SENATE President Juan Miguel Zubiri is optimistic that Senate Bill (SB) 2593, or the New Government Procurement Act, will be approved by the Senate before its May adjournment.

On Tuesday, Zubiri chaired the plenary session that tackled SB 2593, which is among the 20 priority measures the Senate president aims to complete before the Senate goes into recess.

SB 2593 aims to improve and modernize the country's two-decade-old government procurement system.

Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara, chairman of the Committee on Finance, said the lowest price would be primordial in public bidding.

Continuing his defense of SB 2593 or An Act Revising Republic Act (RA) 9184, otherwise known as the Government Procurement Reform Act, Angara said competition in public bidding is essential in ensuring that the government gets good value for the taxpayers' money, while recognizing other modes of procurement that are better suited for defense, medical equipment, artistic, and scientific types of procurement.

He pointed out that even in the newer concept, such as the "most economically advantageous responsive bid (Mearb)," the lowest bid remains one factor in procuring supplies.

"So the dominant paradigm was the lowest price (under RA 9184)... but under the Mearb (of SB 2593), it is meant to inject some element of quality. There's a quality to price ratio and upper and lower limits on how much quality and price... in the Mearb, it's quality which is 60 percent to 85 percent, whereas, for the price, it is 15 to 40 percent," Angara said.

"But for due process or fairness, the agency must indicate what is the criteria to be used so that bidders, or businesses or contractors who are going to enter into the bid, there is due notice to them as to what is going to be the criteria in the bidding," he added.

During the plenary session, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III asked Angara why RA 9184 needs to be revised after 20 years.

"So that the people may know, how will this bill fight corruption? What in this bill will resolve corruption, improve government processes, competition, and government limited capacity," Pimentel asked in Filipino.

Angara replied that the bill incorporated new provisions and safeguards while trying to improve RA 9184.

If enacted, the measure will apply to the procurement of goods, infrastructure projects, and consulting services, regardless of the source of funds, whether local or foreign, by all branches and instrumentalities of the national government, its departments, bureaus, offices and agencies.

It does not apply to foreign-assisted projects under a treaty or international or executive agreement, which have different procurement rules or procedures.