ONLY eight senators have so far signed the Blue Ribbon committee’s partial report on the Pharmally issue as of yesterday morning, short of three signatures for the report to the plenary for debates.
The office of Sen. Richard Gordon, committee chairman, said the report has been signed by Gordon, Franklin Drilon, Risa Hontiveros, Panfilo Lacson, Leila de Lima, Emmanuel Pacquiao, Francis Pangilinan, and Aquilino Pimentel III.
A committee report needs to be signed by majority, or at least 11 of the 20 panel members, before it can be discussed on the floor. Otherwise, it will be a mere draft committee report.
Gordon last week released to the media a copy of the panel’s partial report which recommended that President Duterte, after stepping down in June, be charged with “betrayal of public trust” when he appointed Michael Yang, a Chinese, as his economic adviser; when the President discredited the Commission on Audit and the Senate for conducting an investigation into the alleged irregularities; and for issuing a “patently-illegal” memorandum preventing members of his Cabinet from attending the committee hearings.
The committee also recommended criminal charges against key players in alleged irregularities in the grant by government of billions in pandemic supply contracts in 2020 to Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp. which had a paid-up capital of only P625,000.
They include Health Secretary Francisco Duque III; Lloyd Christopher Lao, former head of the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM); Warren Liong, also a former official of PS-DBM; and several officials of Pharmally and other companies which have had made transactions with the PS-DBM in connection with the P42-billion funds of the Department of Health for its pandemic response.
In a radio interview last Saturday, Gordon hinted three senators were hesitant to sign the report as they are having second thoughts as they are not sure the committee has enough evidence against Duterte.
Lacson has said he signed the report with reservations as he wanted to interpellate the report, specifically on the betrayal of public trust issue against Duterte.
