Philippines orders fraud probe after paying MacBook prices for slow Celeron laptops

When COVID-19 closed schools in The Philippines, the nation’s government acted to ensure its teachers had the kit they needed to keep working by allocating funds to acquire nearly 70,000 laptops. The laptops have long since arrived but their purchase has now become a political scandal as it has emerged that the nation …

[Lordrobot]

The Sad Refrain of poor Business Judgement...

Philippines... enjoy your expensive Celerons. You should have bought your PCs from China not Murica... But thanks for subsidizing Dell computers in Murica, the ones with the better Intel processors... Murican kids are having a hardy laugh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The Sad Refrain of poor Business Judgement...

Given the kit was bought when Duterte's father was in charge, don't expect the "investigation" to uncover much.

[anonymous boring coward]

Re: The Sad Refrain of poor Business Judgement...

"But thanks for subsidizing Dell computers in Murica"

The difference would have been raked in somewhere else, and most certainly not benefitted any children in USA.

[kat_bg]

Re: The Sad Refrain of poor Business Judgement...

I think you have misread. The Dell kit bought in 2020 was cheaper than the kit they ended up buying (the Celerons).

[Casca]

Re: The Sad Refrain of poor Business Judgement...

Dont think Lordrobot cares. He has a boner about slagging on the us.

[sebacoustic]

celeron

I know (i did do latin at school) that "celeron" is from the latin word "celer" for "swift" but to me it always invokes s slightly disappointing vegetable instead.

government contract overpaying 50% on inferior kit? That sounds about par for the course. Actually for a place rife with corruption (https://www.transparency.org/en/countries/philippines) it's pretty good going!

[Tubz]

Re: celeron

Celeron will always take me back to the 300A/333, take Intel cheapo chip, stick it in a BX440, clock the crap out of it, beat it's flag ship cpu in to the ground, still have cash spare and wipe smile of Chipzilla's face!

[Captain Scarlet]

Re: celeron

Also had a Celeron 333mhz and although not fast at everything, the majority of what I used (Counter Strike) it was perfect.

[doublelayer]

Re: celeron

That's still often the case for modern ones. The processors in that range aren't going to win any speed awards, but unless they're paired with something else like significantly less RAM than you need or a bunch of background bloat, they'll be acceptable for office-style tasks. The other side of that is that they should be very cheap compared to better processors and they're not good enough for compute-intensive tasks, so probably not a great choice for the machines they intended to buy.

[jmch]

Re: celeron

These were schoolkids' laptops, I doubt they needed to do anything more compute-intensive than a video call. It's not that the celerons weren't up to the task (maybe they were or not, it's not really covered in the article). But more that this spec of laptop is closer to $500 than $1000.

The supplier sure made a killing - not necessarily fraud, it could quite possibly be gross incompetence on the part of the government procurement. Either would be par for the course for any government.

[DS999]

The good old days

I had the same setup. Take a 300A designed for a 66 MHz bus and set the bus clock to 100 MHz so the CPU runs at 450 MHz and everything else is nicely in spec.

Haven't got that level of value for money from a CPU purchase before or since!

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: The good old days

Mainly because overclocking by that percentage would kill pretty much any CPU out there today without spending a lot on specialised, custom cooling. That was more or less a unique sweet-spot in the annals of overclocking history :-)

[DS999]

Re: The good old days

Not true, the Celeron was a low end chip - there were Pentium IIs contemporary with it clocked at over 450 MHz which is why it worked so well.

Likewise today the high end chips clock at over 5 GHz, so taking a low end version of one that tops out at say 3.5 GHz should produce the same result. If it wasn't for Intel (not sure about AMD) preventing that simple type of overclocking, not to mention the multicore stuff further complicating matters.

Overclocking is less useful today because most chips can overclock themselves to some extent. If the 300A had defaulted to 300 MHz but turboed to 400 MHz there would have been less point in overclocking it. The value proposition is reduced the less benefit overclocking provides.

[RudeBuoy]

Re: The good old days

The 300A was really the a copy of the then flagship Pentium II 450 with a lower front side bus. With the right board you could clock it to 450MHz the speed of the flagship PII by just changing the bus speed to 100MHz without the need for additional cooling.

This is the only CPU I ever overclocked. I had a pair running on an ePox motherboard that I used until 2007 when the board got fried. That was my first multi processor rig. Built it on the cheap for less than what two comparable PII processors would cost at the end of 1998

[MyffyW]

Re: The good old days

Had some fun overclocking the Athlon XP down the years, managing to wring 10 years of useful life out of a 1800+. Had to give up when I realised the Intel Atom was outperforming it though.

