New: R2KRN FOI Practice Report on FASTrAC
For over a decade, the Right to Know, Right Now! Coalition has cultivated a freedom of information (FOI) practice to test, make use of and strengthen FOI mechanisms in the country as an essential component to claiming the people’s right to know. For 2022-2025, the coalition focuses its FOI Practice on the abuse of state resources (ASR) around elections. Coalition members tracked and monitored the campaign platforms and commitments of candidates in the 2022 national elections. Post-elections, the coalition did a report on candidates’ statements of contributions and expenditures. Understanding the significance of the automated elections system and the heft of the contracts for new suppliers, the coalition now looks into the procurement of the PhP17.99-billion FASTrAC (Full Automation System with Transparency Audit Count ) system for the May 2025 national and local elections.
After the COMELEC contract was awarded to the “MIRU- ICS-STCC-CPSTI Joint Venture” on March 11, 2024, R2KRN launched its FOI research and review of the contract to pursue these objectives:
- To check, validate, and express our concerns about the procurement and context observations about this contract that COMELEC may wish to address or clarify;
- To provide anchor and reference for R2KRN’s continued monitoring of contract implementation by COMELEC, and contract performance by the Miru Joint Venture;
- To promote deeper understanding of the FASTrAC automated election system among our network members;
- To share our and learnings from this FOI practice among procurement monitors, civil society organizations; and
- To highlight lessons on how contracting processes and standards may be improved and made more transparent and accountable for future projects and contracts in the public sector.
The report acknowledges the COMELEC’s full and prompt response to our FOI requests by providing the R2KRN team all the documents and even annexes covering the contract, and sitting down with them for clarificatory meetings.
This report is an independent, non-partisan initiative of R2KRN. Members of the R2KRN team avoided any contact with those behind other ongoing initiatives from start to finish. They neither took part nor help in any way at all in the research, writing, editing, and production of the report.
The R2KRN report consists of five parts:
- Part 1, public release on Tuesday, June 25
The Beneficial Owners & Officers of the Miru JV: Strange bedfellows
- Part 2: public release on Wednesday, June 26
The Miru JV Partners: No money woes for PhP18-B poll contract?
- Part 2 Sidebar: public release on Wednesday, June 26
St. Timothy’s checkered record: Many projects, negative slippages
- Part 3: public release on Thursday June 27
Procurement law and the Miru JV: More to verify, validate, ascertain
- Part 4: public release on Thursday, June 27
Crazy, dicey? Why? How?: Contractors snare billions for laptops, PPEs, elections
This report builds on data, information, and pertinent laws that R2KRN acquired, as well as on interviews with relevant and informed sources that R2KRN conducted, over the last three months. These include:
- The latest and all available filings made by the concerned entities with the Securities and Exchange Commission (General Information Sheet, Audited Financial Statements, and records of the SEC Compliance Monitoring Division);
- Data provided by the Department of Public Works and Highways from its Project and Contract Management Application (PCMA) database on the “Physical Status Reports” of the ongoing contracts that St. Timothy Construction Corporation secured from the DPWH and other implementing agencies for Fiscal Years 2022, 2023, and 2024, as of April 30, 2024;
- Data and project contracts provided by the DPWH Procurement Service, DPWH Bureau of Quality and Safety, DPWH Bureau of Construction-Project Monitoring Division, and DPWH FOI Desk;
- Certification issued by the Philippine Contractors Accreditation Board (PCAB);
- Relevant laws and DPWH issuances on standard project duration and penalties for negative slippages of contracts;
- Data and policy issuances available from the Government Procurement Policy Board and Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PhilGEPS);
- Relevant jurisprudence and published notices of award of contracts by other government agencies related to the Philippine partners of the Miru JV;
- Interviews with informed procurement and revenue sources, and contractors; and
- News media reports, official websites, and social media posts of the concerned entities, persons, and other informed sources
At the end of all the five reports there is a “Related Documents” button where source documents and files could be retrieved.