The Senate Blue Ribbon committee on Tuesday declared Pharmally executives Mohit and Twinkle Dargani in contempt and ordered their detention in the Senate for refusing to submit documents subpoenaed by his panel.
Mohit is corporate secretary and treasurer of Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp., the small start-up that has been at the center of a procurement scandal involving the sale of overpriced pandemic supplies to the government, while his sister Twinkle is the company president.
During the 12th hearing of the committee looking into the sale of overpriced medical supplies to the government, Senator Franklin Drilon inquired from Mohit if they would produce the pertinent documents sought by the panel.
Mohit said he was not refusing to provide the documents, but his company was. He said the documents were “legally accessible” through different procedures under the law, and they were just invoking their rights.
During a previous hearing, Twinkle invoked the data privacy, bank secrecy laws and the country’s corporation code to refuse the submission of documents. She said she would have to consult their company’s lawyers.
“Obviously, Mr. Dargani is refusing to comply with the subpoena, the same thing with Twinkle Dargani,” Drilon said.
“I assume when we place them under detention until they comply, they will refuse and question this in court. Let him question it in court but I move that Mr. Dargani and Twinkle Dargani be both declared in contempt for refusal to comply with the subpoena for the production of these documents,” Drilon said.
Drilon said the subpoenaed documents—subsidiary ledgers, invoices, official receipts, the list of sales, delivery receipts, sales invoices—are all public records.
Senator Francis Pangilinan seconded Drilon’s motion, which prompted the panel’s chairman, Senator Richard Gordon, to approve it.
They were then taken into custody by the Senate sergeant-at-arms.
Meanwhile, Gordon said the panel already has partial findings, including the recommendation of possible charges against Pharmally executives, former presidential adviser Michael Yang and the chief of the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management, Christopher Lloyd Lao.
Charges against Yang and Pharmally executives Linconn Ong and Krizle Mago could include perjury or false testimony, Gordon said.
He also said former officer-in-charge of the inspection division of the PS-DBM Jorge Mendoza and PS-DBM Inspector Mervin Tanquintic may also be liable for falsification of public documents.
The senator said the company’s accountants could also be charged in connection with the case.
The Blue Ribbon committee has been investigating the government’s procurement of medical supplies, including allegedly overpriced face masks, shields and other supplies, at the height of the pandemic last year.
He said the unwarranted benefits in favor of Pharmally were clear in the controversial procurement of medical items.
During the investigation, senators repeatedly questioned the Department of Health’s transfer of P42 billion to the PS-DBM.
The Senate probe, Gordon pointed out, reveals “unconscionable, unabashed, and unethical circumventions of our Republican way of governance.”
Malacañang on Tuesday dismissed as hearsay claims that the “grand conspiracy” of the Pharmally deal would never have happened without the imprimatur” President Rodrigo Duterte.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque made this remark after Gordon said Duterte allegedly “allowed his friends to bleed this nation’s coffers dry”.
“(It’s just hearsay at the time of politics; but they have no evidence to show. In fact, they were not able to prove Duterte’s involvement in purchasing PPE sets,” Roque said in Filipino at a Palace press briefing.
Roque pointed out that no less than the Commission on Audit declared that the PPE sets bought by the administration were not overpriced.
He added that the procurement was consistent with existing laws such as the Government Procurement Reform Act and the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act.
“That is clear, so if there was no violation of the law and no overpricing, how would there be a grand conspiracy? That’s hearsay coming from a person politicking,” he said.
Roque did not say how an undercapitalized start-up with no track record could corner P8 billion in government contracts that made it the administration’s largest supplier of pandemic supplies.
