Eleven officials of the NPO were forced to resign.
Eleven officials of the National Printing Office (NPO) were reportedly forced to quit for their positions by their boss, Francisco V. Vales Jr.
This was confirmed by Sherwin Prose C. Castañeda, chair of the NPO bid and awards committee.
In a recent news report of Inquirer.net, Castañeda confirmed in a phone interview that they were forced by their boss, Francisco V. Vales Jr., a protege of President Duterte, to favor a private printer, Topbest.
Castañeda explained that Vales pushed the BAC to renew the P50-million lease contract of his handpicked printer without conducting a public bidding.
“He (Vales) is always asking us why we canceled the contract. He wants us to renew the contract but it should not be since contracts should go through public bidding and there should be no one favored on who would get the contract,” Castañeda said.
Castañeda clarifies that they reduced the contracts to P20 million because that is only their funds can support. But he claimed that Vales had entered into lease contracts with 12 printers worth P50 million each or a total of P600 million.
Furthermore, in their resignation letter to Vales, Castañeda said that they are forced by ‘too much ’ pressure in the bidding of leasing of printing machines.
But Vales had not accepted their mass resignation, as Castañeda said. Because he would have more problems forming a new BAC because nobody wanted to sit as member with him always pressuring them to do his will.
Vales wrote to Andanar the next day and stated that “the resignation with all its signatories and reason stated be included as subject of the investigation.”
NPO is an attached agency of Andanar’s office, the Presidential Communication Operation Office. It is one of three recognized printers of government forms in the country, the other two are Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and APO Production Unit.