Act of 20 July 2024 No. 12009 Revising Republic Act No. 9184, Otherwise Known as the «Government Procurement Reform Act», and for Other Purposes substitutes the previous Government Procurement Reform Act of 10 January 2003 No. 9184 and is aimed also at enhancing anti-corruption measures in public procurement.

Its provisions are applicable to public and local government bodies (hereinafter, procuring entities) and the persons executing public contracts (hereinafter, contractors).

1. Electronic system

The key novelty of the Act is the obligation for the contractors to register with the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PhilGEPS) which has become a single digital procurement portal of the country. The systems already used by the procuring entities in public procurement should be integrated in PhilGEPS.

The Act also provides for an upgrade of PhilGEPS to expand its functionality, in particular:

1. Publication of tenders on the Bulletin Board;

2. Creation of the services enabling:

• Procuring entities to check public procurement against the previously adopted annual plan;
• Tracking the execution of public contracts, including payments and contract amendments;
• Contractors to register in PhilGEPS with the aim to download and store digital copies of their documents in line with the requirements and manage their ongoing/completed contracts;
• Procuring entities to order general-purpose consumables in a centralised manner online through the Procurement Service;
• Contractors to publish information on the goods, works and services offered to allow procuring entities to compare the goods, works and service provided by different contractors for market research;

3. Publication of publicly available register of contractors.

A standardized electronic payment system in public procurement will also be created as a part of the Integrated Financial Management Information System. The system will be developed by the Department of Budget and Management, Commission on Audit and Department of Finance.

2. Procurement and selection committees

Under the Act, all members of the Bids and Awards Committees (hereinafter, the Committee) established by procuring entities must respect the Code of Ethics for Public Procurement Professionals.

Additionally, they are not allowed anymore to hold membership in the Committee for over three consecutive terms (there were no such restrictions before).

3. Government Procurement Policy Board

The Act entrusts a number of additional functions with the Government Procurement Policy Board (GPPB), including:

1. Formulate and amend government procurement manuals and forms for procurement, and issue policy papers to ensure that the procurement process is streamlined and responsive to the needs of the government, and establish, where necessary an Interagency Technical Working Group to provide subject matter expertise;

2. Support the Professional Regulation Commission in developing the professionalization programme compulsory for the candidates to the position of public procurement officer;

3. Establish an automated process to provide timely responses to inquiries related to the implementation of the Act;

4. Create a registry of beneficial ownership information of bidders accessible to the public;

5. Analysis of the data retrieved from PhilGEPS and reports on public procurement and publication of the findings with the aim to:

• Support procuring entities in strategic planning of procurement and detection of trends that can be instrumental for preventing and mitigating the consequences of fraud and corruption;
• Assist supervisory bodies in developing and implementing effective policy for countering offences in public procurement;
• Promote public awareness-raising about public procurement and participation of society in its monitoring.

4. Conflict of interest

The Act has strengthened the provisions on conflict-of-interest prevention.

For instance, contractors must now inform procuring entities about themselves, their business partners, board members or top managers having kinship by blood or by marriage up to the third degree of affinity with:

• The head of the procuring entity;
• A member of the Committee or the Secretariat of the Committee, and the Technical Working Group for public procurement;
• The head of the public procurement management unit;
• Public procurement consultant of the procuring entity.

Besides the information on being in a conflict-of-interest situation, the bidder that is a legal person must disclose its beneficial owners.

5. Liability measures

The Act also entitles the head of the procuring entity to blacklist contractors, i.e. ban them from participating in public procurement of the entity for one year (in case of the first infringement) or for two years (in the event of a repeated violation) for:

• Using force, coercion, pressure, fraudulent machinations or undue influence against any member of the Committee or any officer or employee of the Procuring Entity to take a particular action for their own favour or gain, or to the disadvantage of a particular bidder;
• Failing to disclose their conflict-of-interest situations;
• Agreeing with two or more bidders to increase the price, when they knew that one or more of them was so much higher than the other that it could not be honestly accepted and that the contract will surely be awarded to the pre-arranged lowest bid;
• Entering into an agreement with other bidder(s) which call upon one to refrain from bidding for procurement contracts, or which call for withdrawal of bids already submitted, or which are otherwise intended to secure an undue advantage to any of the bidders;
• Submitting different bids through associated persons to create the appearance of competition;
• Submitting beneficial ownership information containing false entries.

The contractor that commits three acts resulting in temporary blacklisting is suspended permanently with no possibility to be delisted.