration.

Figure 66: Data Processes

Data scraping: The collection of data was made through data scrapping from
PhilGeps website along Bid Notice and Award Details for the first quarter of year 2020,
that is from January to March 2020. As to procurement data within the duration period,
the total number of collected datasets were 231,784. However, focusing primarily on
Covid-19 procurement and removing the non-covid related procurement, this resulted
to 245 data sets only. Other legitimate sites such as GPPB and DOH were also looked
into. From Regions 1 to 15 including NCR, this was well-represented by various
government agencies with 22 offices, 5 public schools, 8 barangays, 73 LGUs, and 9
Provincial Offices.

Data Cleaning: This includes the processes of filtering the PhilGeps procurement data
if it is Covid-related based on its notice titles, item name and descriptions. Filtering also
involves selecting the necessary fields found relevant on the analysis of data such as
organization name, business category, funding source and instrument, notice type,
procurement mode, area of delivery and the like since the datasets to be collected
may be in the form of a machine-readable format. The keywords used were “covid”
and “covid-19.” Other irrelevant fields and with NULL entry were removed.

pg. 99
Data Processing: After cleaning the datasets, the organization names were grouped
accordingly to its organization type to come up with a collective view. Stemming was
used for the item descriptions and business category for easier analysis to remove the
inflexional and/or sometimes the derivational. The approved budget was also sorted
into data ranges. The “count” value were used in the analysis of each unique
instances. The purpose of those processes was to get the unique value of each data
to give meaning and help in telling the stories.

Data Analysis and Iteration: Visualization of each significant finding was made by
curating data into a form easier to understand and make the necessary inferences on
the results as per GPPB and DOH issuances. Afterwards, consultation with the Legazpi
City LGU procurement personnel shall be made for presentation and validation o f
results. Further improvement shall be considered on the processing of next iteration of
the study.

RESULTS

Items Procured During the First Quarter by Government Agencies as Response

Measures to Covid-19 Pandemic

The items procured in terms of its business category by various government agencies
as represented by the five (5) organization types is shown in Figure 67. Results revealed
that the LGU, offices, provincial offices, and schools similarly had the medical supplies
and laboratory instruments as their top procurement priorities during the first quarter
of 2020 as prevention and response for Covid-19. General merchandise such as other
supplies, printing, information materials, and the like, followed by drugs and medicines
were found to be the next top-most procured items by the various government
agencies especially those at the barangay levels. Since even during the early times
of pandemic, some families and even individuals got displaced, that is why groceries
had also been part of the most procured items especially by the LGUs. It is good to
note that LGU took the lead in taking its initiative for the prevention of the spread of
virus.

pg. 100
Findings also showed that Region 7 or Central Visayas, particularly Cebu City, had
made the most number of procured items on medical supplies and laboratory
instrument, and drugs and medicines during the first quarter of 2020. Region 1 or Ilocos
as they also had a big count of purchases on medical supplies and laboratory
instrument and so with the other item categories. Next to it were Regions 8 of Eastern
Visayas and NCR with medical supplies and laboratory equipment, and general
merchandise respectively.

Figure 67: Items Procured in Terms of its Business Category

Transaction Details of the Procured Items

Majority of the funding source and instrument of the procured items as reflected in
Figure 67 had its budget for the contract as approved by the Sanggunian followed by
those from the General Appropriations Act (GAA). With the holistic view, since the
study covered the various government agencies such as LGU, public offices and
schools, this showed the utilization of two (2) alternative procurement modes. Results
inferred that most of the procurement mode is on alternative mode which is
Negotiated Procurement-Small Value Procurement followed by those posted from
public bidding.

pg. 101
 Figure 68: The Funding Source and Instrument and Procurement Mode

As to the budget utilization, Figure 68 shows the procured items based on its business
category along with its approved budget. For the barangays, the top-most procured
items were on general merchandise with budgets ranging from 501,000 to 1M. With
the LGUs, medical supplies and laboratory instruments with an
approved budget of 400,000 to 1.5M was the top procured items. Grocery items were
also found to be one of the most procured items by the LGUs to address the nee d of
the displaced families and individuals with an approved budget ranging from 51,000
to 100,000. Almost similarly, other government offices had also the medical supplies
and laboratory instruments as the most procured items during the first quarter of 2 020
with approved budgets ranging from 51,000 to 4M and general merchandise also as
the next most procured items. Further, the provincial offices and schools had similar to
other government agencies on the top-most procured items which is medical supplies
and laboratory instruments with budgets ranging from 251,000 to 8M and 5 1,000 to
400,000 respectively.

pg. 102
 Figure 69: Top 10 Business Categories

Top 10 Business Categories along with the Approved Budget as part of the
procurement process, based on the procurement details on the first quarter of this
year, mostly of the award notice granted was on negotiated procurement on
emergency cases as presented above which was evidently shown on Figure 69.
Notably, the lowest calculated and responsive bidder, and emergency cases were
most of the reasons in giving the award to the concerned suppliers as shown also in
the Figure. Other reasons for award shown were lowest calculated and respons ive
price quotation and most reliable supplier.

pg. 103
 Figure 70: The Award Type and Reason for Award

As part of the procurement process, based on the procurement details on the first
quarter of this year, mostly of the award notice granted was on negotiated
procurement on emergency cases. Notably, the lowest calculated and responsive
bidder, and emergency cases were most of the reasons in giving the award to the
concerned suppliers. Other reasons for award shown were low est calculated and
responsive price quotation and most reliable supplier.

pg. 104
Response Measures Initiated by Government Agencies as Precautionary Measures to
Covid-19

Figure 71: Summary of the Precautionary Response to Covid-19

The response measures initiated by various government agencies as precautionary

measures to Covid-19 were identified based on their procured items during the first
quarter of 2020. Findings revealed that from among the various government agencies
in the country, foremost of the precautionary measures conducted were the
availability of medical supplies for the preparedness and response, distribution of relief
goods for the displaced families and individuals, the conduct of sanitation, and taking
the initiative in disseminating information through an information drive such as
seminars or orientation and printing of tarpaulins relating to Covid -19 preventive
measures. Most of the measures were initiated by the LGUs and this may be inferred
to the idea that the frontliners mostly came from the LGUs.

pg. 105
 SIGNIFICANT HIGHLIGHTS

The LGU, offices, provincial offices, and schools similarly had the medical supplies and
laboratory instruments as their top procurement priorities during the first quarter of
2020 as prevention and response for Covid-19 followed by general merchandise
especially those at the barangay levels. Region 7 or Central Visayas particularly Cebu
City had the most number of procured items of medical supplies and laboratory
instrument, and drugs and medicines during the first quarter of 2020. As to area of
delivery, Region 1 or Ilocos had the biggest count of purchases followed by Regions 8
of Eastern Visayas and NCR. Majority of the funding source and instrument of the
procured items came from the Government of the Philippines
(GOP) with the budget for the contract of 51,000 to 4M as approved by the
Sanggunian followed by those from the General Appropriations Act (GAA). Most of
the procurement mode is on Negotiated Procurement-Small Value Procurement
followed by those posted from public bidding. And, foremost of the precautionary
measures conducted were the availability of medical supplies for the preparedness
and response, distribution of relief goods for the displaced families and individuals, the
conduct of sanitation, and taking the initiative in disseminating information through
an information drive relating to Covid-19 preventive measures.

CONCLUSIONS

Based on the foregoing findings, the study concluded that the various government
agencies had shown limited procurements on covid-related items in preparation for
the pandemic although the LGUs had the most procured items during the first quarter
of 2020 on medical supplies and laboratory equipment. The procurement processes
adhere to the rules on Negotiated Procurement (Emergency Case) as stipulated in the
GPRA. In addition, a number of precautionary measures were conducted by the
various government agencies in the Philippines although further measures with
urgency should still be initiated to help control the virus transmission nationwide and
even worldwide.

pg. 106
What’s Next?
The study recommended that there should be procurement of materials to be used
for sanitation and protocol set-up as preventive measures for the spread of Covid-19
specially to quarantine areas and other public areas mostly visited by community
members. Said items may be considered in the preparation of the Annual
Procurement Plan (APP) and/or the supplemental one to respond to covid -19 crisis. It
is also suggested for the GPPB to formulate a policy guideline by expediting the
procurement processes through an online platform by designing a Decision Support
attributes in the system to further promote transparency and competitiveness. Lastly,
there should be an urgency on the procurement of the most needed medical
supplies and laboratory equipment to strictly implement the health protocols to help
address the increasing number of PUM’s, PUI’s and LSI.

COMMENT AND READ MORE ABOUT THIS PAPER: https://www.ocdex.tech/the-philippine-

government-precautionary-measures-through-procurement-of-covid-19-related-items/

REFERENCES
THE PHILIPPINE GOVERNMENT PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES
THROUGH PROCUREMENT OF COVID-19 RELATED ITEMS

Cebu City Placed Under Community Quarantine. https://rappler.com/nation/cebu-cityquarantine march-16-

2020. March 15, 2020.

Data Science Guide. Exploratory Data Analysis. https://datascienceguide.github.io/exploratory-dataanalysis

https://www.gppb.gov.ph/issuances/Resolutions/GPPB%20Resolution%20No.%2009-2020%20with%20SGD.pdf

Peter Bruce and Andrew Bruce. Practical Statistics for Data Scientists. https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/
practical-statistics-for/9781491952955/

PhilGeps. (ADV2020-007) Advisory For Client Agencies In Relation To The Declared Enhanced Community
Quarantine. www.philgeps.gov.ph, March 17, 2020.

