Champion of truth Cabinet hottie Presidential Communications Operations Office chief Martin Andanar gives flesh to President Rodrigo Duterte’s pursuit of transparency in government. ROY PELOVELLO

January 24th, 12:07am January 23rd, 11:09pm Mario J. Mallari

While it is bent on cleaning up the passport mess left by former President Aquino, the Duterte administration is on a balancing act of correcting the contract on passport printing but, at the same time, does not want to interrupt the much-improved application processes.

During yesterday’s “Straight Talk with Daily Tribune,” Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Secretary Martin Andanar stressed the administration really wanted to address the passport mess but there are bureaucratic issues that need to be resolved.

Andanar also cited the impact of correcting the passport issue, at this time, may disrupt the already smooth and much-improved processing of passport application in the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

He said it should be the Government Procurement Policy Board (GPPB) that should be reviewing the contract between state-owned APO Production Unit Inc. (APO) led by former PCOO Secretary Sonny Coloma and the private United Graphic Expression Corp (UGEC) which is controlled by businessman Iñigo Zobel.

The problem was tossed to Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea who proposed a meeting that will include all the parties involved.

Andanar said Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), during the meeting, frowned on undertaking the printing of passports since it will need three years to develop the capacity to print high-security documents.

Andanar said the Duterte administration now is tied to the contract between APO, which is under PCOO and UGEC, which was declared by the GPPB as legal.

“The contract was declared aboveboard by the GPPB,” lamented Andanar.

Many of those opposed to the passport printing are barking up the wrong tree as they should bring the case to the GPPB, he added.

Getting idea out Daily Tribune reporters Mario Mallari and Kristina Maralit; and editors John Henry Dodson and Chito Lozada take up with Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Martin Andanar (center) his task of being the medium for President Rodrigo Duterte’s messages. ROY PELOVELLO

“We really want to correct it immediately since this is a matter of national interest, but we have to strike the balance,” Andanar said.

During the Aquino administration, the backlog in passport applications went from bad to worse, but was slowly addressed by the Duterte administration.

Previously, online appointments for passport application took two to three months. But now, applicants can be accommodated in two weeks to one month. Passports can be retrieved after 12 working days.

From 9,000 passports a day, production was more than doubled to 20,000 late last year.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. and his predecessor Perfecto Yasay Jr. both pointed to the Aquino administration as the root of the passport mess.

According to Yasay, the BSP and the DFA on 1 August 2006 entered into a memorandum of agreement covering the procurement and centralized production of machine-readable electronic passports in compliance with the standards required by the International Civil Aviation Organization.

Yasay said the problem started when the DFA, in 2015, awarded the printing of electronic passports to APO despite an existing agreement between the BSP and Francois-Charles Oberthur Fiduciare of France.

The former DFA chief said APUI’s contract with UGEC to print electronic passports was in stark violation of the DFA and APUI agreement.

Locsin, who brought up the mess publicly on social media responses to netizens, even vowed to autopsy officials of the previous Aquino administration behind the “crooked deal.”