SENATE President Vicente Sotto III yesterday signed a commitment order on the transfer today of two executives of Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corporation from their detention cell at the Senate building in Pasay City to the Pasay City Jail.
To be moved to the city jail are Linconn Ong, director of Pharmally whose transactions with government for pandemic supplies are being investigated by the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, and Mohit Dargani, the firm’s corporate treasurer/secretary.
The transfer order was recommended by committee chairman Sen. Richard Gordon after the two Pharmally executives refused to tell where their company’s financial records are.
The order addressed to Supt. Ramil Vestra, Pasay City jail warden, said the two will remain under the custody of the city jail “until such time they will properly answer questions propounded to them, submit documents required by the committee or otherwise purge themselves of a contempt order imposed against them on September 10, 2021 and October 19, 2021, respectively.”
At the 15th hearing last Friday, Ong and Dargani were given the chance to say where the company’s financial documents are being kept so they can be retrieved.
Rene Samonte, the Senate’s sergeant-at-arms, said his men failed to retrieve the documents as Ong and Dargani apparently gave them the round-around, saying neither of them knew if the documents are at their office, warehouse, or residence.
Samonte has told Gordon that Dargani had been told he could go to the three places but he refused. Dargani then told Samonte that his lawyer, Donn Rico Kapunan, knows where the documents are but the lawyer denied this.
“It seems wala talagang boxes and boxes of documents or ayaw ilabas kung meron man (It seems that there are no boxes of documents or they just do not want to bring them out, if it’s true that there are indeed documents),” he added.
Dargani, and his sister Twinkle Dargani, Pharmally president, were arrested on November 14 while on board a chartered private plane at the Davao International Airport, which was to take them to Malaysia.
Twinkle will remain under the Senate’s custody.
The Darganis were ordered arrested after they were cited in contempt for refusing to surrender their company’s financial records.
Ong has been detained at the Senate since September 21 after he was cited in contempt for being evasive and lying to committee members.
The Blue Ribbon’s 16th hearing is set on December 3. The panel is investigating the P42 billion pandemic response funds of the Department of Health transferred to the
Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management, which awarded more than P10 billion worth of contracts to the undercapitalized Pharmally which in turn supplied allegedly overpriced medical supplies.
