But the new administration at DECS wants to change that image. DECS secretary Andrew Gonzales says he hopes to build a "culture of excellence" where administrators will be people of integrity. "There's talent in DECS," says the erstwhile president of De La Salle University. "There are good people in DECS and there are honest people."

Gonzales is actively scouting for these people to eventually become the principals, supervisors and superintendents. "Hopefully, over the generation, we will have a more competent, more dedicated, more honest group of middle-level managers for the entire system," he says. "This is the work of a generation; it can't be done overnight."

Gonzales is under no illusion that graft and corruption can be licked, but takes exception to criticisms that DECS is among the dirtiest of government agencies. "Clearly, on a scale of five, if your were to rank DECS, the integrity of DECS would probably be three, which doesn't make it very far from the other departments," he argues. "The larger the department and the more funds available to run the department make, the problem (of graft and corruption becomes) more difficult."

Former top education officials, however, wonder how far will the new set of education officials will get in breaking the culture of corruption at DECS. Observes an ex-DECS official: "The regional director, galing sa pagka-superintendent na galing sa principal na galing sa teacher-most rose from the ranks and have been exposed to a corrupt system. Corruption begins the moment that teacher goes to the congressman or the principal to get a job, (because later he would) need to do them a favor."

Indeed, the annals of DECS are replete with stories of how millions of pesos in taxpayer's money earmarked for the education of the needy has been lost to suppliers and government employees who collude to permit overpricing, short deliveries or ghost deliveries.

In the 1980s, for instance, desks bought under a P30-million World Bank-funded project were found to be grossly overpriced or made of cheap wood, forcing many of the state employees involved to flee the country.

In the early 1990s, the House education committee ordered an inquiry into the delivery of thousands of termite-infested, substandard desks to schools to the two Negros provinces.

In 1995, a year before DECS awarded the controversial P81.7-million contract to Jesusa T.de la Cruz's CKL Enterprises, the Commission on Audit (COA) uncovered irregularities in four regions. The worst cases were detected in Cagayan Valley. Of 49,308 tablet armchairs bought for P34 million by the regional office, 11,140 pieces percent never got delivered, 21,486 arrived unassembled, and 2,400 lacked parts like writing pads, backrests and seats. The armchairs were made of inferior plastic and undersized GI pipes. COA placed the losses at P8 million. In addition, over 8,000 chairs intended for public elementary schools ended up in high schools, a private school, and even barangay halls and daycare centers.

Enlisting the help of some DECS officials and employees, many suppliers expertly exploit loopholes in the law and government rules to turn the procurement process to their favor. When they fail there, they unabashedly resort to money, politics, kinship, legal tactics or the media—sometimes a combination of these—or play on the vulnerabilities of officials who hold the key to purchases.

DECS insiders and former officials say many suppliers have acquired the knack of rigging public biddings. At the DECS central office not too long ago, a supplier who had the backing of a legislator formed 16 dummy companies that joined in nearly all the biddings for DECS purchases. Says a former education secretary: "Kahit sino ang manalo, panalo pa rin siya (Whoever wins the bidding, that supplier still gets the contract)."

A special audit done in 1993 by COA, meanwhile, discovered that 17 firms that cornered multi-million-peso contracts at the Quezon City school division actually belonged to just one group. Auditors found that only one person had collected and cashed the checks for all 17 companies.

There have also been cases when some suppliers colluded with each other to force a failure of public bidding or take turns at winning contracts. And when newcomers emerged as a potential threat to their business, they tried to buy them off.

According to an executive of Allied Moulding Corp., CKL's de la Cruz offered to buy the rights of his firm when Allied Moulding looked as if it would win the 1996 bidding for the all-plastic schoolchairs. "I never entertained her offer at all," says the Allied Moulding official. "We wanted to get into DECS because it was a new market for us."

De la Cruz declined to be interviewed for this article. Secretary Gonzales, though, describes her company, CKL, as "a chameleon" because "it comes in different forms under the same owner and the same group to hide their identity." But Gonzales concedes that de la Cruz is only one among many suppliers who have resorted to lying low after getting into trouble and then resurrecting their businesses under new names. After all, he says, "there's no preventing companies from appearing under a new name because it's so easy to incorporate."

By far, however, insiders say buying off government officials and employees has been the quickest way for suppliers to gain their cooperation. The offer of money is often made to government personnel given signing authority—those who requested the allocation (to ensure the items get included in the quarterly procurement), those in the procurement committee (to award the contract), those who monitored deliveries (to fake acceptance and inspection reports), and those who released the payment (to ignore the spurious reports).

In government parlance, this money is "SOP" or standard operating procedure. In cruder terms, however, it is a commission, a kickback, or bribe money.

Former Budget Secretary Salvador Enriquez once said "commissions" ate up 45 percent of government purchases. But a former resident DECS ombudsman says these reached as high as 70 percent for big contracts at the education department.

What Enriquez failed to compute, he says, was the money suppliers gave up front just to get accredited, to make sure purchases were lumped so they involved bigger sums, and to get the items they were offering included in the quarterly allocation. This easily added up to 25 percent of the contract, he says, while noting that part of the money went to people in the budget department, which authorizes the releases of public funds.

"That's the entry free, parang toll gate," says the ex-DECS resident ombudsman. "Whether you win or not, you pay. It's like lotto: tumaya ka muna (you make a bet first)."

Officials directly involved in the awarding of contracts were then normally offered eight to 10 percent of the contract. According to one former regional director, the commissions he was being offered began at a low of five to 10 percent.

"May mga tagabulong diyan, usually DECS insiders connected to the supplier. All transactions are done in cash," says a former DECS undersecretary for operations.

