ON THE EVE of the Senate hearing on facemasks and face shields, President Rodrigo Duterte discouraged the public from believing in investigations because, after all, nothing ever happens after the legislators ask their questions.
The President said that these investigations do not result in recommendations on lawsuits or prosecutions.
“No one goes to jail – it is all just posturing,” he declared.
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The quick riposte to this is that investigations in aid of legislation are an essential weapon in the arsenal of powers granted to Congress by the Constitution.
Remedial or proactive legislation may be enacted to fill the gaps in the law that are exposed by these investigations.
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Right before he belittled congressional investigations, the President trained his guns on the Commission on Audit (COA) that had flagged big-ticket items in its audit reports.
The President said COA must “reconfigure” its reports to avoid public perception that the concerned government agencies are engaged in corrupt practices. He proposed that COA reports contain a disclaimer that they do not mention “any findings by the auditors of funds lost to corruption.”
Does the President want COA to “doctor” its findings to soften the blow against government agencies under his command?
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The President excoriating in quick succession two bodies that are constitutionally designed to be independent from the executive department was a foretelling of the alarming badges of corruption that were laid bare during the Senate hearing on Aug. 25.
The hearing was precipitated by a COA finding that the Department of Health had downloaded P42 billion to the procurement service arm of the Department of Budget and Management sans a memorandum of agreement that would explain the whys and wherefores of the transfer.
The House of Representatives and the Senate had scrambled to source and identify funding for the President’s Bayanihan 1 and 2.
Surely, as a lawyer the President must know that these bodies have oversight powers to make sure that these funds are wisely spent in addressing a rampaging pandemic where every centavo of the people’s money counts?
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The Senate hearing uncovered these shocking details:
Of the P42 billion, P8.7-billion worth of procurement contracts were awarded to an obscure company called Pharmally.
Pharmally is “obscure” because it was registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission only on Sept. 4, 2019. Its paid-up capital was less than 700 thousand pesos.
The P8.7 billion award to Pharmally was made in May 2020, or barely eight months after its birth as a juridical person.
The summons issued by the Senate inviting Pharmally executives to its hearing was left unserved. Its corporate address is a high-end condominium unit in Taguig, but security personnel manning the building said the unit had been vacant since 2018.
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Bidding terms and conditions require bidders to submit proof of their “track record” in supplying the items set for purchase.
It is highly doubtful that Pharmally could have managed to shore up enough track record in less than a year of local existence on its way to bagging the most lucrative contract awarded by PS-DBM. Did Bayanihan 1 and 2 waive this requirement?
Is this not akin to awarding the construction of a magnificent edifice to a fledgling construction firm – not to a AAA engineering company?
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Did Secretary Francisco Duque think that by transferring the funds to PS-DBM he would be clean of the pungent whiff of corruption now swirling around Lloyd Cristopher Lao – the Davao boy that Bong Go is now repudiating like the apostle Peter did?
Sen. Franklin Drilon does not think so. He asserts that Lao and Duque are both principals in the premeditated crime of plunder.
That this plunder is being undertaken at a time of great need aggravates the offense a hundred-fold.
Some folks are laughing their way to the bank at the expense of public health./PN