PhilGeps. Revised Implementing Rules And Regulations Of Republic Act No. 9184, Otherwise Known As The
Government Procurement Reform Act. www.philgeps.gov.ph, n.d.

Sievo Global Headquarters, Procurement Analytics Demystified, www.sievo.com, n.d.

The 2016 Revised Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act No. 9184, otherwise known as The
Government Procurement Reform Act http://www.bsp.gov.ph/downloads/procurement/ IRR_RA9184.pdf. n.d.

The 2016 Revised Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act No. 9184, Otherwise Known as The
Government Procurement Reform Act https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/images/uploads/ 20160826-IRR-RA-
9184 -procurementreform.

pg. 107
 PROPER REACTION IN SECURING INTEGRITY ON THE PUBLIC
BIDDING OF CONSTRUCTION AND INFRASTRUCTURE TENDERS
AMIDST THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Pee Jay Gealone a, John Raymond Barajas b, Nico Aspra c , Arpon Lucero, Jr. b, Oliver
Padua d, and Marben Ramos e
a Department of Electrical Engineering, Bicol University, Legazpi City Albay, Philippines;
b Department of Chemical Engineering, Bicol University, Legazpi City Albay, Philippines;
c Department of Mechanical Technology, Bicol University, Legazpi City Albay, Philippines;

d Department of Civil Engineering, Bicol University, Legazpi City Albay, Philippines

e Department of Physics Education, Bicol University, Legazpi City Albay, Philippines;

As of July 22, 2020, a total of 72,269 total COVID-19 cases has been reported,
of which 46,803 are still classified as active cases. With this continual rise of
COVID-19 cases, it is estimated that this would cost about PHP2.2 trillion
economic losses and is equivalent to at least a 2% contraction in the nominal
gross domestic product (GDP) of the country. As a consequence of this
economic loss, about 26% of businesses operating in the country have already
closed resulting to about 100,000 Filipinos losing their jobs in the 1st half of 2020
Indeed, there is an immediate need to control the spread of COVID -19 in the
country to further mitigate the impact of the said disease to the Filipino people.

pg. 108
 BACKGROUND OVERVIEW

New Issuances of Government Procurement Policy Board

Public procurement is playing a vital role in curbing the impact of COVID-19 in the Philippines.
As previously reported in the Stakeholder Engagement Plan (SEP) published by Department
of Health (DOH, 2020b), the Philippines COVID-19 Emergency Response Project (P173877) –
financed under the Fast Track COVID-19 Facility of the World Bank COVID-19 Response
program— have allotted 1.14 billion Philippine pesos (US $23, 000, 000) for the establishment,
construction, retrofitting, and refurbishment of identified quarantine facilities in all major
points of entry in the country, increase in number of isolation rooms establishment of negative
pressure isolation rooms in DOH and provincial hospitals, establishment of first line
decontamination facilities in international airports and seaports, and setting up of isolation
tents for triaging in health facilities. In response to this project, the Government Procurement
Policy Board (GPPB) issued new resolutions, particularly GPPB resolution numbers 03-2020, 05-
2020, 06-2020, and 09-2020, to fast track the public procurement process in such projects as
demanded by the sense of urgency brought by the COVID-19 pandemic (Government
Procurement Policy Board [GPPB], 2020a, 2020b, 2020c, 2020d). To describe the changes
adopted to supplement the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of Republic Act (RA)
9184 (Government Procurement Reform Act) in times of emergencies, key directives
stipulated in the new GPPB resolutions are summarized as follows:

• Authorize the Head of the Procuring Entity (HoPE) to delegate the Bids and Awards
Committee (BAC), End-user unit, or any other appropriate procuring unit to directly
negotiate with a legally, technically, and financially capable bidder for procurement
undertaken through Negotiated Procurement (Emergency Cases) (GPPB, 2020a).

• Allow the HoPE to delegate the awarding of contract under Negotiated Procurement
(Emergency Cases) to any official of the procuring entity except to the BAC
Chairperson or members (GPPB, 2020a).

• Allow Procuring Entities (PE) to accept expired Business or Mayor's Permit with O_cial
Receipt of renewal application and unnotarized Omnibus Sworn Statement subject
to compliance therewith after award of contract (GPPB, 2020b, 2020d).

• Increase the allowable amount of advance payment from 15% to 30% of the contract
amount of procurement projects which include establishment, construction, and
operation of temporary medical facilities (GPPB, 2020c).

• Allow PEs to accept an unnotarized Performance Securing Declaration (PSD) in lieu

of a performance security subject to submission of a notarized PSD before payment
as prescribed (GPPB, 2020d).

pg. 109
A Proposed Control Measure

With the purpose of providing another control measure to support PEs in integrously awarding
contracts in this time of a pandemic, this project developed and explored a risk indexing
system as a possible supplemental tool to the current system for evaluating eligibility of
contractors in undertaking construction and infrastructure tenders. The developed risk
indexing system which aims to rapidly evaluate and assess contractor traits (REACT) have
been used to collate and analyze collected data from the 28th and 29th Contractors
Performance Evaluation Summary (CPES) report published by GPPB. Through the use a multi-
objective decision analysis approach, the risk indexes, as applied to construction and
infrastructure tenders in Region V, showed usefulness and convenience in quantifying and
describing risks associated relative to the previous performance of an eligible contractor.
The use then of this tool in conjunction to the revised IRR of RA amended by the new GPPB
resolutions is thus seen to tighten" the relaxed process for Negotiated Procurement
(Emergency Cases), expand capacity of PEs to evaluate eligible contractors, and improve
the objectivity of the amended Negotiated Procurement (Emergency Cases) process as a
whole.

Objective and Research Questions

The overall objective of this project, through the REACT risk indexing system, is to provide an
intervening means for COVID-19 related construction and infrastructure tenders to be rapidly
awarded to eligible contractors while minimizing the risks induced by the fastracking of the
negotiated mode of procurement in response to the urgency brought by the COVID-19
pandemic. To address the issue described, this project aimed to investigate the following
research questions:

• What does a low contractor risk index imply relative to the identified contractor
attributes based on the processed CPES data?

• What does a high contractor risk index imply relative to the identified contractor
attributes based on the processed CPES data?

• What is the most crucial contractor attribute that could indicate a possible case of
misrepresentation and fraudulence?

• How appropriate is the developed contractor risk indexing system in relation to

assessing contractor eligibility for Negotiated Procurement (Emergency Cases)?

pg. 110
 METHODOLOGY

Data Source

The CPES report data published by GPPB was used to develop the REACT risk indexing
system. The most recent (28th and 29th ) CPES reports released by GPPB have been explored
in particular (GPPB, 2019a, GPPB2019b). These open government procurement data
contained construction and infrastructure tenders from the period 2016-2019. The 29th CPES
report was observed to be most complete as these contained the dates corresponding to
the start and target date completion of a construction and infrastructure tender, and
slippages incurred by each contractor. The 28th CPES report, on the other hand, significantly
differed as this did not include those data (e.g. slippage) reported in the 29th release.
Nevertheless, both data frames were used as these consisted essential data for the
development of the REACT risk indexing system.

Procurement Data Processing Method

Data Digitization and Filtering

The 28th and 29th CPES report data were retrieved in PDF format with images. The document
was first digitized into a machine-readable format. The digitized data was then ingested as
a base data frame containing 9026 rows and 28 columns. The data frame was filtered and
pre-processed, to align the format of the 28th CPES report to the most recent format
presented in the 29th CPES report data. The dataset was also transformed and imputed due
to the inavailability of starting and completion dates in the 28th CPES report from 2016 – 2018.
These incomplete observations were dropped from the base data frame. The negative
slippage, which represented whether completion of a construction and infrastructure tender
is delayed, was also not included in the 28th CPES report. Data transformation was
performed for the 28th CPES report data to incorporate contractor negative slippages. The
negative slippages for each contractor listed in the 28th CPES report data were then
calculated in accordance to the thresholds described in the published CPES guidelines
(Construction Industry Authority of the Philippines [CIAP], 2014; GPPB, 2011). The final data
frame after data cleaning (e.g. removal of duplicate entries and missing data entries) and
data transformation represented 242 contractors from the Bicol Region.

pg. 111
Development of REACT Risk Indexes

A multi-objective decision analysis approach was implemented to strategically assign

numerical quantities to the following contractor traits for the 242 identified contractors who
were awarded construction and infrastructure contracts from Region V (Bicol Region)
(Santos, Pagsuyoin, & Latayan, 2016; Zavadskas & Podvezko, 2016; Pagsuyoin, Santos,
Latayan, & Barajas, 2015):

• Average Contract Duration (C1): corresponds to the average of the reported

contract duration in calendar days for awarded construction and infrastructure
tenders.

• Average Contract Amount (C2): pertains to the average awarded amount for
construction and infrastructure tenders.

• Average Negative Slippage (C3): corresponds to the time a project is late compared
to the approved baseline schedule in the implementation of the awarded
construction and infrastructure tenders.

• Lack in Average CPES Rating for On-going Projects (C4): pertains to the difference
between the maximum CPES rating achievable (i.e. “Outstanding" qualitative
description) and the average CPES rating of a contractor for on-going construction
and infrastructure projects.

• Lack in Average CPES Rating for Completed Projects (C5): pertains to the difference
between the maximum CPES rating achievable (i.e. “Outstanding" qualitative
description) and the average CPES rating of a contractor for on-going construction
and infrastructure projects.

