BY CHRYSEE G. SAMILLANO
It’s time to abolish the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM) because it is redundant and has taken a lot of functions not originally intended for them, Senator Francis Tolentino said during the weekend.
Tolentino, who was in Bacolod City Sunday for the highlights of the MassKara Festival, said the PS-DBM is just supposed to take care of commonly used office supplies such as ball pens and pencils, and not high end computers, laptops and other things. So it has developed into a “bureaucratic Frankenstein” and should be abolished.
The PS-DBM has been dragged into several alleged anomalies such as the purchase of overpriced pandemic response supplies from Pharmally and recently, overpriced laptops bought by the Department of Education.
Meanwhile, Tolentino said he came to show support to the MassKara Festival because it is the first MassKara after two and a half years of the COVID pandemic.
It just shows a resurgence of local tourism and economy. So, it should be emulated by other local governments like Cebu which will be holding Sinulog in January, as well as Iloilo’s Dinagyang and other festivities including Baguio in February, he said.
So MassKara should serve as a model and people should show support, participate and be encouraged in a local festivity such as the MassKara, Tolentino added.*
