Tubong lugaw! Lacson: Pharmally may have earned P1.5B from just one PS-DBM contract

 Tubong lugaw! Lacson: Pharmally may have earned P1.5B from just one PS-DBM contract

Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp. enjoyed windfall profits from the contracts it won from the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management, with one order alone netting the company P1.5 billion in earnings, Senator Panfilo Lacson said Monday (Sept. 13).

Lacson said it was important for the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee to determine how much of the P42 billion transferred by the Department of Health (DOH) to the PS-DBM went to Pharmally as payment for medical supplies.

Citing information shared by Pharmally president Huang Tzu Yen in the Sept. 10 Senate hearing, Lacson said the company may have earned P1.5 billion from supplying two million sets of personal protective equipment (PPE) worth P1,910 each, for a total of P3.8 billion.

The PPE sets, Lacson added, were bought by former presidential economic adviser Michael Yang from Chinese suppliers at P1,150 each, which meant the company got a profit of P760 per set.

“This is why we need to find out how much of the full P42B (P42 billion) was awarded to Pharmally in order for the committee to at least estimate the total profit that went to Michael Yang,” the senator said.

Huang admitted in the Sept. 10 hearing that Yang loaned money to Pharmally because the company had no funds when it won the contracts from PS-DBM at the time it was led by former Budget Undersecretary Lloyd Christopher Lao.

Lacson said senators want to know if Yang acted alone or conspired with “bigger” personalities to allow Pharmally to bag around P10 billion in contracts from PS-DBM.

“The bigger mystery that has yet to be unraveled by the committee is – are there bigger and more important personalities behind Yang, or did he act on his own?” he asked.