Manila: Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman on Monday warned contractors and suppliers that long-practiced tricks and shady schemes in government bidding would no longer work under the newly enacted New Government Procurement Act (NGPA). ‘Style n’yo bulok (Your tricks are rotten),’ Pangandaman said, referring to schemes such as ‘palit-ulo’ (head swapping), ‘palit-pangalan’ (name change), and the use of dummy company owners. ‘The shady dummy bidding schemes in government projects will no longer get through under the NGPA,’ she added.
According to Philippines News Agency, a key provision of Republic Act No. 12009, signed by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. in July 2024, requires full disclosure of ‘beneficial ownership’, revealing the true individuals who own or control entities seeking government contracts. ‘The disclosure of beneficial ownership is a powerful feature of the new law because it ensures that conflicts of interest in public procurement are avoided. Under the NGPA, the old tricks of palit-pangalan, palit-ulo, at dummy company owners will no longer work,’ Pangandaman said.
Citing a 2023 survey of 180 agencies by the Government Procurement Policy Board-Technical Support Office (GPPB-TSO), the budget chief noted that 65.8 percent of bidders were linked to the same owners, while 71.6 percent were related to government officials. With the NGPA’s implementing rules now in force, suppliers must submit beneficial ownership records to the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PhilGEPS) to maintain their Platinum eligibility.
‘As of now, out of 12,769 PhilGEPS Platinum-registered corporations. only 6,766 have submitted their beneficial ownership documents. The non-submission. automatically suspends their registration,’ said Procurement Service-DBM Executive Director Genmaries Entredicho-Caong. To further tighten screening, the GPPB and PhilGEPS, with help from the World Bank and Open Ownership, are building a public online registry and analytics tool to detect collusion and red flags in real time.
Pangandaman emphasized that the reform is not only about blocking fraud, but restoring public trust. ‘Transparency and accountability are non-negotiable. Government funds must only go to legitimate bidders – and to real owners who are willing to stand by their names,’ she said.