• Number of On-going Projects (C6): corresponds to the number of on-going projects

reported for each contractor.

pg. 112
 • Number of Completed Projects (C7): corresponds to the number of completed
projects reported for each contractor.

• Approximate Net Financial Contracting Capacity (NFCC) (C8): an approximate

contractor financial capacity based on the awarded contract with the highest
reported contract amount.

• Total Number of Projects (C9): corresponds to the sum of on-going projects and
completed projects reported for each contractor.

The contractor risk indexes were established through the linear calculation of the scores
assigned to each contractor in accordance to the identified contractor traits. Interpretation
of the risk indexes were then made based on the magnitude of the calculated numerical
quantities. Visualization of the results was also made to further aid in the interpretation of the
results.

RESULTS AND INSIGHTS

Describing the Collated Data

The summary of the final data frame established is visualized in Figure 1 and Figure 2. As seen
from Figure 1a, a total of 463 construction and infrastructure tenders, comprising of 240 and
223 contracts for completed and on-going projects, respectively, were extracted from the
period 2016 - 2019 and the distribution of completed and on-going projects were found to
be equivalent with each other. In terms of the C4 and C5 contractor traits, the calculated
median value of about 10% as shown in the box-plot of Figure 1b indicated contractor
performance equivalent to at least a qualitative description of “Very Satisfactory" for
majority of the awarded contracts in Region V. This implied that contractors generally
delivered their contractual obligations as agreed upon with PEs.

Implications of Data on Average Contract Amount and Approximate Net Financial

Contracting Capacity

Examination of contractor trait C2 as summarized in Figure 2b indicated that majority of

contractors (about 170) in Region V have recently engaged in contracts amounting to a
maximum Approved Budget Contract (ABC) of about PHP39 million. This averaged amount
represented a total of 331 contracts which primarily comprised of horizontal and vertical
projects.

pg. 113
This then indicated that eligible and experienced contractors in the region are available and
could be readily tapped for the on-going implementation of the nationwide SEP program
headed by DOH. The contractor trait C8 confirmed, however, that contracts with ABCs
amounting to at most PHP47 million (see Figure 2c) could possibly be the maximum NFCC of
locally available contractors in the said region.

Implications of Data on Average Contract Duration

Drawing insights from the data on the contractor trait C1 further confirmed that contractors
in Region V are capable of delivering contractual obligations for both horizontal and vertical
projects. A total of 288 contracts with duration ranging from 95 to 227 calendar days that
were awarded to 158 contractors validated the results shown in Figure 2c.

Implications of Data on Negative Slippages

Evaluation of the collated data in terms of C3, however, implied that 69 out of 242 evaluated
contractors garnered negative slippages. The pareto chart describing this observation is
summarized in Figure 73a. While majority (about 195 contractors) of the reported negative
slippages of these contractors are well within the threshold, 47 contractors were reported to
be well beyond the acceptable negative slippages (GPPB, 2019). The negative slippages
incurred by these contractors already warrants possible termination of such contracts as
stipulated in GPPB resolution number 05-2019 (GPPB, 2019). Possible participation of such
contractors in bids for construction and infrastructure tenders under the SEP program
headed by DOH therefore necessitates further scrutiny.

Figure 72: Distribution of Projects (a) and Lack in CPES Rating Calculated (b)

pg. 114
 Pareto Charts for Negative Slippages Incurred (a), Average Contract Amount (b),
Approximate NFCC (c), and Average Contract Duration (d)

Ranking of Contractor Traits

With the goal to identify the least and most relevant contractor traits that could imply
possible misrepresentations and intent of fraudulence in government tenders related to
construction and infrastructure projects, the contractor traits (C1 - C9) described in this report
were ranked in accordance to the procedure described in literature (Santos et al., 2016;
Zavadskas & Podvezko, 2016; Pagsuyoin et al., 2015). The contractor trait that was observed
to contribute the most to the risk index developed is C3 while C1 was seen to be least of all
contractor traits considered (see Table 14). It is worth noting that contractor traits C6 and C7
were omitted. This was the case since data for C6 and C7 showed strong collinearity with
each other and deemed that such collinearity be removed to ensure robustness of the
implemented analysis (Zavadskas & Podvezko, 2016). Hence, C6 and C7 were transformed
into a single attribute. The calculated weights totaling to 1.0 validated that the final
contractor traits considered were appropriate for the analysis employed.

pg. 115
 Table 14: Calculated Influence of Contractor Weights

Most Crucial Contractor Traits

Drawing insights from Table above, further supplemented the published CPES guidelines for
evaluating contractors awarded with construction and infrastructure projects. As
quantitative analysis allowed, the negative slippage incurred by a contractor contributed
44.30% of the calculated risk index from the collected CPES data. Additionally, the
approximate NFCC was also found to be significant and contributed 19.32% of the
calculated risk index. These results were found to be congruent to GPPB resolution numbers
05-2019 and 20-2013 (GPPB, 2019, GPPB2013) which declared negative slippages and NFCC
as most essential to the evaluation of contractor eligibility to undertake contractual
obligations necessitated by government construction and infrastructure tenders.

Classification of Calculated Risk Indexes

Collation of the calculated risk indexes led to the initial classi_cation of the evaluated
contractors into five (5) general categories. As shown in Figure 74, the calculated risk indexes
were grouped into “Very Low", “Low", “Moderate", “High", and “Very High" which were given
equivalent numerical scores of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, respectively. Finally, looking into the behavior
based on the averages of the values for each contractor trait further simplified this
classification into “Low", “Moderate", and “High" risk categories and these were given
equivalent numerical scores of 1, 2, and 3, respectively (see Figure 75). As an example,
contractors with calculated risk indexes less than or equal to 59.3 were associated with the
“Low" risk category while those with values greater than 78.3 were pooled with the “High" risk
category. The corresponding numerical quantities indicative of these qualitative descriptions
are detailed in Table 15.

Figure 74: Initial Classification of Calculated Risk Indexes

Figure 75: SIimplified Classification of Risk Categories in Accordance to Average Values

pg. 116
 Table 15: Calculated Influence of Conractor Traits

Implications of Calculated Risk Indexes

Visualization of the collated data for each contractor trait investigated described the
implications of “Low", “Moderate", and “High" risk contractor categories. Numerical values
to quantitatively supplement these findings are further summarized in Table 16. As illustrated
in Figure 76, data collected describing the traits of each contractor in terms of C1-C9 were
transformed into their standardized score counterparts to better picture the implications of
the calculated risk indexes. Generally, almost all of the standardized scores for all contractor
traits increased as risk category was changed from “Low" to “Moderate" and “Moderate" to
“High". For instance, C3 was seen to indicate a huge jump from “Low" to “Moderate" and
“Moderate" to “High" risk category. This observation provided additional evidence that
establishes C3 as the contractor trait that largely contributed to the risk index calculated for
contractor. Instances similar to that of C3 could also be observed for majority of the
contractor traits with the exception of C9. This observed decrease could indicate that
contractors categorized a \Moderate" risk category could have been awarded with at most
1 construction and infrastructure tender. Collectively, with these established insights, it could
be generally drawn that:

• “Low" risk contractors are those that incur very few instances of negative slippages
with magnitudes less than 10%, engaged in contracts with an average approved
amount of PHP23.6 million, and have an approximate NFCC of PHP27.9 million.

• “Moderate" risk contractors are those that incur approximate average negative
slippages of about 24.9%, engaged in contracts with an average approved amount
of PHP107.0 million, and have an approximate NFCC of PHP115.8 million.

• “High" risk contractors are those that incur approximate average negative slippages
of about 36.8%, engaged in contracts with an average approved amount of
PHP312.4 million, and have an approximate NFCC of PHP362.4 million.

pg. 117
 Figure 76: Standardized Scores of Contractor Traits

Table 16: Average Values and Ranges of Low, Moderate, and High -risk Contractors

pg. 118
Classified Contractors in Region V

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

It is envisioned by the researchers that the PE, HoPE, BAC, end-user unit in Region V, through
the adoption of the developed REACT risk indexing system, be capacitated and
empowered to rapidly assess eligibility of contractors in correspondence to the urgency
while ensuring transparency and integrity of awarded government construction and
infrastructure tenders necessitated by the COVID-19 situation in the country. With the
established evidences as discussed in the previous sections, the following recommendations
are derived:

• The PE, through the HoPE, BAC, End-user unit, or any authorized and delegated
procuring unit, is suggested to adopt the REACT risk indexing system as described in
this report to supplement the present system being used to assess the eligibility of a
contractor in Negotiated Procurement (Emergency Cases). The REACT risk index is
calculated using the equation:

pg. 119
 where RRI is the REACT risk index, X1 is the average contract duration in calendar
days, X2 is the average contract amount, X3 is the average negative slippage, X4 is
the lack in average CPES rating for completed projects, X5 is the lack in average CPES
rating for on-going projects, X6 is the approximate NFCC, and X7 is the total number
of projects.

• The PE, through the HoPE, BAC, End-user unit, or any authorized and delegated
procuring unit, is suggested to maintain a database of contractors who were
previously awarded with construction and infrastructure contracts since CPES reports
published by GPPB only cover periods prior to the current fiscal year. The data frame
format of the published CPES reports (Philippine Domestic Construction Board [PDCB],
2019a, 2019b) are also suggested to be adopted.