[Captain Scarlet]

Re: The good old days

What about the pencil trick with early Athlons :D

[bpfh]

Re: celeron

I had one of those 300A’s. Ran happily at 450 on my mobo. Lovely things :)

[Boork!]

Re: celeron

I took it that machines based on Celerons were so frustrating that you would wish to "sell 'er on" pretty soon!

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: celeron

"slightly disappointing vegetable instead."

A certain Doctor would like a word with you about how wonderful celery can be :-)

[Tom 7]

Re: celery slightly disappointing ??

Your using it wrong! Take it out of mirepois and some of the best meals you'll ever have collapse!

[MOH]

Re: celeron

It might come from the Latin "celer" for "swift", but the "on" bit is just "no" backwards.

Hence "not swift"

[katrinab]

That sounds pretty tame compared to how much Boris Johnson’s government overpaid for things. And I presume the Filipino politicians got much more generously stuffed brown envelopes in exchange for the contract.

[NoneSuch]

Two minutes of Googleing

Samsung Galaxy Book with i5 Core for $750 on Amazon. $1,000 gets you an i7 and double the RAM.

[Alex Stuart]

Never seen a truer comment with so many downvotes

[Anonymous Coward]

Government procurement

It is entirely possible that there was absolutely no fraud or corruption on the government side. The bidder that submitted the cheap quote probably missed a tick box (perhaps quite literally) or had some other issue with their paperwork. The winning bidder probably had the best paper work. That is all that matters to bureaucrats. Process followed and paperwork in order.

Not to say that there wasn't any fraud, but I have had first hand experience with government procurement and fraud is not required for such a stupid waste of money. Best think of government procurement employees as mindless automatons mindlessly following a programmed script (the process) and only parsing correct syntax (the paperwork) without any regard for the actual outcome. Ironically all in the name of preventing fraud, corruption and wasting of money. Though, in all fairness, the employees are usually not allowed to think.

[Little Mouse]

Re: Government procurement

Agreed - This episode made me think of the time when our ambitious deputy CTO somehow used his initiative and got a "really good deal" on cheap HDs, thrown in by the preferred supplier during a major storage upgrade.

A new shiny expensive SAN filled to capacity with slow, very low capacity drives, is truly a sad sight to behold.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Government procurement

My boss once ordered 400 laptops to replace every desktop in the company with a laptop for hot desking and remote working. He didn't like the original price quoted, so asked them to take £50 off. The supplier re-submitted, he approved, the laptops turned up on pallets, and it was at that point he found that the new spec he'd approved didn't have webcams.

[Roland6]

Re: Government procurement

>he found that the new spec he'd approved didn't have webcams.

Mind you in the various laptop purchases I've made these last few years, I found it a little irritating how in the tech specifications vendors will give full details of the CPU etc. yet simply list the webcam either as yes it has one or HD Compatible/Ready. As for the sound processing, they are doing well to list the mic and phono ports...

Likewise the various tech reviewer publications, go into great detail about the CPU performance, yet nearly touch on the webcam and sound system.

My research discovered very few laptops (including top end systems from the majors) had anything better than a 720p webcam and basic audio. Mind you this was a blessing, the iPad not only has better webcam and audio but also can be mounted on a stand to give a better view, whilst leaving the laptop free for note taking etc.

[Dave K]

Re: Government procurement

Sounds like an episode of BOFH from some years ago:

Purchasing guy: "We've got a great deal on some LCD screens"

PFY: "But isn't this more than retail price?"

Purchasing guy: "Yes, but these are the special A+ models, so they're higher quality"

[Mike Lewis]

Re: Government procurement

> mindless automatons following a script without any regard for the actual outcome

That happens in private industry too. A company making an automated analyser decided the project would be done with C++. Unfortunately, the programmers they hired knew only Visual C++, not embedded programming or anything about hardware. The project was finally completed years late after spending a lot of money on replacing burned out stepper motors.

[Jedit]

"fraud is not required for such a stupid waste of money"

Very true, but even if there was no criminal intent I still wouldn't want to be the person responsible for this. Rodrigo Duterte is not a kind or forgiving man, and the Filipino Department of Education is headed by his daughter.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "fraud is not required for such a stupid waste of money"

Exactly daughter of previous president investigating about a fraud occurred under her father presidency, what could go wrong?

