The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has sought the help of the Department of Justice to terminate the contract for the printing of the controversial airport arrival-departure (A/D) cards.
Immigration officer-in-charge Ronaldo Ledesma has recommended to Justice Secretary Leila de Lima to cancel the contract after they have found out that there was no bidding for its award and that it did not undergo review by the Justice department.
Ledesma said that the bureau would ask the Airline Operators Council (AOC) to re-assume the responsibility for printing the cards.
The AOC formerly handled the printing of the cards, for free, until the BI entered into an exclusive, 15-year contract with e.Xtend, Inc. to print the cards during the previous administration. The contract allowed e.Xtend, Inc. to solicit advertisements and print them on the cards.
“Today, I have ordered Atty. Arvin Santos, chief of the BI airport operations division, to immediately send a formal notice to the contractor that we are terminating the (A/D card) contract,†Ledesma said.
Last month, a review on the e.Xtend’s contract, which was signed by the previous Immigration commissioner in May 2009, did not go through competitive bidding, nor was it subjected to a DOJ review as required by law.
He also said that the contractor failed to seek permission of the bureau to place controversial images in the cards before their printing and distribution.
The Immigration chief cited two particular instances of e.Xtend’s failure to clear printed materials: President Benigno Aquino III’s picture, which the President ordered removed upon seeing them in September, and recently Dr. Vicki Belo’s advertisement for medical tourism. (PNA)
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