Study Tour of Delegates from Vietnam

^{The Vietnamese delegation headed by Deputy General Director Nguyen Ahn Tuan.}

A month after the visit of delegates from Mongolia, the Department of Budget and Management’s PS-PhilGEPS and GPPB-TSO, together with the World Bank Group (WBG), welcomed the delegation from Vietnam who visited the country on February to learn about Philippine government procurement processes and reforms. The delegation was headed by Mr. Nguyen Ahn Tuan, Deputy General Director of the Public Procurement Agency (PPA) of their Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI).

DBM Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno, in his opening remarks, informed the delegation that with an excellent procurement service and process, greater transparency is achieved, expenses are channelled to more productive programs and projects, and delivery of public service is sped up. He further added that it is a privilege for DBM to be able to share the knowledge and practices of our country.

^{DBM Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno delivers his opening remarks.}

^{DBM Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno hands over the DBM and PS-PhilGEPS token to the delegates.}

The focus of the study tour is about how stakeholders and civil society organizations use procurement data to monitor and examine performance of contractors and service providers, and how open contracting has been incorporated in our e-procurement system to produce valuable data.

In order for the delegates to fully appreciate our procurement law and processes, the following topics were discussed by invited experts and resource speakers:

• The Government Procurement Reform Act (RA 9184), and the Agency Procurement Compliance and Performance Indicator (APCPI) were further explained by GPPB-TSO Executive Director Dennis S. Santiago.

• The role of the Procurement Service, and the generation and use of procurement statistics for monitoring and decision-making discussed by PS-PhilGEPS Executive Director Bingle B. Gutierrez.

• The overview of the PhilGEPS was presented by PS-PhilGEPS Deputy Executive Rosa Maria M. Clemente.

• The role of non-government organizations (NGOs) and civil society organizations (CSOs) in procurement of government projects were discussed by experts. These include Mr. Carlos Manuel of the Philippine Computer Society for IT projects, Ms. Rechie Tugawin of GWATCH for goods, and Ms. Anecita Baltar of Concerned Citizens of Abra for Good Governance (CCAG) for civil works and contract implementation.

Additionally, Director Gloria Jose of the Citizen’s Participatory Audit of the Commission on Audit, and Ms. Vivien Suerte-Cortez, formerly of Procurement Watch Inc. and now connected with Making All Voices Count, shared their insights about how these projects are audited.

^{Mr. Carlos Manuel of the Philippine Computer Society for IT projects.}

^{Mr. Rechie Tugawin of GWATCH for goods.}

^{Ms. Anecita Baltar of Concerned Citizens of Abra for Good Governance (CCAG) for civil works and contract implementation.}

^{Director Gloria Jose of the Citizen’s Participatory Audit of the Commission on Audit.}

^{Ms. Vivien Suerte-Cortez, formerly of Procurement Watch Inc. and now connected with Making All Voices Count.}

The APCPI tool and the data generation in PhilGEPS caught the interest of the delegates. They also want to learn more about the APCPI and develop a similar tool to help them assess the effectiveness of their projects.

The delegation also presented the procurement process in their country wherein one notable observation is the inclusion of demographics in their procurement data. PS-PhilGEPS Executive Director Gutierrez expressed interest on how demographics could also be integrated in the generation of our procurement data.

Overall, many insights and best practices were shared from both countries during the two-day study tour.

^{Deputy General Director Nguyen Ahn Tuan discussing the procurement process in Vietnam.}

^{Deputy General Director Nguyen Ahn Tuan hands over the Public Procurement Agency (PPA) token to Deputy Executive Director Melissa Santiago-Yan.}

^{The Vietnamese contingent at the lobby of the DBM Central Office.}