Pwede naman dumiretso sa China: Drilon asks why PS-DBM paid Pharmally P8.7B to be a middleman for COVID-19 supplies

Why didn’t the Philippine government negotiate directly with China to purchase much needed COVID-19 medical supplies instead of letting a little-known company import the items for profit?

This was the question raised by Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon Friday (Sept. 3) as he raised the possibility that Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp. was only the middleman in multibillion-peso transactions involving the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM).

In an interview on One News’ “The Chiefs,” Drilon said a look at Pharmally’s financial statements showed the company earned around P378 million last year from sales amounting to P7.49 billion, which were supposedly all government transactions.

The opposition lawmaker also recalled government officials as saying recently that they had to talk to their counterparts in China to get COVID-19 supplies last year because of booming demand.

“If you listen to the testimony of administration people, they say that it was so urgent that we would talk to the Chinese ambassador. Yes, so we accept that. So why didn’t we get to a government-to-government transaction? We are supposed to be close allies with China. Why couldn’t we have purchased it directly and removed the middleman and save at least P378 million in declared net income or profit of Pharmally?” Drilon asked.

The Senate blue ribbon committee is currently investigating how Pharmally was able to corner the multibillion-peso contracts from PS-DBM despite its lack of track record and a paid-up capital of only P625,000. Duterte’s former economic adviser, Michael Yang, has been linked to the company.

Drilon is urging Pharmally executives to attend the hearing to clear the company’s name and explain its transactions with PS-DBM.

“I’d encourage, humarap po kayo sa Senado at ipaliwanag niyo ito. Why is that so difficult?” he said.

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Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)