Published
By Charissa Luci-Atienza
The House Committee on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on Wednesday, May 20, called on concerned stakeholders to submit next week their position paper on a bill requiring all government departments, offices, and agencies to establish their respective Sustainable Procurement Program.
House of the Representatives (ALVIN KASIBAN / MANILA BULLETIN / FILE PHOTO)
The House panel, chaired by ALONA party-list Rep. Anna Marie Villaraza-Suarez, asked Government Procurement Policy Board (GPPB), the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), Commission on Audit (COA), and other concerned stakeholders to submit their official comment on House Bill No. 6526, the proposed Green Public Procurement Act, from May 25 to May 27.
“We request the resource speakers as much as possible if they can submit [their position paper] by May 25 as early as that, perhaps we can give them until May 27 then definitely we will have the second meeting on the second [of June],” Villaraza-Suarez said during the initial virtual hearing on HB 6526, principally authored by Deputy Speaker and Camarines Sur 2nd District Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte.
The House panel initially directed the resource persons to submit their position on May 28.
It gave in to the request made by Quezon Rep. David “Jay-Jay” Suarez to move the submission of the position papers to an earlier date to ensure the approval of Villafuerte’s bill before Congress goes on sine die adjournment on June 5.
“We can move it a little bit earlier and do another committee hearing earlier because I want to make sure to get the bill moving before we go on break,” said Rep. David Suarez, who expressed his intention as a co-author of the bill.
During the virtual hearing, Villafuerte appealed to his colleagues to pass his bill, citing the need to implement the program “geared toward responsible and sustainable consumption and production with the end view of having a fully circular economy.”
“Considering that the title of the bill and the intent is just really to establish a green procurement program, wala po itong appropriation, walang tax exemption (This does not have appropriation, no tax exemption). It is just institutionalizing a program, walang (no) controversial provision,” he said.
“In fact, the GPPB has confirmed they already have a roadmap. I am just earnestly requesting our colleagues to approve this measure. If you will look at it, it is just establishing a program, institutionalizing program and the Procurement Board is more than happy to say that they are happy to institutionalize [it],” he said.
In his bill’s explanatory note, the House leader explained that under the concept of sustainable procurement or green purchasing, public organizations meet their needs for goods, services, works and utilities in a way that benefits not only the organization, but also society and the economy, while minimizing damage to the environment.
“Through this policy, governments can drive innovation and provide the industry with incentives to develop green products and services,” he said.
He noted that studies have shown that green public procurement may provide financial savings for government purchasers considering the full life-cycle costs of a procurement contract.
He said that in Europe, public procurement criteria have already began adopting life-cycle costing or a method of considering all the costs that will be incurred during the lifetime of a procured product, work, or service.
Life-cycle costs may also include the cost of externalities such as greenhouse house emissions associated with the product, he said.
“As party to the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopting a sustainable public procurement legal framework concretizes the country’s commitment to the ideals of Sustainable Development Goal No. 12 on Responsible Consumption and Production,” Villafuerte said.
In his manifestation, Lanao del Norte 1st District Rep. Mohamad Khalid Dimaporo asked the House panel to further scrutinize Villafuerte’s bill before passing it.
“I went through the bill, it doesn’t specifically detail what the program is… If we are going to pass this bill, it might sow even more confusion,” he warned.
“Under the bill, every agency should implement a program for green procurement so parang kanya-kanya tayo (we will be independent from each other). So you know if you’re going to make a law, ideally, it should be as specific as possible so it won’t confuse people when it is being implemented,” Dimaporo said.
He said while he fully supports the intention of Villafuerte, the problem with the proposed Green Procurement Act is “it may end up with an outcome where you might have preferred suppliers.”
“This concerns me the most if we are not clear in the specifics of this bill, there might be contradictions with the Procurement Law. For example, if I was a governor, I want to put up green-roofing materials. Then all of a sudden, COA will slap us with a post audit findings that we did not follow the Procurement Law. Then you will put the governors and local chief executives in a bind. I hope this law will address it rather than maintain a very general description that might lead to more confusion on the ground,” Dimaporo said.
“We are moving to post pandemic scenario, which we do not know. It seems that there might be global effect as far as the global trends are concerned and there should be, in my personal opinion, a trend toward ‘Filipino First’. This might be an avenue or opportunity for us in Congress to tilt a little bit of bias to Filipino producers if we place this in this law and that will help us in our economic recovery for the new normal,” he added.
House Bill No. 6526 stipulates that the program shall take into consideration the “lowest life-cycle cost” of products and services and include a coding system for packaging materials and products to facilitate waste recycling and reuse.
Lowest life-cycle cost means the lowest total cost of owning, operating, and maintaining a product or service over its useful life, including fuel and water, energy, labor, and replacement components, determined on the basis of a systematic evaluation and comparison of alternative products and services.
Villafuerte said the “green purchasing” aims to promote the culture of making sustainable and informed decisions in government, especially in the purchase and use of different products.
It also seeks to include sustainability criteria in public tenders, whenever possible and practicable; to establish the specifications and requirements for products of services to be considered sustainably advantageous; and to develop programs for suppliers of sustainable products and services.
Under House Bill No. 6526, all agencies are mandated to submit their respective Sustainable Procurement Programs to the GPPB within six months from the effectivity of the proposed Act.
Such programs will be fully implemented within six months from the effectivity of the proposed Act.
The GPPB is expected to submit a regular report to the Congress of the Philippines on the performance and compliance of the different agencies with the proposed Act.
The measure directs the GPPB to appoint a third-party verifier of claims of sustainability of products and services while establishing capacity-building program for all government agencies.
The third-party verifier shall provide a list of all certified sustainable products, which shall be updated regularly to reflect additions or deletions based on criteria to be established by the GPPB.
Within 30 days from the effectivity of the proposed Act, the GPPB shall promulgate and issue the implementing rules and regulations of the proposed Act.
