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Here's How DOH Justified P700,000 for 4 Laptops

It has cancelled the procurement.
by Pia Regalado
8 hours ago
Photo/s: Jerome Ascaño
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The Department of Health needs four "high-end" laptops worth P700,000 for its developers, the head of its technology office on Wednesday told a Senate investigation on its alleged mismanagement of state funds.

The "2-in-1" notebook computers will be used for vaccine registry and other tasks that will cause laptops with lower specifications to freeze, said Eric Tayag, director of the DOH’s knowledge management and information technology service office.

"Kailangan po namin kasi kami po 'yung gumagawa ng mga registry po, halimbawa po ang bakuna registry, kailangan po namin mailagay po at ma-visualize para maparating po sa mga policymakers kung ano na po 'yung datos at kailangan na po sapagkat may analytics din po," he told senators.

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The DOH has scrapped the laptop purchase and the P700,000 budget will instead go to Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center, which is in need of IT support.

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The Senate is investigating the findings of the Commission on Audit that the DOH had "deficiencies" in the use of P67 billion in COVID-19 funds.

Senators Miguel Zubiri and Richard Gordon asked Tayag to name the laptop brand his office was eyeing to purchase. The Health official said he couldn't identify the brand as the purchase plan only detailed the device specifications.

"I use a gaming computer Mr. Chairman, this is a Predator that's what I'm using now. This is one of the fastest computers. It costs us P96,000 and this is what I use for our Zoom sessions," Zubiri told senators.

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The document released by the DOH dated Aug. 4 said the agency was looking to buy four high-end 2-in-one laptops with these specs:

  • Processor: at least 10th Gen Intel Core i5
  • OS: at least Windows 10 Home 64-bit
  • Video: at least Intel UHD Graphics
  • Display: 15-inch FHD, 1920 x 1080, 60Hz, anti-reflective and anti-smudge, 10 finger touch, Corning Gorilla Glass, 6DX, super low power, sRGB 100%, 400 Nits WVA, active pen support
  • Memory: at least 8GB LPDDR3, 2133 MHz
  • Storage: at least 512GB M.2 PCLe NVMe SSD
Continue reading below ↓

Reportr checked the prices of laptops online.

Dell offers an Inspiron 15 2-in-1 laptop meeting the minimum requirements of the DOH for P38,000 via Dell U.S.

You can also buy an Acer laptop with higher i7 processor, higher memory at 16gb, and storage of 1 terabyte at P80,000, more than double the alloted P175,000 budget per unit.

Dell also offers a 13.4-inch 2-in-1 laptop with higher specs than mentioned in the DOH procurement proposal (Intel Core i7, 512 GB storage, 16GB RAM) at P145,485, delivery fee included.

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