Philippine government to launch online shopping platform

The Philippines’s government will soon have an online shopping platform called the eMarketplace. This will allow consumers to directly purchase items from competent vendors.

The Department of Budget and Management’s (DBM) Secretary Amenah F. Pangandaman and Dennis Santiago, Procurement Service (PS)-DBM Executive Director, have announced the eMarketplace – one of the proposed amendments to Republic Act (RA) 9184 or the Government Procurement Reform Act (GPRA).

“The GPRA was one of the biggest anti-corruption laws in the country, which was, in fact, recognized by no less than the World Bank as a world-class legislation. However, there has been a rapid transformation in technology over the past two decades, and the pandemic propelled the urgency for digital transactions in the country. That’s why our President is correct that we need to make government procurement more attuned to our changing times,” said Secretary Pangandaman.

It is described that the eMarketplace will be similar to Lazada and Shopee. This plans to ease the delivery of products and services but still requires suppliers to comply to legal, technical and financial rules.

“Procurement affects us every day, not just us the government, but the Filipino people. Procurement issues have an adverse impact on public service delivery. We have also been hounded by controversies linked to the Philippine procurement system. Of our total national government budget, up to 25 percent is done via procurement. So, this year, it’s roughly P1.3 trillion. It’s a huge amount,” said Pangandaman.

There’s no official date for the release of eMarketplace. We’ll update you when we know more.