• To further fast track the processing of Negotiated Procurement (Emergency Cases)

and ensure takers of such bids, it is also suggested to limit ABCs of posted construction
and infrastructure tenders to PHP39 million since historical data show that majority of
locally available contractors (about 170) were reported have experience in both
horizontal and vertical projects equivalent to this amount.

• It is also recommended that scrutiny in accordance to GPPB guidelines be further

exercised to those contractors that will be classified under “Moderate" and “High" risk
categories since such contractors were historically found to incur negative slippages
beyond the maximum allowable limit of 15%.

In conclusion, this project provided data-driven evidences that highlight the applicability of
the developed REACT risk index system as a supplemental tool to possibly hasten awarding
of contracts in times of an emergency while ensuring integrity of the public procurement
process implemented to award such contracts. Through the classi_cation of eligible
contractors into “Low", “Moderate", and “High" risk categories, PEs could be forewarned with
the capacity of a contractor to faithfully deliver its contractual obligations.

COMMENT AND READ MORE ABOUT THIS STUDY: https://www.ocdex.tech/a-proper-reaction-

in-securing-integrity-on-the-public-bidding-of-construction-and-infrastructure-tenders-amidst-the-
covid-19-pandemic/

pg. 120
REFERENCES
PROPER REACTION IN SECURING INTEGRITY ON THE PUBLIC BIDDING
OF CONSTRUCTION AND INFRASTRUCTURE TENDERS AMIDST THE
COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Construction Industry Authority of the Philippines. (2020). Constructors Performance Evaluation System
(CPES) Implementing Guidelines for Infrastructure Projects as amended on 13 September 2011.
Retrieved from http://ciap.dti.gov.ph/sites/default/_les/CPES ImpGuidelines042315v2.pdf

Department of Health. (2020a). Covid-19 Tracker. Retrieved from https://www.doh.gov.ph/covid

19tracker

Department of Health. (2020b). Stakeholder Engagement Plan (SEP). Retrieved from https://
www.doh.gov.ph/sites/default/_les/healthfn gadvisory/Stakeholder Engagement Plan (SEP).pdf

De Vera, B. (2020). P2.2 trillion in losses: Cost of COVID-19 impact on PH economy | Inquirer Business.
Retrieved 2020-07-07, from https://business.inquirer.net/298536/p2-2-trillion-in-losses-cost-of-covid-19-
impact-on-ph-economy

Government Procurement Policy Board. (2011). Constructors' Performance Evaluation System (CPES)
Implementing Guidelines for Infrastructure Projects. Retrieved from https://www.gppb.gov.ph/laws/
laws/CPESGuidelines2011/09Amended%20Guidelines.pdf

Government Procurement Policy Board. (2013). Approving Amendments to Sections 23.1(a)(vi),

23.5.1.4 And 23.5.2.6 of the Revised Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act No. 9184 ;
Clauses 5.5 And 12.1(a)(v) of the Instructions to Bidders of the Philippine Bidding Documents for Goods;
And Clauses 5.5 and 12.1(a)(vi) of the Instructions to Bidders of the Philippine Bidding Documents for
Infrastructure Projects (No. 20-2013). Retrieved from https://www.gppb.gov.ph/issuances/
Resolutions/20-2013.pdf

Government Procurement Policy Board. (2019). Approving the Adoption of E_cient, E_ective and
Expedient Procurement Procedures During a State of Public Health Emergency (No. 05-2019).
Retrieved from https://www.gppb.gov.ph/issuances/Resolutions/GPPB%20Resolution%20No.%2005-
2019.pdf

Government Procurement Policy Board. (2020a). Approving the Adoption of E_cient, E_ective and
Expedient Procurement Procedures During a State of Public Health Emergency (No. 03-2020).
Retrievedfrom https://www.gppb.gov.ph/issuances/Resolutions/GPPB%20Resolution%20No.%2003-
2020.pdf

Government Procurement Policy Board. (2020b). Approving the Acceptance of an Expired Mayor's
Permit with O_cial Receipt for the Renewal Application and Unnotarized Omnibus Sworn Statement
as Basis for Award Under the Negotiated Procurement (Emergency Cases) Modality (No. 05-2020).

pg. 121
Retrieved from https://www.gppb.gov.ph/issuances/Resolutions/GPPB%20Resolution%20No.%2005-
2020.pdf

Government Procurement Policy Board. (2020c). Approving the Recommendation to Increase the
Allowable Amount of Advance Payment and Issuance of a Circular on the Guidelines for Emergency
Procurement Under Republic Act No. 11469 Or The Bayanihan to Heal as One Act (No. 06-2020).
Retrieved from https://www.gppb.gov.ph/issuances/Resolutions/GPPB%20Resolution% 20No.%2006-
2020.pdf

Government Procurement Policy Board. (2020d). Approving Measures for the E_cient Conduct of
Procurement Activities During a State of Calamity, or Implementation of Community Quarantine or
Similar Restrictions (No. 09-2020). Retrieved from https://www.gppb.gov.ph/issuances/Resolutions/
GPPB%20Resolution%20No.%2009-2020%20with%20SGD.pdf

Government Procurement Policy Board. (2020e). Blacklisted Entities. Retrieved from https://www.
gppb.gov.ph/blacklistedsuppliers.php

Government Procurement Policy Board. (2020f). Procuring Entities With Awarded Contracts. Retrieved
from https://gppbgovph.com/awardedcontractsmd.php

Pagsuyoin, S. A., Santos, J. R., Latayan, J. S., & Barajas, J. R. (2015, dec). A multi-attribute decision
making approach to the selection of point-of-use water treatment. Environment Systems and
Decisions, 35 (4), 437{452. doi: 10.1007/s10669-015-9567-0

Philippine Domestic Construction Board. (2019a). CPES Reports On-going and Completed Projects
from January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2018. Retrieved from https://www.gppb.gov.ph/monitoring/
Referencesblacklisted/CPES%20Report%2028th%20Release%20January%201,%202016%20to%20Dece
mber%2031,%202018.pdf

Philippine Domestic Construction Board. (2019b). CPES Reports On-going and Completed Projects
from July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2019. Retrieved from https://www.gppb.gov.ph/monitoring/blacklisted/
CPES%20Report%2029th%20Release%20July%2001%202016%20to%20June%2030%202019.pdf

Rey, A. (2020). Duterte extends GCQ in Metro Manila until July 15. Retrieved 2020-07-07, from https://
www.rappler.com/nation/265346-duterte-gcq-extension-metro-manila-july-15-2020

Santos, J., Pagsuyoin, S. A., & Latayan, J. (2016). A multi-criteria decision analysis framework for
evaluating point-of-use water treatment alternatives. Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy,
18 (5), 1263{1279. doi: 10.1007/s10098-015-1066-y

Zavadskas, E. K., & Podvezko, V. (2016). Integrated determination of objective criteria weights in
MCDM. International Journal of Information Technology and Decision Making, 15 (2), 1{17. doi:
10.1142/S0219622016500036

pg. 122
 SUC EATING PATTERNS: CRUCIAL INDICATORS FOR AN
EFFECTIVE IMPLEMENTATION OF ONLINE MODES OF LEARNING
Arpon Lucero, Jr. a , John Raymond Barajas a, Nico Aspra b ,Pee Jay Gealone c , Oliver
Padua d, and Marben Ramos e
a Department of Chemical Engineering, Bicol University, Legazpi City Albay, Philippines;
b Department of Mechanical Technology, Bicol University, Legazpi City Albay, Philippines;
c Department of Electrical Engineering, Bicol University, Legazpi City Albay, Philippines;

d Department of Civil Engineering, Bicol University, Legazpi City Albay, Philippines

e Department of Physics Education, Bicol University, Legazpi City Albay, Philippines;

The delivery of education was heavily impacted by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Bicol
Region. To mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 crisis to the continuity of delivering quality tertiary
education in the region, it was proposed that State Universities and Colleges (SUC) transition to online
modes of learning to replace face-to-face and on-site interactions of faculty, administrative staff, and
students. However, this proposed shift to online classes was heavily met with resistance from various
stakeholders in the region and tagged as “anti-poor" due to present circumstances of the students
and additional costs to be incurred upon its full implementation. To provide insightful strategies in
handling the present situation, this work looked into both the capacity of students and SUCs in the
region to cope with the proposed online transition. Collected survey data revealed that students
primarily rely on cellular data for internet connectivity; hence, synchronous online classes could prove
to be highly disadvantageous to the less privileged students. While assessed procurement data for
the period January 2016 - May 2020 revealed that majority of the SUCs in the region are capable of
the proposed online transition, it is worth noting that heavy investments were not made for the
acquisition of learning resources vital for the conduct of online classes starting this 1st Semester
Academic Year (AY) 2020 - 2021. As the findings of this work suggested, it is imperative that the
deficiencies of the SUCs and stakeholders in the region be carefully considered prior to the
implementation of the proposed online transition on the opening of tertiary classes this August 2020.

pg. 123
 BACKGROUND OVERVIEW

The Present Challenge of the Shift to Online Modes of Learning

Driven by urgency to safely continue education, it has been widely suggested that face-to-
face classes be shifted to online modes of learning amidst the on-going COVID-19 crisis (Li&
Lalani, 2020;Toquero, 2020). This push for virtual classes, however, has been met with
resistance many students. Under the banner “#NoStudentLeftBehind", online modes of
learning has been branded as “anti-poor" and “schooling solely for the privileged" (Ornedo,
2020). As data supplements this fact, only 17% of Filipino students have the capacity to
connect to the internet, 3.74% of these students own a cellular phone which can access the
internet. Furthermore, only 5% of these Filipino students have stable internet connections
(Ornedo, 2020). Shifting to online modes of learning therefore, can be unfeasible, given the
current circumstances of majority of Filipino students.

