GPM Roll-out and GPRA Updates sked for March

With the training of procurement officials of barangays in the province of Iloilo almost done, the Regional Composite Team will next reach out to the barangays in the other provinces of Panay and Guimaras. Schedule of the trainings is as follows:

March 8-9 - Provinces of Capiz and Guimaras (1st batch)
March 15-16 - Province of Capiz (2nd batch)
March 22-23 - Province of Aklan
March 27-28 - Province of Antique (1st batch)
March 29-30 - Province of Antique (2nd batch)

The trainings will be held in Punta Villa except for Antique where the MBO Association has requested to have the CAP Auditorium in San Jose as the venue.

Voluntary suspension of Trainings during Election period.

The decision of whether to suspend or continue with the conduct of GPRA trainings during the election period is left at the discretion of the Composite Team and SUCs trainors.

In a Memorandum dated 21 February 2007, the Executive Director conveyed to the trainors the policy of the GPPB to "allow the voluntary suspension of trainings during election period, if said trainings will be used as venues for holding of political caucuses, meetings, rallies in support of or against any electoral candidate". The suspension, if the trainors so decide shall cover the period from March 30, 2007 to may 15, 2007. On the other hand, trainors in the region who opt to continue with their scheduled trainings should take additional safeguards in order that they may not be accused of engaging in any form of partisan political activity.

In the region, there are three groups of trainors accredited by the GPPB: the Regional Composite Team composed of DILG, DBM, COA and PHILLBO which caters to LGUs, and WVSU and UP Visayas which are assigned to train NGA and GOCCs procurement officials. As early as October last year, the trainors commenced the series of trainings on the roll-out of the Generic Procurement Manuals and Updates on GPRA Issuances. In as far as the Composite Team is concerned the trainings are scheduled every Thursday and Friday in Punta Villa Resort, Iloilo City.

Procurement Updates for Barangays resumes.

The Regional Composite Trainors Team will resume the conduct of seminar updates on procurement rules for barangays on the following dates:

January 25-26, 2007
February 8-9, 2007
February 15-16, 2007
February 22-23, 2007

Invited participants are Punong Barangays, Chairmen and Secretariats of the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) of barangays in the Province of Iloilo. This seminar-updates started in December 2006, and so far only about 250 barangays were covered for a total of 893 trainess. Venue of the seminar is at Punta Villa Resort, Iloilo City.

One down, one more to go!

We've just concluded the third batch of our series of trainings on the Roll-out of the Generic Procurement Manuals. Venue was at Punta Villa. The turn out of participants was overwhelming - around 285 of them coming from the municipalities in the Provinces of Aklan, Antique, Capiz, Guimaras, and Iloilo, the City of Victorias and also from the different Local Water Districts. We had to divide the participants into two groups and the trainors, the six of us namely: Atty. Panes of DILG, Jun Cabahug and Daisylyn Tavarro of COA, Tony Arbis, PBO of Capiz, and Mae Chua and myself from DBM - took turns discussing our assigned topics and even arguing with the eager participants.

The training went on seamlessly, thanks to our hardworking, competent facilitators, Vir Abonador (MBO of Duenas) and Annie Bedonia (MBO of Anilao), as well as our ever pleasing secretariat from the Iloilo Provincial Budget Office headed by PBO Elen Lim and her assistant Daday Depakakibo.

The last batch scheduled on November 14-16 promises to be a special one as two staff from the GPPB will be coming over to observe how we conduct the training. With participants coming from the municipalities of Antique and Negros Occidental and the rest of the water districts in the region, we look forward to an equally bigger turn out and interaction as the recently concluded one. I'll give a brief rundown on this right after the training.