THE BUREAU OF THE TREASURY, which is under the Department of Finance (DOF), seems to detest some P270 million in possible savings for this cute administration.

After all, the National Treasury manages all of the government?s cash transactions. It apparently thinks it can do whatever it pleases with the cash.

The P270-million savings could have come from the ?reconstruction and restoration project? of the historic Ayuntamiento (now in ruins) in Intramuros.

The Treasury decided it wanted to use the building at whatever cost, and so it set a budget ceiling for its restoration at about P1.2 billion.

This amount could already pay for more than 2,000 classrooms.

As you may have guessed by now, this is another of those bid time horror stories. As it turned out, in the bureau?s bidding for the contact, the lowest bid (submitted by Hilmarc?s Construction) came in at only P920 million.

That was a cool P270 million lower than the bureau?s budget. In other words, this cute administration of Gloriaetta could have saved enough money to build more than 500 classrooms.

Yet somebody in the bureau or in the DOF or in this cute administration decided that the lowest bidder could not get the Ayuntamiento contract.

Whadayano, without much ado, thank you, the Treasury simply disqualified the lowest bidder. And the second lowest! And also the third lowest! Long, long after the bidding, mind you!

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FROM WHAT I gathered, the questionable decision of the National Treasury already reached some lawmakers.

The office of Sen. Richard Gordon, Chair of the blue ribbon committee, and that of Rep. Pedro Romualdo, Chair of the committee on good government and public accountability, are looking into the mess.

I heard the National Treasury also yanked out of the picture the second and the third lowest bidders, namely, A.M. Oreta and Young Builders, respectively.

And so with the last minute disqualification of the lowest bidder, which was Hilmarc?s Construction, and the next two lowest bidders, the Treasury is readying to award the project to?fanfare, please?none other than the fourth lowest bidder.

I repeat: Fourth lowest bidder.

It happened to be a company called DDT Konstract, which offered a bid of P1.18 billion. You know?almost exactly the same amount as the National Treasury?s budget! Wow!

And here we are, down here in my barangay, foolishly believing that the bidding is all about getting the best possible price for the government project.

We only pay for everything with our tax money, anyway.

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WHAT BROUGHT about the disqualification of the three lowest bidders, in the first place?

Well, some three months after the bidding, the National Treasury discovered it had the technical competence to investigate the previous works of the disqualified companies.

Nobody can yet say of course whether or not the Treasury made those, er, ?discoveries? with the help of another bidding company.

Under the bidding rules, the National Treasury had only a month to disqualify any of the bidders for whatever reason?whether technical or whimsical.

It took the Treasury all of three months to ?discover? the technicalities that led to the disqualification of the three lowest bidders.

Earlier, the same National Treasury showed a lot of leniency in the bidding process. One of the bidders protested the ?eligibility? of other prequalified bidders for their failure to submit the required documents.

Do you know what those swell guys in the National Treasury said? Well, those sons of their mothers said it was up to them to waive any documentary requirement. In effect, there was nothing that anybody could do about the waiver decision.

Why were those documents put as prequalification requirements in the first place? Only to be ?waived? by those swell guys.

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HAVE YOU ever heard of a device for something called ?brine immersion freezing? or BIF? Me, too!

It is a new technology, invented by a Filipino known as Hernie Decena, who has been going around trying to promote his invention.

According to the inventor, the technology can provide cheap and fast way to preserve seafood, meat, fruits and vegetables. It uses liquid for an instant freeze?versus, say, the air blast method.

Thus, Decena claims that, after going through the BIF method, food can be stored for two to three days in Styrofoam boxes without ice. Inside freezers or chillers, it can last up to six months.

Thus, highly perishable products like fish can be transported for 24 to 72 hours without the use of ice.

But more than the longer shelf life of the food, the BIF method helps maintain the freshness of the products. Decena said the quality of the BIF-frozen fish stays the same after two to three days.

What is more, the method takes only a few minutes, depending on the volume of the products to be frozen, while other methods take hours.

The BIF appliance, according to its inventor, is also portable, being the size of a chest-type freezer.

The BIF machine and technique thus got the approval of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR). It has also passed the University of the Philippines (UP) Pharmacology and Toxicology test.