Village telephones: A waste of $137M

By Ma. Cecilia Rodriguez, Julie Alipala
Inquirer

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY—Before the National Broadband Network deal, there was the government’s Telepono Sa Barangay (TSB) project.

The TSB was a multimillion-dollar project started by the Commission on Information and Communication Technology (CICT) in the provinces of Mt. Province, Benguet, Abra, Apayao, Ifugao, and Kalinga, Quezon, Negros Oriental, Lanao del Norte, Zamboanga del Sur, Zamboanga del Norte, Nueva Vizcaya and Misamis Occidental, including this city, in 1998.

CICT is an attached agency of the Office of the President.

Little attention

Unlike the NBN, the TSB project appears to have stirred little or no interest at all among national leaders.

Despite claims it was riddled with graft, the TSB deal remained untouched by either the House or the Senate.

And so, in the absence of interest among lawmakers, some local officials are taking the initiative to scrutinize the deal behind the TSB.

In this city, the P50-million contract for the installation of a telephone system in rural barangays have outraged opposition figures who likened it to the NBN deal.

Local plan

The project under the TSB here was conceived in 2003 under the administration of former mayor Vicente Emano and contracted to Supplier Contractor and Network Communications Inc. (Scantel).

Opposition councilors said that of the 50 barangays targeted for the project, only four have actually received the telephone systems.

City councilors Roger Abaday and Zaldy Ocon have openly criticized the deal, saying the awarding of contract to Scantel was highly irregular.

They backed their claim with the annual audit report for 2005 by the City Auditor’s Office (COA), in which it was said that city hall failed to comply with auditing procedures with regards to the contract.

No design

“The city general services office (CGSO) failed to completely and promptly submit to the office of the audit team leader the necessary detailed engineering documents for timely review and verification of the contract for the P50-million City Rural Telephone System,” the document read.

City auditors said for four years since 2003, they have been calling the attention of local officials to act on the audit report but to no avail.

The COA also questioned the disbursement of project funds, made at a time they were asking for a review of the contract.

In its report, the COA said as of December 2005, P31 million had already been paid to the contractor despite its failure to do its job.

In various radio interviews, Emano, who is now vice mayor, repeatedly denied any anomaly behind the Scantel project.

He said he was willing to be investigated.

Defective

But Abaday and Ocon said there was no need to look farther to determine that the deal was really irregular.

They said that in the four barangays where the project was delivered, defective pieces of equipment were provided, which rendered them useless.

In Salug, Zamboanga del Norte, local officials are also demanding an explanation from the national government over the fate of the multimillion-dollar TSB project there.

Salug Mayor Jesus Lim said they consider the TSB project “as souvenir, a display and orange elephant.”

Since 2000, 92 telephone booths had been installed in 23 villages of the town but residents have no use for them.

On its website, however, the CICT said that “all the systems are now operational in provincial levels.”

Dead phones

Lim said he did not know of any working unit in his town installed under the TSB.

“It’s an ugly orange sight sending a wrong impression to the people. These are all white elephants. These telephone lines are all wasted. The funds used for these units are also wasted,” Edgar Saldias, a Salug councilor, said.

The Inquirer tested some units in Barangay Mucas and found that none worked.

In Liloy, Zamboanga del Norte, 65-year-old farmer Sixto Lagala said in 2000, the phones were working when these were still newly installed.

Fortunata Postigo, an equipment operator for the Department of Transportation and Communication in Salug, confirmed that most of the units installed under the TSB project were not working anymore.

She said some working units were converted into “telepono sa kabahayan” so that residents could make use of them.

Postigo said with the installation of the lines intended for the phone booths to residences, they were able to provide communication facilities to about 200 consumers within Zamboanga del Norte.