Research Objective and Questions

The objective of this work is to benchmark the procurement behavior of SUC that
implemented online learning and translate this behavior into data-driven recommendations
which could be adopted by SUCs in Bicol Region identified to be struggling to shift into online
modes of learning amidst the COVID-19 crisis. To provide data-driven solutions to the
described issue at hand, this work investigated the following research questions:

• In terms of internet connectivity, how ready are institutions and its students to shift into
online modes of learning?

• What are the attributes of an educational institution that can demonstrate

educational delivery resiliency amid the COVID-19 pandemic?

• What are the attributes of an educational institution that is most vulnerable to the
consequences in education delivery brought by the COVID-19 pandemic?

• What is the most crucial attribute of an institution that primarily indicates resiliency (or
vulnerability)to the consequences in education delivery brought by the COVID-19
pandemic?

• What procurement strategies can be derived and adopted from the institution
identified to be most resilient in delivering education amid the COVID-19 pandemic?

pg. 124
 METHODOLOGY

Procurement Data Source

The most recent PhilGEPS datasets (PhilGEPS, 2020) including bid and award notices posted
for Alternative Modes of Procurement from January 2016 until March 2020 were used as the
primary source of procurement data on IT related tenders (e.g. subscription to online
databases and internet connectivity) posted by SUCs in Bicol Region. The most recent
Government Procurement Policy Board (GPPB) data on awarded contracts published on its
online portal (Government Procurement Policy Board, 2020) was also considered. The GPPB
data, however, was dropped since no procurement data was found for SUCs in Bicol Region.
Collectively, the data was found to be more than sufficient for the applied analysis as the
collated data frame consisted of about 7383 IT related tenders.

Survey Data

To correlate the feedback of students to the internet connectivity provided in their

respective institutions, an online survey was sent to various students through colleagues
working the nine (9) SUCs in the region. In consideration to the data collection policies
stipulated in the Data Privacy Act of 2012 (Data Privacy Act, 2012), the online survey was
conducted on the premise that respondents willingly and voluntarily agreed to answer the
questionnaire. Upon deployment of the online questionnaire, only 266 responses were
collected in correspondence to the online consent asked by the proponents of this work.

Data Preparation

The collected PhilGEPS data (PhilGEPS, 2020) was found to contain minimal trivial data;
hence, this procurement data was subsequently filtered to extract IT related tenders posted
by SUCs in Bicol Region upon checks for typographical errors and potential double entries.
To properly merge the SUC procurement data with the collected student feedback,
responses were first assessed in terms of validity and usability for analysis. Cross-examination
of the questionnaire data led to the removal of 22 responses which contained invalid and
inconsistent answers. Hence, only 242 responses which represented feedback on internet
connectivity from _ve (5) out of nine (9) SUCs in the region were considered for analysis.
Student feedback on internet connectivity provided by the remaining SUCs was then _lled
through data imputation using simulated data. While potential biased was induced with this
technique, this was still considered since the collated questionnaire data as a whole was
able to demonstrate su_cient reliability for analysis (Xu et al.,2020).

pg. 125
Defining a Resilient Education System

Resilience of education systems in maintaining its capacity to deliver quality of education in

times of emergencies could be derived from three (3) key recommendations as described
in literature (Winthrop & Mendenhall,2006):

• Governments should perceive delivery of education in times of emergencies as an

opportunity to strengthen their present education system in order actively support
those affected by the crisis.

• Governments should establish exible and proactive policies so that education in times
of emergencies can be delivered in the most appropriate way.

• Governments should provide and commit the necessary financial resources to

educational institutions in order to guarantee delivery of quality education not only
during an emergency but over a long-term in accordance to the Education For All
(EFA) movement and Millennium Development Goals (MDG).

With these established definitions, it is therefore essential to consider financial investments

made by an SUCs as one of the factors that would primarily determine its capacity to still
deliver quality education amidst the COVID-19 situation in the region. Hence, a
mathematical model defining resiliency of education systems was formulated in this context.
The criterions used to collate these derived resiliency definitions are
detailed as follows:

• Overall Feedback Score (O, Output): This is the arithmetic average of the ratings given
by the respondents on Internet Quality, Internet Speed, and Satisfaction on the
internet connectivity provided by an SUC.

• Number of IT Related Tenders (I1, Input): This is the total number of IT related tenders
posted by an SUC from January 2016 - March 2020.

• Total Approved Budget Contract (I2, Input): This is the total Approved Budget
Contract (ABC) for IT related tenders from January 2016 - March 2020.

• Average Contract Duration (I3, Input): This is the arithmetic average of the contract
duration (in calendar days) for IT related tenders from January 2016 - March 2020.

• Number of Suppliers Tapped (I4, Input): This is the total number of suppliers tapped for
the IT related tenders posted by an SUC.

The input criterions selected were used to relate the procurement activity of each SUC in
acquiring IT-related tenders to the student feedback collated from the questionnaire data.
In contrast, the collected feedback (defined in O) was used as the output criterion in
accordance to the adopted de_nition of resilient education systems. The mathematical
model built out of these input and output criterions were then used to calculate the
efficiency scores for each identified SUC in Bicol Region as described in literature
(Thanassoulis et al., 2017; Zavadskas et al., 2016).

pg. 126
 RESULTS AND INSIGHTS

Respondent Demographic Profile

160 (66.11%) out of the 242 who willingly respondents from 5 different SUCs in the Bicol Region
were reported to have a monthly household income below PHP25,000.

Majority (about 60%) of the

students were reported to
largely rely on cellular
phones and cellular data
to accomplish academic
tasks given by their
respective institutions.

Internet Connectivity Provided by SUCs

Internet connectivity within SUC main campuses were reported to be primarily provided at
the main libraries, classroom hallways, and computer laboratories. A significant number of
respondents also claimed that both main and extension campuses did not generally provide
internet connectivity.

pg. 127
 Figure 77: Internet Connectivity within SUC Campuses

Average Internet Speed Provided by SUCs

Average internet download and upload speeds provided by SUCs as experienced by the
respondents were reported be below 5.0 Mbps, with majority of the respondents
experiencing average speeds below 1.0 Mbps.

Overall Feedback Score Given by Respondents

Likert Scale Ratings Given by Respondents on SUCs’ Internet Connectivity

pg. 128
Crucial SUC Attributes

Table 17: Ranking of SUC Attributes

It was found that the “Total Approved Budget Contract” and “Number of IT Related Tenders” SUC
attributes were crucial in determining the capacity of the SUC to effectively transition into online
modes of learning.

Assessment of SUC EATing patterns – The Case of Bicol Region

Enabling college students to undertake the proposed online transition would then largely rely
on the capacity of SUCs to deliver quality education through the said modes of learning this
August 2020.

With the goal of assessing the nine (9) SUCs in the Bicol Region within the context of Education
Access in Tenders (EAT), the same group of researchers from BUCENG looked closely into the
information technology (IT) related procurement activities of such SUCs from the period 2016 -
2020. Upon a comprehensive evaluation of the collected contracts, these researchers
reported two categories classifying the capacity of SUCs in Bicol Region to successfully
implement the proposed online transition, namely “fully capable” and “partially capable”.
“Fully capable” SUCs were reported to have largely invested on computer servers, internet
coverage and bandwidth, library and learning managements systems, subscription to online
databases, and acquisition of software for research and instructional use. These capabilities,
as reported by these researchers, corresponded to an equivalent investment amounting to
PHP241.19 million.

Figure 78: Total Approved Budget Contract for Year 2016 -2020

pg. 129
 Table 18: Efficiency Scores Calculated for Identified SUCs in Bicol Region

In contrast, while “partially capable” SUCs were reported to be to financially secure

such investments, no relevant awarded IT tenders from 2016-2020 necessary to ensure
effective implementation of the proposed online transition were found for such SUCs.

Collectively, seven (7) of the nine (9) SUCs in Bicol Region were seen to be “fully
capable” of implementing online classes this August 2020. Though these reported
findings implied that the Bicol Region as a whole is seen to effectively implement the
proposed online transition, the EATing patterns of the remaining two (2) SUCs which
cater to the majority of at least 3000 enrolled college students in the region indicated
that much still needs to be done to ensure all college students, regardless of privilege,
be given a fair and equal access to quality tertiary education. The researchers then
strongly recommended that SUCs classified as “partially capable” benchmark on the
IT related procurement strategies that of “fully capable” SUCs.

Possible Reasons for Low Likert Scale Ratings

• Only four (4) contracts amounting to PHP1.49 million for procuring computer servers
from January 2016 – May 2020 were reported.

• No procurement activity specifically designated for expanding the capacity of their

present servers in anticipation of the increased network traffic for online classes was
observed for the 1st quarter of the fiscal year 2020.

• Only four (4) contracts amounting to PHP11.52 million for securing internet
connectivity within SUC campuses were found for the period January 2016 –
December 2019. No contract in the 1st quarter of the fiscal year 2020 was found for
internet bandwidth expansion in anticipation of the heavy traffic to be induced by
online classes.

pg. 130
 • Only three (3) contracts amounting to PHP2.58 million for improving library capacity
were found for the period January 2016 – May 2020. No awarded contracts were
found for acquiring learning management and library management systems, and
subscription to online databases.