Probably she will ask to get her share of the money to tell everything is OK, while actual president - Marcos' son will probably ask some too.

Democracy usually doesn't work well when there sons and daughters around....

[katrinab]

Re: "fraud is not required for such a stupid waste of money"

That would be like Dido Harding's husband being in charge of investigating NHS fraud. Which was actually the case at the time.

[Ozumo]

Re: Government procurement

It is entirely possible that there was absolutely no fraud or corruption on the government side.

It's also entirely possible that bears don't defeacate in the woods, but it isn't where the smart money bets.

[Marty McFly]

Re: Government procurement

Spot on.

And right now the 'investigation' is proving every government lackey followed the process precisely, and therefore nothing sticks to them. The end of the investigation will result in more bureaucracy, making the next equipment purchase even more convoluted.

We really are in a global downward spiral. Government creates a problem. Government provides a solution for the problem which results in more government...which creates more problems to solve.

[keithpeter]

Re: Government procurement

OK - given COVID and the need to provide teachers with communications kit quickly what would your alternative be?

The UK model? (some guy we met in the pub)

Pop down to the shop?

Or have some kind of bid process but with people who know which way is up?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Government procurement From a "mindless automaton"

Needing 70,000 computers ASAP means you write your Request For Proposal with two main criteria - they have to run the same software that the students are using (and be cloneable from a disk image) and they have to be available to ship. If there were any technical requirements they would be related to storage.

It is not at all surprising that the winning bid was for Celerons. They are actively supported by Intel and Windows, they can run student software, and they are cheap. After the not at all mindless RFP is issued, there is a not at all mindless review. The only "tick box" that needs to be checked is the date and time of submission and even there, it can be extended for cause.

The outcome that the government and the process strive for is not the best or the cheapest, it is the cheapest which fulfills the requirements. If they want something better they require more, if cheaper, require less.

The result the Philippines got may or may not be fraud. I'd have to look at the RFP, the two bids, and the technical bid reviews. Given the history of the country, I have my suspicions.

I also suspect that the AC comes from the other side of the government procurement fence where people like him cut and paste bids together which promise that their Raspberry Pi will be able to run z/OS by the contract start date. Which is the 'not quite fraud' that the US, UK, and EU have to deal with.

Even so, I wouldn't call him a "mindless automaton".

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Government procurement From a "mindless automaton"

I suspect a major part of the bid was the delivery date to. Everyone was after laptops and people were willing to pay stupid money to get anything that worked. Add in government procurement processes where an undotted i or an uncrossed t gets you kicked out of the process with no chance to re-submit due the the urgency of the process and it's quite possible to end up paying vastly over the odds to some company who didn't expect to win so put in a "silly" quote to show willing, and then scrambled to supply "at any price" while still making a huge profit.

[Alan Brown]

Re: Government procurement

The most important part is not to get the best possible price, but to show that procedures have been followed

[Diogenes]

Re: Government procurement

Any Aussies, especially from NSW out there?

Remember the Rudd Laptops - 2007ish?

NSW - There was a big budget, after spending on the required infrastructure(wifi hubs in every classroom, networking those back to the departmental servers) there was approx $470 to spend per laptop.

Requirement No 1 - 3 years warranty (cost @ $280)

Requirement 2 - Delivery of 50k+ machines by the (insert date)

Requirement 3 - Run windows.

Result - Load with office suite, the entire adobe suite - all on a machine with at best 2 hours battery, 40 gb HD, and 2 gb of ram. Kids and teachers hated them

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Government procurement

There may be dodgy dealings going on but don't automatically assume conspiracy/malice/corruption when incompetence is just as (or even more) likely...

Never underestimate the speed of stupidity.

[martinusher]

Re: Government procurement

Its not 'government'. My wife's school (a private school) bought tablets for their kids back when all this started. Quite apart from the top down edict that you had to use them and nothing else (completely disrupting the science department who had sets of laptops and sensors) they grossly overpaid for both tablets and associated software.

Usually these contracts are organized by a tight little cabal of experts and salespeople to their mutual benefit. There's a pot of money to be had, its just a matter of divviying up the contract so that it can all be spent.

[Anonymous Coward]

Taking lessons from South Africa

Looks like the Philippines Education Dept has been schooled in the art of corruption by the South African government. Any country that can make 1/3 of its GDP disappear into the pockets of cadres and their families and friends in just seven years would certainly be a welcome mentor to those of a corrupt bent.

