FOUR years after the country’s clueless fight against the coronavirus that gave us COVID-19, government is now at the stage where sober recollections of what happened during those hurried weeks of public health emergency may be made. And that, precisely, is what the House of Representatives is doing now that they have the luxury of time (Congress is in recess) and the benefit of hindsight.
First on the podium of inquiry was former health secretary Francisco Duque III who told the committee that ex-president Rodrigo Duterte was the one who ordered the controversial transfer of P47.6 billion from the Department of Health (DOH) to the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM) for the purchase of Covid-19 supplies in 2020.
‘Still and all, the judicial process must take its course, whether normally slow or extremely, grindingly slow, for that is how we obtain justice in our democratic system’
Duque made the disclosure during the oversight hearing of the House committee on appropriations, insisting the move was legal because the country was in the middle of a health emergency.
Duque said the DOH’s “overriding consideration was to prevent, if not mitigate the risk for our healthcare workers waiting for local suppliers whom we knew had no capacity, initially, to supply large volumes of PPEs and other COVID-19 supplies needed,” he told the panel.
The contention that no local suppliers had the capacity to supply large volumes of PPE and medical supplies will need verification.
The Office of the Ombudsman last month ordered the filing of a graft case against Duque and former PS-DBM executive director Lloyd Christopher Lao for the fund transfer, in violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act. The anti-graft body has also found Duque and Lao guilty of grave misconduct, gross neglect of duty and conduct prejudicial to the service.
The Ombudsman’s investigation stemmed from a 2020 Commission on Audit report and a complaint filed by Sen. Risa Hontiveros and former senator Richard Gordon in 2022, following months of hearings by the Senate Blue Ribbon committee.
Hontiveros believes Duterte should be included in the ongoing Ombudsman investigation on various procurement contracts Pharmally made with the government. This is the logical next move after Duque’s revelation under oath that it was the former president who authorized or directed the transfer of funds from the DOH to the PS-DBM.
Last month, the Ombudsman affirmed a ruling finding probable cause to file graft cases before the Sandiganbayan against Lao, former PS-DBM overall deputy Ombudsman Warren Lex Liong, and former PS-DBM procurement management officer Paul Jasper de Guzman, along with other officials. Pharmally president Twinkle Dargani, treasurer and secretary Mohit Dargani, directors Linconn Ong and Justine Garado and board member Huang Tzu Yen were also ordered charged.
The Sandiganbayan will have to conduct the trial and rule on the complaints, then the case goes to the Supreme Court, and by then the number of interested Filipinos following up this case will have dwindled. Still and all, the judicial process must take its course, whether normally slow or extremely, grindingly slow, for that is how we obtain justice in our democratic system.
