EDITORIAL - What about the Pharmally execs?

Dozens of government officials have been ordered preventively suspended for six months by the Office of the Ombudsman as it investigates alleged corruption in the procurement of supplies intended for the pandemic response.

In case Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp. sounds familiar to you, it is in relation to this. And the Ombudsman has seen it fit to look into allegations that dozens of officials from the Procurement Service-Department of Budget and Management as well as from Department of Health were involved in buying overpriced and substandard items.

It’s about time the wheels of this investigation started moving. This issue has been stagnant for quite some time people were starting to forget about it.

It is as Senator Risa Hontiveros who filed the complaint along with former senator Richard Gordon, who helmed the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing into the incident said, it was a validation of their work.

It was June last year when the findings by that committee were set to be brought to the plenary and the recommendations voted on, but it was held in limbo after it lacked the signatures of two senators.

Now the question: Is anything going to be done about the executives of Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp.? They were very same ones who tried to flee the country from a Davao airport at the height of the committee hearings.

Of course we are not necessarily asking the Ombudsman because those executives are not public servants. We are just wondering if ever their role in this will ever be determined or penalized.

Or for that matter, what about others implicated in the incident, including former presidential economic adviser Michael Yang and even former president Rodrigo Duterte who was found by the investigation as being accountable for the anomalies?

Will no action be taken against them?

Forgetting about them would be tantamount to saying only fish of certain size can be caught, while others can be let go.