[Anonymous South African Coward]

Re: Taking lessons from South Africa

Proudly exporting corruption and power failures the whole world over...

Maybe we should rename South Africa to SPECTRE...

the C stands for Corruption.

[localzuk]

Availability

So, to add my tuppence - this article doesn't explain exactly when the procurement happened, and when the delivery was.

During the Covid-19 lockdown period, equipment was VERY hard to source in any sort of volume - especially as factories kept getting shut down.

So, there is a distinct possibility that the cheaper bid had an exceedingly long lead time, vs the more expensive item being in stock (and of course it'd be in stock, who on Earth would want tens of thousands of terrible Celeron laptops)?

This is where technology spend needs to go through some actual technical people before sign-off, and their input be listened to. Happens far too often that procurement people buy stuff because it looks good on paper, but they have zero idea what any of it means.

[thejoelr]

Re: Availability

The celeron used is also a modern cpu. The only thing wrong with the hardware is the hdd. It is unclear also if this included years of support... There are a lot of politics involved in this.

[Peter2]

Re: Availability

Just before the pandemic lockdown period I was on the phone to a supplier after some laptops as it was obvious that things were going sideways and we needed laptops for staff who ordinarily didn't leave the office.

He was sitting there refreshing the stock levels every few seconds and entire stock ranges were going out of stock while we were on the phone. I ended up with a load of Levano laptops that ordinarily I wouldn't have bought simply because they were in stock at an acceptable price for an acceptable spec at the time. Another few hours and i'd have probably been buying those Celerons.

Also: Our paperwork for the order is technically correct, but it followed the path of ordering what was in stock via phone with the supplier, then confirming the order via email and then filling in the authorisation paperwork afterwards which might look "interesting" from the point of view of somebody investigating if the proper procedure had been followed.

[David 132]

Re: Availability

>I ended up with a load of Levano laptops

Ah yes, the off-brand knockoff from the same people that brought you Sorny and Panaphonics hi-fi...

[Pangasinan Philippines]

Dirty hands

One of the suppliers is listed as a construction company.

Plenty of this in the local papers here (available on-line)

[ZeeroMX]

Re: Dirty hands

In Mexico we have an inflatable toys company renting construction equipment for an Oil Refinery that the state company Pemex is constructing with the help of the most obscure contractor, the military.

[nautica]

Hanlon says, "Never attribute to malice..."

Before rushing to judgement, let's consider all possibilities. This is a particularly charitable one.

[gandalfcn]

Fraud in the 'Pines? Impossible, they were trained by the USA.

[greenwood-IT]

Options

Maybe it included a years Office 365 and McAfee for free :-)

[bpfh]

I would expect that even Apple would knock a buck or two of MSRP

If you phoned your local Apple Store and asked for 30 000 laptops….

So the question is: who is a friend of the Education Minister of the Philippines, and had a warehouse full of 6 year old stock and made an absolute killing?

[Peter2]

Re: I would expect that even Apple would knock a buck or two of MSRP

Normally, yes. You have a lot of stock, and shifting a large amount is worth knocking a bit off the price.

During the pandemic nobody had anything in stock, so why bother to offer a discount when you can probably sell it for 20% more than the RRP if you actually had it available then and there?

[anonymous boring coward]

At least they are investigating.

Here in UK, for similar fiascos, is't just a shrug of the shoulders, and the £BILLIONS are gone forever. Tory Style.

[Potemkine!]

Did you see those flying pigs?

An inquiry is the best way to bury little dirty secrets.

I expect no one in that government or in the previous one be indicted following that inquiry.

[gandalfcn]

Well done, you upset the Tories.

[gandalfcn]

So did I.

[Felonmarmer]

I got told this story by a friend who was a tech sales chap. A national building society rang the company that he works and asked for some small wireless keyboards that the staff could carry about in the customer facing part of the business so they could use the PC's that otherwise would display adverts on the latest financial products and current interest rates to do customer enquiries. They wanted about 10 per bank, to include spares.

He looked up the product and found a range going for about £12. He quoted them £500 per keyboard. The customer agreed without any questions. He then took the rest of the day off, he said his commission would be enough not to need to work for the next few months.

He expected us to congratulate him for his cleverness, however that was my bank and the money he squeezed of them would be paid for by the banks customers, so I wasn't that pleased.

He did pay for the currys that night so I reckon I may have been compensated enough though.

[ratkil]

Just sounds like

another at the office for government spending, not? I would imagine it's not hard to find any number of examples like this regardless of where (what country) you look.