The Palawan Report

Word has gone around that the newly beefed up City Council of Puerto Princesa has purchased 13 units of high end notebooks, one each for its members. The unit is reportedly a branded travel computer fitted with thumb print recognition, a built in web cam and a whopping 2-gig internal memory for speed processing.

Now, that’s something of a news item from a legislative body that has generally failed to attract media interest because of the lack of any interesting initiative to cover. The last story that came out of it was about a fumbling resolution that was just out of this world that at least provided some comic relief.

This bit of news should prompt the local media to troop to next Monday’s session if only to see how each one cope with their new toy. That should be an interesting photo op.

One wonders if the laptop issue, at taxpayers’ expense, will help at all raise the quality of debate in this chamber, which has been perceived as no more than an old boys club that serves as a rubber stamp to the mayor’s own policy and legislative agenda.

One constructive suggestion is to perhaps wi-fi the session hall so that the councilors can research on the topics at hand while deliberating. That should make for an interesting debate, with flashes of brilliance like “Your honor, but according to Google…”

Update to Post (5/28  )

This controversy must have pricked some sensitivities such that several councilors have opted not to receive their respective units from the supplier after the issue became a hot topic in DYPR’s morning commentary programs.

It appears that the laptops were overpriced by around P30,000 each (there were 13 units purchased). By one of the councilor’s own admission, there was also no requisite bidding involved and no supporting decision was ever made by the Council, in the form of a resolution, to justify the expense.

Technically, it looks like a case of malversation, notwithstanding the explanation offered by one of the councilors who swore they entered into the transaction with only good intentions.

According to the interior department, the purchase itself was questionable in the sense that the per unit price could not be justified under existing regulations.

An interesting observation was made by Palawan Sun reporter Jhelyn Andal who notes that of all the Councilor’s offices, only two have a PC unit assigned to the staff - one with Councilor Becky Labit and another with Jimmy Carbonnel. Labit’s unit is defective and Carbonnel’s was borrowed from another office. It sounds like the councilors problems revolves around the more basic set up of not having the basic PC equipment for their staff to perform secretarial and legislative support work.

Let’s not kid ourselves anymore to even give credence to knee jerk explanations that these laptops are meant to address a legitimate work need of each individual councilor. They weren’t even contemplated. One councilor even told DYPR that he did not know about the laptop issuance; it just popped up one morning and realized he has this new thing. Someone must have been window shopping and decided he wanted one of those shiny new toys.