Bayan Muna Party-list Rep. Carlos Isagani T. Zarate filed a resolution in the House of Representatives on on Thursday that sought to direct the committee on government enterprises and privatization to investigate the implementation of the Civil Registry System – Information Technology Project Phase 2 (CRS-ITP II) deal between the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) and the US-based Unisys Corporation (Unisys).
Zarate, through House resolution no. 592, wanted the committee to look into the alleged gross violations and failures on the part of Unisys’ and its unbridled control of the country’s civil registry system.
PSA chief Lisa Grace Bersales and Unisys executive Juan Ingersol Castro signed the concession agreement for CRS-IPT II last October 3 this year under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) program.
Unisys is the same company who controlled the project’s first phase, the CRS-ITP I, known as “NSO Serbilis Centers”, Zarate said.
The party-list solon hit the awarding of the project to Unisys despite its glaring contractual violations and failures during the implementation of the first phase of the project.
Zarate cited the report made by the Commission on Audit (COA) in 2015 castigating PSA (then named national Statistics office) and Unisys for violating the original contract or the CRS-IPT I.
“The recent deal, in sheer disregard of the said audit, still proceeded with Unisys given again full control of all civil registry documents nationwide and Government getting a mere 45.5 percent of the revenues,” he said.
The original contract, with a timeframe of 12 years (CY 2000-2012), stipulated that Unisys shall transfer operations and control of the civil registry system to PSA five years before the contract’s expiry in 2012.
“Unisys did not abide,” Zarate said in the resolution, as he also hit PSA for perplexingly not mustering any initiative to take over controlling the civil registry system and its failure to impose sanctions to said company despite violations on its contractual obligations.
He added that COA also observed in its 2004 audit on CRS-IPT I that Unisys had not trained PSA personnel to operate the system, in the same manner, the PSA has neither possession nor took part in the monitoring of records on actual purchases and inventory of items to be turned over to PSA.
The isolation of PSA from the implementation of NSO Serbilis Centers eventually led to the anomalous contract extension of Unisys, Zarate said.
Had PSA took over control of the country’s civil registry system, the government would not have needed the rollout of CRS-ITP 2, thus saving Government billions of pesos and revenues would have been solely realized by the government, he added.
With the failure to sanction Unisys, PSA even allowed the said company to secure two contract extensions that ran from 2012 up to 2015, apparently with the go-signal of a ‘higher authority’, the solon said.
In its reply to COA report, Zarate stressed that PSA did not name who specifically that ‘higher authority’ was, a fact, he added showed the project was so lopsided in favor of Unisys.
He also took note that COA, for the longest time, raised apprehension over a foreign company having full and unbridled control over the country’s civil registry system, indicating that it is compromising to public interest and security.
“Having foreign companies Unisys and Price Waterhouse Coopers (who shall supervise the project) control the country’s civil registry system would permit them to collect and retrieve stockpile of information about Filipino citizens and share the same with their other clients, such as various branches of the U.S armed services and possibly, U.S intelligence agencies,” he said.
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Zarate added that Unisys is in a rolling contract with the U.S government for clear path defense systems that support American Air Force logistics and operations, such as missions in Syria.
“What is more alarming is that PSA could not even disclose safeguarding measures to monitor how troves of information would be kept and managed by these foreign companies,” he emphasized.