• No contracts for purchase of software for research and instructional purposes were
found.

• Majority of the contracts found were designated for procuring “Information

Technology Parts and Accessories and Peripherals”. Procurement of USBs, hard drives,
and printers were amongst the most commonly awarded contracts.

Adopting Best Procurement Practices for IT

• Allocate at least PHP7.56 million for procuring computer servers to accommodate

network traffic in the system.

• Allocate at least PHP3.0 million in the 2nd quarter of the fiscal year 2020 for
procuring additional computer servers in anticipation of the increased network
traffic induced by online classes.

• Allocate at least PHP41.0 million to increase internet bandwidth and coverage

within SUC campuses (including extension campuses).

• Allocate at least PHP14.0 million for securing a reliable backup internet

connectivity in times of emergencies or disasters.

Adopting Best Procurement Practices for IT

• Allocate at least PHP120.91 million for acquiring learning management systems, e-

library, library management systems, and online subscriptions to electronic databases
(e.g. Elsevier) which allowed full access to the most recent e-books and journal
articles.

• Allocate at least PHP54.72 million to specifically procure various licensed software

(e.g.

• MATLAB) for research and instructional use either on-site or online.

pg. 131
 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

✓ Students were generally reported to rely on cellular phones and cellular data for
accomplishing their respective academic tasks. Hence, it is strongly recommended
that synchronous and asynchronous learning activities with low data consumption be
implemented.

✓ A budget allocation of at least PHP241.19 million was observed to establish a robust IT

infrastructure fully capable of implementing online modes of learning (i.e. online
learning made available by University of the Philippines).

✓ Since no significant investments necessary for the conduct of online modes of

learning were observed, it is strongly recommended that SUCs in the region
include in their Annual Procurement Plan (APP) acquisition of online learning
management and library management systems, and subscription to online
databases.

✓ Parallel to what has been observed for the procurement of learning and library
management systems and subscription to online electronic databases, it is also
strongly recommended that SUCs in the Bicol Region prioritize procurement of
software for research and instructional use.

✓ SUCs in the region are financially capable of the proposed online transition; however,
realignment of their appropriations specifically for improving their present IT
infrastructure is strongly recommended.

COMMENT AND READ MORE ABOUT THIS STUDY: https://www.ocdex.tech/suc-eating-

patterns-crucial-indicators-for-an-effective-implementation-of-online-modes-of-learning/

pg. 132
REFERENCES
SUC EATING PATTERNS: CRUCIAL INDICATORS FOR AN EFFECTIVE
IMPLEMENTATION OF ONLINE MODES OF LEARNING

CNN Philippines Staff. (2020, March 21). LIST: Online classes suspensions due to COVID-19. CNN
Philippines. Retrieved from https://cnnphilippines.com/news/2020/3/18/List-online-class-suspensions-
march-18.html

Commission on Higher Education. (2016). List of Centers of Excellence (COEs) and Centers of
Development (CODs) as of May 2016. Retrieved from https://ched.gov.ph/wp content/uploads/
2017/09/List-of-COE-COD-as-of-May-2016.pdf

Commission on Higher Education. (2020). Guidelines for the Prevention, Control and Mitigation of the
Spread of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). (Advisory No.
7). Retrieved from https://ched.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/CHED-ADVISORY-7-_nal.pdf

Congress of the Philippines. (2016). Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act (No. 10931).
Retrieved from https://www.o_cialgazette.gov.ph/downloads/2017/08aug/20170803-RA-10931-RRD
.pdf

Data Privacy Act. (2012). Retrieved from https://www.o_cialgazette.gov.ph/2012/08/15/republic-act-

no-10173/

Executive Secretary of the Philippines. (2020). Community Quarantine over the Entire Luzon and
Further Guidelines for the Management of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) Situation.
Retrieved from https://www.o_cialgazette.gov.ph/downloads/2020/03mar/20200316-MEMORAN
DUM-FROM-ES-RRD.pdf

Government Procurement Policy Board. (2020). Awarded Contracts. Retrieved from https://gppb
govph.com/ awardedcontracts.php

Hernando-Malipot, M. (2020). DepEd, gov't urged to prioritize safety of learners and teachers before
resuming classes. Manila Bulletin. Retrieved from https://news.mb.com.ph/2020/05/04/deped-govt-
urged-to-prioritize-safety-of-learners-and teachers-before-resuming-classes/Inter-Agency Task Force.
(2020). Resolution No. 40 s.2020. Retrieved from https://www.covid19.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/
2020/05/IATF-Resolution-No.-40.pdf

Kamaludeen, M., Ismaeel, S., Petrocelli, F., Carrington, C., & Scarfo, C. (2017, oct). Data-driven
technique to estimate the required broadband speed for K-12 schools. In Ihtc 2017 - ieee canada
international humanitarian technology conference 2017 (pp. 99{104). Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers Inc. doi: 10.1109/IHTC.2017.8058209

Li, C., & Lalani, F. (2020, April 29). The COVID-19 pandemic has changed education forever. This is
how. World Economic Forum. Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/
coronavirus-education-global-covid19-online-digital-learning/

Naperi, A. N., & Janer, S. S. (2018). Pro_le of Bicol Sucs: Basis for Policy Recommendation. Invention
Journal of Research Technology in Engineering & Management, 2 , 43 {51}. Retrieved from
www.ijrtem.com

pg. 133
Orbeta, A. C., & Paqueo, V. B. (2017). Who Bene_ts and Loses from an Untargeted Tuition Subsidy for
Students in SUCs? Philippine Institute for Development Studies. Retrieved from https://dirp4.pids.gov.
ph/websitecms/CDN/PUBLICATIONS/pidspn1703.pdf

Ornedo, J. M. (2020, May 4). Online classes anti-poor, unstable due to internet in the Philippines
|Rep.Salceda. MSN News. Retrieved from https://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/national/online-
classes-anti-poor-unstable-due-to-internet-in-the-philippines-rep-salceda/ar-BB13yXqR Owusu-
Fordjour, C., Koomson, C. K., & Hanson, D. (2020). The impact of COVID-19 on learning-the perspective
of the Ghanaian student. European Journal of Education Studies, 7 (3), 88{101. doi:
10.5281/zenodo.3753586

PhilGEPS. (2020). Standard reports and datasets. Retrieved from https://www.philgeps.gov.ph/

opendata.html

Poulin, R., & Straut, T. T. (2017). Distance Education Price and Cost Report. WICHE Cooperative for
Educational Technologies. Retrieved from https://_les.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED588914.pdf

Professional Regulation Commission. (2016). Top Performing Schools and Examinees int the October
2016 Certi_ed Public Accountant Licensure Examination. Retrieved from https://www.prc.gov.ph/
article/top-performing-schools-and-examinees-october-2016-certi_ed-public-accountant-licensure

Professional Regulation Commission. (2017). July 2017 Social Worker Licensure Examination
Topnotchers. Retrieved from https://www.prc.gov.ph/uploaded/documents/SW0717-T10 JMS.pdf

Professional Regulation Commission. (2018a). August 2018 Mining Engineer Licensure Examination Top-
notchers. Retrieved from https://www.prc.gov.ph/sites/default/_les/MINE0818t10 jg18.pdf

Professional Regulation Commission. (2018b). September 2018 Registered Electrical Engineer

Licensure Examination Topnotchers. Retrieved from https://www.prc.gov.ph/sites/default/_les/
REE0918t10jg18.pdf

Professional Regulation Commission. (2018c). October 2018 Geodetic Engineer Licensure Examination
Topnotchers. Retrieved from https://www.prc.gov.ph/sites/default/_les/Geodetic 2018t10 jg18.pdf

Professional Regulation Commission. (2018d). November 2018 Civil Engineer Licensure Examination
Topnotchers. Retrieved from https://www.prcboard.com/2018/11/Civil-Engineering-Board-Exam-
November-2018-Top-10-Topnotchers.html

Romero, A., & Romero, P. (2020, May 27). No Vaccine, No Classes? School Opening In Limbo;
Alternative Modes Of Learning Pushed. The Philippine Star. Retrieved from https://www.onenews.ph/
no-vaccine-no-classes-school-opening-in-limbo-alternative-modes-of-learning-pushed

Toquero, C. M. (2020, apr). Challenges and Opportunities for Higher Education amid the COVID-19
Pandemic: The Philippine Context. Pedagogical Research, 5 (4), em0063. doi: 10.29333/pr/7947
University of the Philippines. (2020). Massive Open Distance e-Learning. Retrieved from
https://model.upou.edu.ph

pg. 134
 CAN THE LGUS RESPOND TO LSIs?
A CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM TO QUALIFY CAPACITY OF
LOCAL GOVERNMENT UNITS (LGU) TO ACT ON ARRIVING
COVID-19 POSITIVE LOCALLY STRANDED INDIVIDUALS (LSI)
John Raymond Barajas
Department of Chemical Engineering, Bicol University, Legazpi City, Albay, Philippines

In response to the recent observed surge in confirmed COVID-19 cases, a

resiliency rating system was developed for local government units (LGU)
reported to have been widely affected by the arrival of asymptomatic
COVID-19 positive locally stranded individuals (LSI). The developed resiliency
system classified LGUs in these regions as “Low", “Moderate", and “High". LGUs
categorized in the “Low" group were observed to be least capable of
absorbing the influx of suspected COVID-19 positive LSIs into their presently
struggling healthcare systems while “Moderate" and “High" LGU groups were
found capable of accommodating the influx of said individuals. Analysis of the
data showed that the capacity of an LGU to properly manage the arrival of
such individuals are largely dependent on the number of hospitals situated
within the boundaries of an LGU. As the findings of this work suggested, LGUs
with the least number of COVID-19 dedicated hospitals are most vulnerable
to health system shocks and paralysis.

pg. 135
 BACKGROUND OVERVIEW

Testing of Locally Stranded Individuals

Due to the public outcry on the reported deaths of LSIs who were not able to return to their
hometowns (Tan, 2020; Petinglay, 2020), the urgency promulgated by the sensualization of
these accounts could have resulted to the omission of negative COVID-19 test results as one
of the primary criteria for allowing LSIs to travel to their home provinces. As detailed in the
National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19 Order Number 2020-02 (NTF, 2020), COVID-19
tests prior to travel of LSIs are not mandatory. Parallel to what WHO has recently observed
(WHO, 2020b), this relaxed requirement could also be one of the significant factors that
possibly induced the recent surge in COVID-19 cases in the country.

