News Roundup 03 June 2022
Jun 03, 2022 • 4 min Read
Senate lets Pharmally execs walk | INQUIRER.NET – The Senate on Thursday ordered the release of two detained executives of Pharmally Pharmaceuticals Corp., the severely undercapitalized company which its blue ribbon committee found to have won the lion’s share of contracts from a P42-billion pandemic response fund of the Department of Health. Senate President Vicente Sotto III issued separate release orders for Mohit Dargani, the company’s secretary and treasurer, and board director Linconn Ong, who had been held at Pasay City Jail since Nov. 29 last year after they were declared in contempt of the Senate for not cooperating with the blue ribbon investigation. They were initially detained, along with Dargani’s sister, company president Twinkle Dargani, at the Senate compound, but their alleged attempt to mislead senators about the location of financial documents prompted the blue ribbon committee to order the transfer of the two men to the city Jail. Sotto’s June 2 release order was one of his last acts as Senate president. He lost the vice presidential race in the May 9 elections. The company executives were among those recommended to be charged with plunder, graft, perjury and tax evasion in connection with alleged irregularities in Pharmally’s contracts amounting to P11.11 billion with the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM). The company, which had a paid-up capital of only P625,000 when it was incorporated less than a year before the COVID-19 pandemic struck the country in March 2020, became the center of the Senate investigation of the government’s purchases of pandemic supplies. The blue ribbon committee report authored by its chair, Sen. Richard Gordon, also recommended the prosecution of President Duterte for betrayal of public trust when he allegedly defended those involved in the irregularities. In an interview with reporters on Wednesday night, Gordon said he objected to Sotto’s order to release Dargani and Ong. “I told him, ‘Mr. President, I disagree. But I will bow down to your authority,’” he said.
De Lima ‘sorely disappointed’ at fellow senators who did not sign Pharmally draft report | PHILSTAR.COM – Sen. Leila De Lima said Friday that she is displeased with some senators in the Blue Ribbon Committee who did not sign the draft report of the Senate’s investigations on the questionable transactions of Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp. with the government. Only nine senators, including De Lima, affixed their signatures on the partial committee report, short of two more which would allow it to be tackled in the Upper House’s plenary. “I am sorely disappointed at the failure of several of our colleagues in the Blue Ribbon Committee to sign the committee report on the Pharmally investigation. Because of the lack of a majority signing the same, the report would now have to be archived, as if no anomaly happened,” she said in a dispatch dated June 3. Blue Ribbon Committee chair Sen. Richard Gordon earlier requested to archive the entire report in the Senate’s records. De Lima also said that the decision of senators to not sign the report is tantamount to letting culpable parties run “scot free.” “To let these people get away with plunder and corruption smacks of gross dereliction of duty on the part of the Senate,” she added. Despite her frustration, she said she is hopeful that Sen. Risa Hontiveros’ plan to revive the Pharmally inquiry will “bear fruit” in the next Congress. Hontiveros, the lone opposition bet who made it to the so-called “Magic 12” in this year’s polls, expressed openness in sponsoring a resolution which would call for an inquiry into the Pharmally controversy. She is banking on getting the support of allies of President Rodrigo Duterte and those who ran under the slate of President-elect Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. “It will surely be a test for the incoming administration insofar as its promise to fight corruption and jail corrupt officials is concerned, no matter how high up they are in the totem pole of government,” De Lima said.
US backs Philippines in China fishing ban | PHILSTAR.COM – The United States on Thursday backed the Philippines in criticizing a unilateral seasonal ban on fishing declared by Beijing in the dispute-rife South China Sea. The State Department pointed to a 2016 ruling by a court in The Hague that rejected Beijing’s claims, as well as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, ratified by China although not by the United States. “The PRC’s unilateral fishing moratorium in the South China Sea is inconsistent with the 2016 Arbitral Tribunal ruling and international law,” State Department spokesman Ned Price wrote on Twitter, using an acronym for the People’s Republic of China. “We call upon the PRC to abide by its obligations under international law.” The Philippines, a treaty-bound ally of the United States, on Tuesday summoned a Chinese diplomat over the announcement of a unilateral fishing ban as well as alleged harassment of a marine research vessel by a Chinese coast guard ship.