The exchange of money was made in different places. One ex-DECS official who was in the department in the 1980s says a supplier delivered to his house a briefcase that held P1.2 million in exchange for a contract. He says he refused the money.

The former ombudsman says some regional directors met up with Metro Manila suppliers when they came to the capital for their monthly meetings at the central office.

One regional director was notorious for his "kitchen conferences." According to an ex-aide, he and his suppliers would meet quietly at the kitchen of the regional office during which money would change hands.

Because of the fat commissions they had to cough up, suppliers apparently found it only justified to overprice their goods or resort to under-deliveries, delivery of substandard or defective items or, worse, "ghost" deliveries. A COA study conservatively estimates that a tenth of the total P50-billion procurement budget in 1994 was lost of overpricing. Quips the former DECS undersecretary: "If you have to do it right, how can you still make money?"

In truth, while COA has blown the whistle on the irregularities, some DECS insiders say there have been government auditors who were also involved in their cover-up. With advice from DECS and COA personnel, the suppliers would place markings on batches of goods without defects. "When the auditor does a spot check, he just does a sampling. He doesn't pick something without markings," says the former DECS ombudsman. "If the auditor doesn't like what you gave, be prepared for a special audit."

DECS insiders and former officials also say politicians are not content with meddling in the appointments and promotions of teachers. They say some-including members of Congress who hold the power over the purse, can block appointments and initiate investigations-also poke their fingers in the DECS procurement pie.

One DECS undersecretary was only weeks into his job when a congressman phoned to call his attention to a supplier who was in danger of losing in the bidding. "He told me, `Pare, akin yan. Meron ako diyan (That's mine. I've interest there),'" says the official. He was to get many similar calls during his six-year DECS stint, which has now ended.

In the case of special projects like the pork barrel of lawmakers, DECS people rarely got a cut, says the former DECS ombudsman. "It's purely an arrangement between the politician and the supplier. DECS was just the implementing agency."

Gonzales suspects de la Cruz was among those who enjoyed strong political backing. "Definitely," says the secretary who is bent on hauling CKL's owner to court, "they have been able to get away with these things because of political protection of some people upstairs who seem to thrive on this kind of influence peddling."

Unfortunately for de la Cruz, Gonzales is not the only person at DECS she has irked.

Susana Cabahug, DECS-Region XI director, believes de la Cruz filed a graft complaint against her after she awarded a desk contract to another supplier. "She attempted to influence me into deciding in her favor but I declined…I refused to accede to her unlawful requests," says Cabahug in an affidavit before the Ombudsman. "The …complaint is nothing but an act of vengeance, harassment and sour graping."

De la Cruz has filed cases against other DECS officials. But complaints like these are not the only ways suppliers try to get back at officials and employees who failed to award them contracts.

According to another ex-DECS undersecretary, one supplier resorted to using the country's top columnists to attack the department when a contract did not land in his lap. "Hindi kami tinigilan (They wouldn't stop)," says the former official. "One columnist even met me at a hotel to ask me to just give the contract to (the supplier) para matapos na (to end the hassle)."

Suppliers are also known to study closely the habits of education officials and capitalize on their vulnerabilities. A friend of a former high-ranking education official says the latter's weakness for high-stakes poker was his undoing. "He would lose hundreds of thousands pesos at games his deputy and a supplier helped arrange and would sign his IOUs at the back of his calling card," he says. The supplier then named his price: contracts at DECS.

These days, the new DECS administration thinks occasions for graft and corruption can be minimized partly by strengthening internal controls and checks and balances in the procurement process.

Undersecretary Antonio Valdes, who now chairs the Pre/Postqualification Bids and Awards Committee (PBAC), has ordered a new round of accreditation of DECS suppliers. He has imposed tougher conditions. Among other things, the company's chief executive officer must sign the documents that are submitted for accreditation and board members must include additional information such as their taxpayer identification number and home addresses.

"This is to prevent them from just using dummies or shell companies before they bid," says Valdes. "(They) must be honest-to-goodness legal entities whom we can run after in case there is a discrepancy or there is something anomalous."

Valdes has scrapped the old setup where procurement committees were formed for the different items DECS needed to buy. "We consider that a flaw because then that person (in the committee) is easily identified by possible suppliers and he becomes a target of all kinds of proposals," he explains.

Instead, only one PBAC is taking charge of procurement of all items. Valdes says the committee is composed of people who are not end-users and are not familiar with suppliers. It also includes a representative from the Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants to ensure transparency.

The number of PBAC members has been increased from six to 18, from which seven are selected by raffle to handle the procurement only the day before the bidding.

The biddings are currently held at the DECS central office, but will be devolved to the regions "as soon as we're satisfied with the quality of the people in the regions in terms of their integrity," says Valdes. Public biddings will be the rule, he adds, and payment by letters of credit has been ruled out.

On top of the post-audit that is done by COA, DECS is paying big private accounting firms—except the Carlos J. Valdes group which the undersecretary's father owns—to perform spot checks on deliveries. "We can't do this on all deliveries," admits Valdes. "It's (also) going to be very expensive, but we can at least leave it hanging like a Damocles sword."

Former DECS officials wish Valdes and company well. But they confess that it is difficult to stay clean in a graft-ridden environment. While some joined and left the department pure, say the ex-officials, others fell on the wayside.

To be sure, many education secretaries and undersecretaries had gone to DECS with cleaning a dirty house as their first order of business. Some began their term by going after the corrupt elements, says one ex-DECS official. "But," he says, "what happens to the cases? It's difficult to make the charges stick or the wheels of justice turn very slow. People soon succumb to being practical, they succumb to the system. They become involved in irregularities then rationalize when they're caught with the hands in the cookie jar."