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THE Commission on Higher Education (CHED) maintains
that there is no illegal transaction or irregularity in its P500
million call center laboratory development project.
Atty. Julito D. Vitriolo,
chairman of the Commission’s bids and awards committee, reacted
thus to allegations published in some newspapers that prompted CHED
acting Chairman Romulo Neri to order its investigation.
“Every contract or transaction
that involves the call center project, including the contracting the
services of the Integrated Multi-Site Business Process Outsourcing
Incubation Contact Center (BPO-ICC), is regular and above board,”
Vitriolo said.
The CHED official pointed out
that the project itself was authorized by law and all transactions
that pertained to it, or done to implement it, were supported by
various board resolutions unanimously approved and duly signed by
the CHED chair and his commissioners.
Atty. Vitriolo pointed out that
the project, including the allocation and utilization of the
P500-million budget of the call center budget, was approved through
CHED Resolution Nos. 117-2006 and 210-2006.
CHED’s decision to include only
six state universities and colleges (SUCs) in its first batch of
project grantees was contained at the unanimously approved
Resolution No. 711-2006 dated October 16.
The CHED official said the number
of grantees was scaled down due to limited funds. Out of
P500-million budget for the original 16 SUCs, only P300 million was
turned over to CHED. Some P250 million was still with the Department
of Budget Management (DBM).
Leading these six SUCs was the
Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP)—the country’s
biggest state university with its more than 56,000 students. PUP has
10 branches and extensions in seven provinces and five campuses in
Metro Manila.
He also assured that the project,
“is almost 85 percent complete, as of date.”
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