Resolving Identical Bid price

Here's a peculiar issue raised by a participant in one of our trainings: "What should the BAC do if two (2) bidders offered the same bid price?"

The commonly suggested solution is to split the contract equally among the bidders who offered identical bid proposal. Not likely. I did some research on this and luckily stumbled upon an opinion of the GPPB, PM 002-2005 way back in August 2005.

The GPPB suggested the use of drawing of lots similar to the provision of Section 240 of Batas Pambansa Bilang 881 (Omnibus Election Code). It justifies that the situation addressed is "analogous to a case of tie in the bidding process. Applying the foregoing principle in the case of breaking a tie, the use of any non-discretionary/non-discriminatory tie-breaking procedure seems to be an acceptable approach towards resolving such issue, considering that the real intent of R.A. 9184 is to eliminate all forms of discretion in bid evaluation on the part of the BAC, and that every bidder who passed the post-qualification stage is as much a LCRB as the others; hence, equally eligible and qualified".

So procurement officials, be guided.