12th ASEAN Summit

CEBU, Philippines—Another inspection of equipment related to the security cameras installed in Metro Cebu during the 12th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit has led to recommendations of changes in the system.

The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has promised to look into discrepancies found in the camera system, and whether or not contractor Triton Communications Corp. complied with the project’s specifications.

“Naturally, it is proper to look into these discrepancies. It doesn’t serve the purpose if there are indeed problems like that being encountered. We might even ask the contractor to rectify and upgrade the system,” said engineer Jorge Sebastian.

Sebastian, assistant regional director of the DPWH in Central Visayas (DPWH-7), said the discrepancies would be among those investigated by a DPWH task force created to look into all ASEAN-related projects, such as the decorative street lighting project.

Acting deputy Ombudsman for the Visayas Virginia Palanca-Santiago led a team of inspectors last Wednesday to study the system from its control center along Osmeña Boulevard.

Santiago said she noticed the same shortcomings as those her team cited in their May 16 inspection.

“We conducted the second ocular inspection to see to how the facility operates in the evening. We made some comparisons and we noted the same observations as what we had in our first ocular inspection,” she said.

Senior Supt. Lani-O Nerez, deputy director for operations of Central Visayas police earlier recommended that Triton upgrade the camera system before police received the project.

Sebastian said the police would be asked to submit a complete report of its inspection so that the DPWH could act on it.

Inspectors from the police and anti-graft office noted delays in the visual feed as well as slow frame rates and low image resolutions.

One camera was noted to have been inoperative during Wednesday’s inspection, though Triton said this was not a fault in the camera system, but of a loss of electricity in the area where the camera was located.

The Ombudsman’s investigation stemmed from a complaint filed by businessman Crisologo Saavedra, who alleged that the system, which cost P89 million, was grossly overpriced, and that DPWH, police, and Triton officials bypassed government procurement procedures to award the camera contract to Triton.

The contract had originally been awarded to Saavedra’s company Pelican/Cebesos Development Corp., but the DPWH cancelled the contract after Pelican/Cebesos allegedly failed to deliver the equipment on time.

Saavedra claimed he delivered the equipment, but that government officials refused to accept them.

Saavedra recently amended his complaint to include alleged disruption of wireless Internet services caused by the camera’s communications system.

Santiago said her office was looking into the complaint filed by Smart Communications Inc. with the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) regarding interference that the cameras had allegedly caused with the company’s Internet wireless broadband service, both systems using the same radio frequency – 5.7 gigahertz.

She said she has written the NTC to comment Smart’s complaints, a copy of which the communications company has already furnished her office.

“We are consolidating the complaint of Smart Communications with the inquiry that we are already conducting,” she said.

Triton officials, however, said there was “little to no chance” that the camera’s means to communicate with the Central Operating Center located at the Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7) headquarters interfered with Smart’s Internet services, provided by a subsidiary company, Smart Broadband Internet (SBI).

Luis Antonio de Leon, technical consultant for Triton, said the communications system that the cameras use is similar to those used by SBI in that both systems make sure no transmissions would conflict.

“We are using the same system. We have a cluster management module which provides GPRS (general packet radio service) synchronization: All the modules of Smart and the ones we are using are synchronized so there is no way that there will be interference,” said De Leon.

Saavedra, in his amended complaint, said that the 5.7 gigahertz frequency was registered with the NTC for use by Smart only.

De Leon, however, said that the frequency was “for public use.”

“It’s not exclusive for Smart,” he said.