‘Pharmally Execs To Remain In Jail Unless They Cooperate’

Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp. executives will remain detained at the Pasay City Jail until Congress adjourns in June 2022, unless they cooperate in the ongoing legislative inquiry into alleged corruption in the government’s procurement of COVID-19 supplies, Senate President Vicente Sotto III said on Wednesday, Dec. 1.

Sotto issued the statement after the chamber committed Mohit Dargani and Linconn Ong to the Pasay City Jail on Monday, Nov. 29, after they failed to provide the Blue Ribbon committee documents to prove that their multibillion-peso transactions with the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM) were aboveboard.

“They will have to remain there until June 30, 2022. If they cooperate, then we can lift the arrest order right away,” Sotto told reporters in an interview in San Juan City.

“If they have nothing to hide, they would have disclosed everything. If their transactions were clean and aboveboard, they would have shown them because they involved the people’s money. But why are they hiding them? It’s that simple,” he said.

The two were transferred from their detention in the Senate after the committee, chaired by Sen. Richard Gordon, cited them in contempt on Friday after they failed to give the addresses to personnel of the Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms (OSAA) where the documents are supposed to be retrieved.

The source documents sought by the committee are meant to support the financial statements Pharmally submitted to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and other government agencies.

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon earlier suspected that the reason the source documents could not be provided as part of Pharmally’s expenses or profits is because huge amounts went to bribes.

Doing well

Dargani and Ong are doing well and have adjusted to their new surroundings at the Pasay City Jail, according to the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP).

Except for Dargani’s asthma, BJMP spokesman Chief Inspector Xavier Solda said the two have no other health-related issues.

Dargani and Ong spent their first night at the jail in an isolation room together with another inmate.

Compared with the Senate’s air-conditioned detention quarters, the isolation room at the BJMP jail only has an old electric fan, Solda said.

He said the two would stay in the isolation room for 10 to 14 days as part of the bureau’s COVID-19 protocols.

After Dargani and Ong complete their quarantine, they will join the rest of the inmates.

Solda said there are at least 1,104 persons deprived of liberty at the jail, which has a congestion rate of 1,000 percent.

Electronic visitation can be granted, according to Solda, but this must be scheduled as there are other inmates seeking to meet their loved ones online. – With Emmanuel Tupas