BY RAYMOND AFRICA and WENDELL VIGILIA
LAWYERS hired by two officials of Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corporation, who are detained at the Senate building in Pasay City, visited their clients on Tuesday but one of them initially denied having worked in Malacañang, Sen. Richard Gordon said yesterday.
Another Pharmally official, who has testified against her company before the Senate Blue Ribbon committee chaired by Gordon, on Monday left the House of Representatives from which she sought protective custody before recanting her Senate testimony.
The Blue Ribbon has been conducting hearings on the P42-million pandemic funds transferred by the Department of Health to the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget (PS-DBM) which awarded the under-capitalized Pharmally at least P10 billion worth of contracts to supply medical supplies to the government.
Senators suspect the real financier of Pharmally is a Chinese businessman who was appointed by President Duterte as economic adviser in 2018, based on testimonies of Pharmally officials.
Gordon said lawyer Daryl Ritchie Valles, during the visit to his clients, siblings Mohit and Twinkle Dargani, was asked by members of the Office of the Senate Sgt-At-Arms (OSAA) if he is the same person who worked under the Office of the Special Assistant to the President.
“We do not understand why there was a need for the subterfuge, why there was a need to hide an important fact. Here the attempt to hide a fact, raises more questions as a result,” Gordon said.
The Dargani siblings were cited in contempt and later ordered arrested by Gordon after they refused to submit Pharmally’s financial documents to the panel.
Gordon said a man who identified himself as a lawyer asked permission if he can visit Twinkle, company president, and Mohit, company secretary/treasurer, who were arrested on Saturday while attempting to flee the country on a chartered private plane via the Davao International Airport.
Before Valles was allowed entry, Gordon said, the OSAA found out that the lawyer, who was later identified as Valles, “is a Director IV at the Office of the Special Assistant to the President,” based on a check made by the OSAA at the Office of the President Directory.
The Office of the Special Assistant to the President, or OSAP, is the office previously headed by Christopher Go, then special assistant to the President, and now senator and presidential aspirant.
Cabinet Secretary and presidential spokesman Karlo Nograles said Valles, based on records of the Human Resources Management Office in Malacañang, is a lawyer who is “formerly under the Office of the President” who resigned from his post on March 1, 2021.
“Further inquiries revealed that upon leaving the Office of the President, Attorney Valles thereafter worked in an office under the House of Representatives,” he added.
It was unknown why Valles resigned from OP and under what office in the House is he working for now.
The House of Representatives neither confirmed nor denied that Valles is one of its employees.
The House Media Relations Service-Public Relations and Information Bureau (MRS-PRIB) said the Human Resource department could not disclose any information about its employees, citing the Data Privacy Act.
Gordon said that instead of readily admitting who he he is, Valles denied links to the Palace “though he said he was from Davao.”
Before Valles was allowed to leave, Gordon said members of the OSAA again asked the lawyer “whether he was the same person connected with Malacañang.”
That time Valles admitted he was but said he resigned from his post last February.
Gordon said he cannot understand why Valles initially hid the information.
“The Darganis are entitled to counsel. That is a right we intend to always honor. They can hire whichever lawyer their money can buy. Or, they can hire a decent lawyer, too,” he said.
The Dargani siblings told the Senate Blue Ribbon committee they have hired the services of four lawyers to assist them in their case. The two others are Don Kapunan and Demetri Felix. The fourth has yet to confirm his or her acceptance of the case.
Administration critics have been alleging that President Duterte has been protecting Pharmally officials. The President has said the Senate can do what it wants with Pharmally executives.
OUT OF THE HOUSE
Krizle Grace Mago, head of Pharmally’s regulatory affairs unit and one of the company’s incorporators, has voluntarily left the protective custody of House committee on good government, said panel chairman Rep. Michael Aglipay (PL, DIWA).
“Nagsulat siya ng letter sa leadership last week na gusto na niyang umalis, so we allowed her. She left two days ago, (She wrote a letter to the leadership last week, saying she wanted to leave, so we allowed her. She left two days ago),” he told reporters in an online press conference.
Mago in September recanted the testimonies she made before the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, saying her claim that Pharmally “swindled” the government was made under tremendous “pressure” from senators.
She drew the ire of some senators after she backtracked on her statements before the Aglipay panel, even withdrawing her statement that Pharmally had delivered expired face shields to the government, the expiration of which were allegedly tampered with.
Aglipay said his panel’s committee report, which is expected to clear some government and Pharmally officials, already has a second draft which is being reviewed by the legal team of the Office of the Speaker.
“Let’s give them two to three weeks. No one has seen the report but the Speaker’s office and my staff in the committee secretariat. The issue are so complicated. It shouldn’t be rushed),” he said in mixed Filipino and English.
Aglipay earlier said his panel had to launch its own probe on the prodding of other lawmakers after President Duterte’s name was being dragged into the Pharmally issue because of the involvement of his former economic adviser, Chinese citizen businessman Michael Yang.
Aglipay has been insisting that the House is not out to defend the Duterte administration from allegations of irregularities in awarding billions in contracts to Pharmally but is only exposing the senators’ motive which, he said, is to bring down administration candidates in the May 2022 national elections. — With Jocelyn Montemayor and Ashzel Hachero
