More effort

Three supply deals alone, for RT-PCR test kits (remember them?), were worth P4.165 billion.

Perhaps more indictments are forthcoming, this time covering the bulk of the sweetheart deals awarded to Pharmally Pharmaceuticals Corp. amounting to about P11.5 billion. These supply deals are for face masks, those infamous face shields, personal protective equipment and other COVID-19 paraphernalia procured in 2020.

Apart from the items supposedly being overpriced, people want to know how Pharmally, a company incorporated only in September 2019 with authorized capital of just P625,000, managed to bag those fat contracts with the government, during the worst public health crisis faced by the country.

The investigation conducted by the Senate Blue Ribbon committee under Richard Gordon had tried to unearth what happened. It named former Duterte presidential economic adviser Michael Yang as the apparent conduit between Pharmally and Malacañang.

Video footage presented at the Senate showed Yang at a meeting with then president Rodrigo Duterte in Panacan, Davao City on March 17, 2017 together with officials of a related company, Pharmally International Holdings led by chairman Huang Wen Lie, said to be the father of Singaporean Huang Tzu Yen, a co-owner of Pharmally Pharmaceuticals.

Yang has denied being the facilitator for the Pharmally deal. Duterte has openly defended Yang from allegations of involvement in the illegal drug trade.

Yang has not been named by government prosecutors in any supposed conspiracy to defraud the public, or tagged in influence peddling that produced supply contracts that have been disadvantageous to the state and the people.

When the ombudsman’s order came out, Gordon lamented the exclusion of Yang from the ombudsman’s order along with associates Lin Wei Xiong and wife Rose.

Gordon expressed hope “that the ombudsman will cast a wider net that will corral all participants in this brazen abuse of power.”

Indicting Yang, however, could implicate Duterte himself in influence peddling involving anomalous deals.

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Apart from the exclusion of Yang in the latest indictments, both Gordon and Sen. Chiz Escudero asked a valid question: why is the charge merely for graft instead of plunder? The threshold for a plunder indictment is P50 million. The amount involved in those three deals alone is so much larger than that.

“Are we gonna see a plunder case here?” Gordon asked. “The ruling has to be explained to the public very well.”

The P4.165 billion wasn’t even broken up into smaller contracts whose value would each fall below the P50-million threshold – a common tactic of crooks in government to escape a plunder indictment in case they are found out.

Considering their solid connections, the Pharmally officials probably didn’t think it was worth the bother. Or perhaps they were clueless about the plunder laws. They need not worry; it looks like the Office of the Ombudsman is also unaware of those laws.

It really helps to have probers and magistrates owe you big-time in this country. The current ombudsman is a Duterte appointee.

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, whose presidency was rocked by a long string of corruption scandals, moved to insulate herself from prosecution after it became clear that she would be replaced by Noynoy Aquino.

Her midnight appointment of Renato Corona as chief justice would create a host of problems that would culminate in Corona’s ouster in an impeachment trial.

There was also GMA’s midnight order to grant all judges, justices and prosecutors non-contributory retirement pensions that would include all the allowances and special fees they received in line with their work, such as membership in the Presidential Electoral Tribunal.

This was disclosed to us on One News’ “The Chiefs” by retired Navy Vice Admiral and former defense undersecretary Ariston de los Reyes, who is speaking on behalf of military retirees in opposing mandatory pension contributions that single out military officers.

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De los Reyes told us that while there are only over 2,000 retirees in the judiciary and prosecution service, their pensions are equivalent to those of a major general in the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

Noynoy Aquino did not stand a chance with the judiciary, with whom he feuded throughout much of his presidency as he lamented “judicial overreach.”

During his presidency, GMA ended up under arrest for plunder. Her detention without bail was eased to “hospital arrest,” but it still lasted four years, during which she always showed up in public with a neck brace and often in a wheelchair.

She won all her legal battles, however, and remains on the public payroll as a member of the House of Representatives.

In the Pharmally case, the buck has stopped, it seems, with resigned PS-DBM executive director Chistopher Lloyd Lao and company executives Twinkle and Mohit Dargani, Linconn Ong, Justine Garado and Huang Tzu Yen.

At least former PS-DBM procurement group director Warren Lex Liong was sacked from his current post as overall deputy ombudsman.

With these developments, Gordon preferred to look on the bright side, saying he was thankful that the ombudsman at least was “making an effort.”

If this were a school paper, that would be the teacher’s comment on the ombudsman’s work on the Pharmally case: “More effort.”