The Challenge of Accommodating Locally Stranded Individuals

Handling the arrivals of such individuals who are suspected to be COVID-19 positive would
certainly be very challenging. There have already been instances where local government
units (LGU) have already been reported to be “panicking" due to the necessary testing,
isolation, and proper management of arriving LSIs while under the dilemma of ensuring non-
discrimination of these individuals upon entry to their home provinces (CNN Philippines Staff,
2020). This has been specifically observed to those LGUs who were reported to be “COVID-
free" prior to the implementation of the “Hatid Probinsya" initiative (CNN Philippines Staff,
2020). With these presented arguments, it is therefore necessary to consider the capacity of
an LGU to successfully manage arrivals of these LSIs parallel to the on-going review of the
said program(Desacada, 2020).

Proposed Measure

In order to propose data-driven recommendations for the described issue, this analyzed
“resiliency" of LGUs in Region V and Region VII – regions where most LSIs have been reported
to be COVID-19 positive – in the context of historical government procurement data merged
with recently published COVID-19 data. Through the use of a multi-criterion objective
approach, a total of 25 LGUs were identified to capably absorb the influx of LSIs who would
turn out to be COVID-19 positive while a total of 7 LGUs were perceived to struggle in
effectively managing such LSIs due to the very high numbers of active COVID-19 cases in
their respective areas.

Research Objective and Questions

pg. 136
The objective of this proposal is to collate and analyze information on COVID-19 related
procurement activities and data of LGUs from Region V and Region VII and subsequently
use this information to categorize these areas in accordance to their observed ”resiliency"
to the inux of possible COVID-19 positive LSIs. In this premise, recommendations could be
drawn out from the implemented analysis.

The research questions are as follows:

• In terms of the targeted resiliency attributes, what are the characteristics of an LGU
that has been found to demonstrate low resiliency especially to the inux of COVID-19
positive LSIs?

• In terms of the targeted resiliency attributes, what are the characteristics of an LGU
that has been found to demonstrate high resiliency especially to the inux of COVID-
19 positive LSIs?

• What is the most crucial resiliency attribute of an LGU that defines its capacity to be
resilient especially to the inux of COVID-19 positive LSIs?

• What insights can be drawn from the developed resiliency classification to help in
recommending a decision to whether accommodate arriving LSIs?

METHODOLOGY

Procurement Data Source

The most recent standard and open Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System
(PhilGEPS) dataset (PhilGEPS, 2020) which contained the details on bid award notices
(including bid details on Alternative Modes of Procurement) for the period January-March
2020 was used as one of the primary sources procurement data for the identi_ed LGUs of
Region V and Region VII with high cases of COVID-19 positive LSIs. This collected data was
further supplemented with COVID-19 awarded contracts (accessed on June 25, 2020)
recently published by the Government Procurement Policy Board [GPPB] (2020). In its totality,
the collected data represented procurement activities of the identified LGUs from January-
May 2020.

pg. 137
COVID-19 Data Source

The Philippine COVID-19 data, officially published through the DOH COVID-19 tracker (DOH,
2020), was used to identify the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, recoveries, and
COVID-19 related deaths. With the purpose of maintaining consistency in building the data
frame merging the collected procurement data, analysis was purposely limited to the
COVID-19 data published as of June 14, 2020. Though this data did not include the most
recent reported COVID-19 sources, initial screening of the data as required by the
implemented multi-criterion objective approach revealed that the volume of the collected
data is already sufficient for data processing and analysis.

Data Preparation and Transformation

While the PhilGEPS January-March 2020 data (PhilGEPS, 2020) were found to contain minimal
trivial entries, the GPPB data (GPPB, 2020) was restructured due to the inconsistencies of this
data frame. As no consistent pattern in errors was found, assessment of the suitability of each
entry in the GPPB data for analysis was manually assessed row wise. After rebuilding the GPPB
data (GPPB, 2020) into a format similar to that of the collected PhilGEPS data (PhilGEPS,
2020), both of these datasets were merged into a single data frame for further analysis.

The published COVID-19 data (DOH, 2020) was generally found to have missing entries. As
of June 14, 2020, about 7909 entries were found not to be useful due to the lack in critical
information such as the patient residence, case classification, and date tested. To ensure
robustness of the applied analysis, such entries were omitted from the cleaned COVID-19
data frame. This cleaned data frame containing about 18021 COVID-19 case information
was fitered represented 3507 confirmed cases for a variety of LGUs in Region V and Region
VII. Similar data preparations were done to align the structure and format of the Region V
and Region VII filtered COVID-19 data to the cleaned procurement data.

Assumption of LSI Data

Due to the inavailability of LSI data, an assumption was made to include this as one
parameter for analysis. As consistently cited by several reports (Guadalquiver, 2020; Estabillo,
2020; Ostria, 2020; Barcia, 2020), COVID-19 cases confirmed for the month of June 2020 and
1st week of July 2020 could mostly be attributed to returning LSIs in these regions. this data
was then assumed to be equal to the number of active cases reported by Region V and
Region VII for the entire month of June 2020 and 1st week of July 2020. This assumed data
consisted of about 5185 confirmed cases. Cross-validation through random sampling for a
number of this assumed data from press releases made by Department of Health Center for
Health Development (DOH-CHD) Region V through its official Facebook page (DOH-CHD,
2020) further supported this assumption.

pg. 138
Cross-validation for assumed LSI data for Region VII could not be made, however, no LSI
related data could be extracted from its official press releases. While statistical power is lost
due to possible introduction of unwarranted biases with this data imputation applied, this
was still considered since this was still seen to demonstrate suficient reliability for analysis (Xu
et al., 2020).

Contextualizing LGU Resiliency in Terms of Properly Managing Positive COVID-19 Cases

Taking into consideration definitions of COVID-19 resilient systems made by Legido-Quigley
et al. (2020), the LGU resiliency being contextualized in this study can be described by the
following key points:

• Immediate proactive actions were made through the readjustment of surveillance

systems for contact tracing.

• All concerned areas adapted financial measures to allow government agencies to

shoulder costs for treating patients.

• Concrete plans were made to sustain routine health-care services.

• Critical care treatment and drugs were made available for patients diagnosed with
COVID-19.

• Personal protective equipment (PPE) in hospitals and other related facilities were
readily available.

• Capacitating health personnel through trainings and adherence to infection

prevention and control measures in hospitals was done.

• Information systems were available, appropriately managed, and used daily for
meetings between health managers and key government officials.

Collectively analyzing these statements point towards the financial capacity of an LGU to
faithfully perform such tasks which would enable it to proactively mitigate the impacts of
COVID-19 to its people. With this established definition, a multi-criterion objective approach
was implemented as described in literature (Thanassoulis et al., 2017; Zavadskas & Podvezko,
2016). The following criterions was used to build the model in accordance to the derived
definition of LGU resiliency:

• Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) (I1, Input): This criterion pertains to the share of
revenues an LGU will receive from the Philippine National Government.

• Total Approved Budget Contract (ABC) (I2, Input): This criterion pertains to the sum of
ABCs of all COVID-19 related tenders made by an LGU.

pg. 139
 • Total Number of Contracts (I3, Input): This criterion corresponds to the total number of
COVID-19 related tenders made by an LGU.

• Number of Active Cases (I4, Input): This criterion corresponds to the total number of
active COVID-19 cases reported per LGU as of June 14, 2020.

• Approximate Number of COVID-19 Positive LSI (I5, Input): This criterion corresponds to
the estimated number of LSIs that are con_rmed to be COVID-19 positive in each LGU.

• Recovered (O1, Output): This criterion corresponds to the total number of recovered
COVID-19 patients for each LGU.

• Total PPE (O2, Output): This criterion corresponds to the sum of all head, hand, shoe,
and body PPE made available in hospitals for each LGU.

• Total Bed (O3, Output): This criterion corresponds to the sum of ICU units, isolation
beds, bed wards, and mechanical vents dedicated for COVID-19 positive patients for
each LGU.

• Number of Hospital (O4, Output): This criterion pertains to the total number of hospitals
within the area of scope of each LGU.

Focus for input criterions was given to the financial capacity of an LGU and the number of
LSIs that are estimated to be COVID-19 positive. In contrast, output criterions were assigned
to the number of COVID-19 recovered patients, PPEs, and hospital capacity as derived from
the resiliency de_nition of Legido-Quigley et al. (2020). Finally, the model built out of these
identi_ed input and output criterions were used to determine the resiliency scores for each
identified Region V and Region VII LGUs.

pg. 140
 RESULTS AND INSIGHTS

Classification of COVID-19 Cases in Region V

Note: This visualization represents COVID-19 data as of June 14, 2020. This was purposely
done to maintain consistency with the collected procurement data.

