Published: November 24, 2014 

                  Home Development Mutual (Pag-IBIG) Fund President and CEO Atty. Darlene Marie B. Berberabe denied giving multi-million-peso contracts to Omni Security Investigation.

                  She also disputed a portion of a news report in GMA News Online which stated that Omni Security Investigation secured contracts with Pag-IBIG Fund that allegedly did not go through proper bidding.

“The message sought to be conveyed is that Pag-IBIG Fund is involved in shady deals, a message that is most unfair, for it is unsupported by facts,” Berberabe said.

                  “Pag-IBIG Fund has never awarded multi-million-peso contracts to Omni apart from the contract for the security detail of the CEO,” she added.

                  Berberabe clarified that the contract awarded to Omni was for her personal security and that it was an emergency procurement brought about by death threats to Pag-IBIG officers during the time.

                  She added that such direct procurement is “allowed and recognized under the Government Procurement Reform Act or R.A. 9184 under certain circumstances which were present in this case.”

                  Berbarabe also disputed the use of the term “multi-million” which she said was misleading, because it gave the impression that the contract awarded to Omni was worth tens of millions of pesos, when the actual contract was only for P1.3 Million. 

                  “When Omni participated in a bidding process in 2012 for a contract worth P198 Million for the security requirements of the Fund, it was, in fact, disqualified for submitting its bid documents merely one minute late,” she said.

                  “This shows how principled we are in our bidding process, which fully conforms to R.A. 9184.  This is the real story – that Pag-IBIG Fund never unduly favored Omni and in fact disqualified it for being late in the bid for a P198 Million security contract,” Berberabe added.