Estimated LSI Data for Region V

Note: This visualization represents extracted LSI data as of July 8, 2020.

pg. 141
Classification of LGUs in Accordance to Calculated Resiliency Scores

As described in literature (Thanassoulis et al., 2017; Zavadskas & Podvezko, 2016), an LGU
with a resiliency score closest to unity (i.e. 1.0) is considered to be most resilient. Hence.
based on the capacity of an LGU to finance (i.e. I1, I2, and I3) their fight against the on-set
of the COVID-19 pandemic, the resiliency classification for each LGU could be grouped into
three (3) general categories, namely “High", “Moderate", and “Low". The ranges for the
classification are further shown in Figure 79.

Figure 79: Ranges for the Classification of LGUs

Crucial LGU Attributes

pg. 142
 Table 19: Ranking of LGU Attributes

Capacity of LGUs in Region V to

ACT on LSIs

High
High recovery rate
>3 hospitals in vicinity
Mod-High no. of LSIs
Mod-High no. active COVID-19 cases

Moderate
Low recovery rate
1-2 hospitals in vicinity
Low no. of LSIs
Low no. active COVID-19 cases

Low
Low recovery rate
Mod-High no. of LSIs
1-2 hospitals in vicinity
Mod-High no. active COVID-19 cases
Table 20: List of LGUs and their Resiliency Scores

The resilience classification suggested in this work can be summarized as follows:

• LGUs categorized with “Low" resiliency was generally reported to have a significant
number of active COVID-19 cases and approximate COVID-19 positive LSI cases. The
limited number of hospitals situated in these LGU suggested that additional inux of
arriving COVID-19 positive LSIs would likely cause a paralysis in their health system
(Legido-Quigley et al., 2020; Hanefeld et al., 2018).

pg. 143
 • LGUs categorized with “Moderate" resiliency was generally reported to have a
relatively low number of active COVID-19 cases and approximate COVID-19 positive
LSI cases. While these LGUs could still accommodate arriving COVID-19 positive LSIs,
the maximum capacity and limited number of hospitals situated in these LGUs should
be taken into consideration to prevent health system shocks (Legido-Quigley et al.,
2020; Hanefeld et al., 2018).

• LGUs categorized with “High" resiliency was generally reported to have a relatively
low number of active COVID-19 cases and approximate COVID-19 positive LSI cases.
There is a signi_cant number of hospitals situated within these LGUs and this strongly
suggested that arriving LSIs could be accommodated by their current health system.
However, strategic planning and adherence to stringent health protocols are still
necessary to prevent instances of health system shocks (Legido-Quigley et al., 2020;
Hanefeld et al., 2018).

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

✓ It is suggested that LGUs who would fall under the classification of “Low” to limit the
entry of LSIs into their area if the LGU do not have the capacity to immediately conduct
COVID-19 tests on-site to these arriving individuals.
✓ It is also suggested that LGUs with resilience categorized as “Low” to include in their
budgets, measures for resiliency in the next procurement cycle. review the
implementation of their Annual Procurement Plan (APP). The greatest number of
COVID19 related tenders with ABCs observed to be significantly larger than that of
“Moderate” and “High” groups were observed in these LGUs.
✓ To prevent further spread of COVID-19, LGUs classified as “Moderate” and “High” are
strongly suggested to implement stringent health protocols while ensuring that arriving
LSIs are not discriminated.
✓ As a long-term solution to sustain resiliency of the health system of an LGU, it is further
suggested that those LGUs grouped as “Moderate” and “Low” invest heavily in their
present health system to increase the number of hospitals located within their
boundaries to at least three (3).

COMMENT AND READ MORE ABOUT THIS STUDY: https://www.ocdex.tech/suc-eating-

patterns-crucial-indicators-for-an-effective-implementation-of-online-modes-of-learning/

pg. 144
REFERENCES
CAN THE LGUS RESPOND TO LSIs? A CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM
TO QUALIFY CAPACITY OF LGUs TO ACT ON ARRIVING COVID-
19 POSITIVE LOCALLY STRANDED INDIVIDUALS
Aguilar, K. (2020, June 29). Cebu City looming as new COVID-19 epicenter { DILG. Inquirer.net. Retrieved from
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1298930/cebu-city-looming-as-new-covid-19-epicenter-dilg

Barcia, R. (2020, July 8). Bicol records highest spike in COVID-19 cases, all returning residents. Rappler. Retrieved
from https://www.rappler.com/nation/265973-bicol-records-highest-increase-coronavirus-cases-july-7-2020

Cayton, P. J., & Sarmiento, J. G. (2020). Compendium of Philippine COVID-19 Statistics As of July 3, 2020 Volume
III: Cities and Municipalities of Visayas and Mindanao. Retrieved from https://drive. google.
com/_le/d/1DBypRiNol1J7TfNlLiyvBWA2lSAeI4BK/view

CNN Philippines Staff. (2020, June 22). LGUs 'panicking' but no lapses found in Hatid Probinsya Program { Roque.
CNN Philippines. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.ph/news/2020/6/22/Hatid-Probinsya-Program-COVID-19-
cases-provinces-Roque0.html

David, G., Rye, R. S., Agbulos, M. P., Austriaco, N., Alampay, E., Brillantes, E. R., . . . Vallejo, B. (2020). COVID-19
Forecasts in the Philippines: NCR, Cebu And COVID-19 Hotspots as of June 25, 2020 (No. 11). Retrieved from
https://www.up.edu.ph/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/UP-OCTA-Report-No
-11-June-29-updated.pdf

Department of Health. (2020). Covid-19 Tracker. Retrieved from https://www.doh.gov.ph/covid 19tracker

Department of Health Center for Health Development. (2020, July 8). As of July 8, 2020 (8PM), con_rmed cases
of COVID-19 recorded in Bicol Region are one hundred ninety-eight (198). Retrieved from
https://www.facebook.com/dohbicol/

Department of the Interior and Local Government. (2020). Memorandum Circular No. 2020-087. Retrieved from
https://www.dilg.gov.ph/PDF File/issuances/memo circulars/dilg-memocircular
-2020521 a38badf755.pdf

Desacada, M. (2020). Palace: Government reviewing `balik probinsya'. The Philippine Star. Retrieved from
https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2020/06/22/2022647/palace-government-reviewing-hatid-probinsya

Estabillo, A. (2020, June 10). Passengers of Cebu ight linked to 4 Covid-19 cases monitored. Philippine News
Agency. Retrieved from https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1105503 Executive Secretary of the Philippines. (2020).
Community Quarantine over the Entire Luzon and Further Guidelines for the Management of the Coronavirus
Disease 2019 (Covid-19) Situation. Retrieved from https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/downloads/2020/03mar/
20200316-MEMORANDUM-FROM-ES-RRD.pdf

Government Procurement Policy Board. (2020). Awarded Contracts. Retrieved from https://gppbgovph.com/
awardedcontracts.php

Guadalquiver, N. (2020, June 12). 4 Negrense LSIs from Cebu, 1 OFW test positive for Covid-19. Philippine News
Agency. Retrieved from https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1105722

Hanefeld, J., Mayhew, S., Legido-Quigley, H., Martineau, F., Karanikolos, M., Blanchet, K., . . . Balabanova, D.
(2018). Towards an understanding of resilience: responding to health systems shocks. Health policy and planning,
33 (10), 1144. Retrieved from https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article-abstract/33/3/355/ 4794875 doi:
10.1093/heapol/czy087

pg. 145
 A L

Approved Annual Procurement Plan (APP, 6 local government units, 93, 20, 21

B M

Bid Documents, 6, 7 Microsoft Excel, 25

Bids and Awards Committee, 15, 71, 108

Business intelligence, 41 O
OCDex, 23, 28, 35, 39, 64
C OCDS, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 79, 80, 81

Commission on Audit, 15 online classes, 8, 15, 16

Competition, 17 Open Contracting Partnership, 4, 8

construction, 18, 57, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, Open data, 4

114, 115, 2, 4, 5 Open government data, 4

Consulting Services, 18, 19, 20, 66, 71

COVID-19, 85, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 107, 108, P
109, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26,
PhilGEPS, 9, 10, 11, 15, 23, 25, 26, 34, 37, 38, 39, 43,
27, 28, 29, 30
44, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62, 64, 65, 66, 72, 73, 10, 19, 22,
23
G Philippine procurement, 5, 6, 9, 15, 28, 79, 80

Goods, 9, 18, 19, 63, 66, 67, 68, 69, 71, 73, 76, 6 Prescribed Procurement Timeline, 19, 20, 21

Government Procurement Policy Board, 15, 61, 108, procurement process, 1, 8, 14, 15, 17, 24, 33, 37, 41,

6, 7, 10, 18, 22, 30 43, 64, 79, 102, 103, 108, 5

Government Procurement Reform Act, 9, 14, 43, 62,

108 R
R Studio, 11, 12, 26, 27, 35
H RA9184, 9, 18

HIV/AIDS, 1, 32, 33, 35, 38, 39

T
I Tableau, 27, 28

Infrastructure, 18, 19, 21, 6 Transparency, 17

Invitation to Bid (IB),, 6

U
United Nations Convention Against Corruption, 17

pg. 146
 © Layertech
email: [email protected]
http://www.layertechlab.com