THE pandemic is larger than life. It has the capability to ruin — or take — our very own lives. But to some, it is something that translates into livelihood.
The Commission on Audit (COA) report says it all – a long list of squandered funds at a time when the government could hardly buy enough vaccines against the deadly virus which originated from Wuhan Province in China.
Data gathered by the COA from various government agencies under its radar showed the magnitude of corruption in the government, but not without any help from the underworld.
Geniuses in the government managed to make the most out of the pandemic by giving away billions worth of contract to dubious, if not dummy corporations in an apparent bid to corner a huge chunk of the limited government resources intended to address the national emergency in view of the continuing pandemic scare as reflected in the daily tallies of infections.
Top businessmen and even local government officials are not happy with the way the government has been handling the pandemic, further aggravated by highly-irregular COVID-19-related supply deals involving no less than the people to whom the President entrusted the job of making sure everything is in order.
Oh yes, indeed everything is in order. But not the order that we all thought it should.
Order dito, order doon! That is what exactly happened. Government-sealed deals for multi-billion worth of purchases from dubious companies embarking on overpriced and sub-standard deliveries.
A closer look at the COA report showed that many supply deals for the medical supplies were made with companies which have nothing to do with science. Well, there is one which claims to be engaged in pharmaceutical – the Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corporation, which according to the Securities and Exchange Commission only had a registered paid-up capital amounting to around P600,000.
Interestingly, Pharmally got the biggest chunk of the deals – a whopping P10 billion just for three contracts — two in 2020 and one in June this year.
But who’s behind this company, anyway? If the revelations made by Senator Risa Hontiveros are true, the corporate executives behind this company are fugitives for crimes committed in Taiwan. On top of the fugitives, the names of persons extremely close to President Rodrigo Duterte have been dragged into it. They are former presidential adviser Michael Yang, former Budget Undersecretary Christopher Lloyd Lao and no less than the president’s longtime aide and now Senator Bong Go.
Yang, Lao ang Go share one common denominator – they’re all from Davao City, the President’s hometown. It is for this reason that the triad is referred to as the Davao Group.
Businessmen tend to spend much to establish rapport with these people hoping to get a slice of the juicy government contracts – but not without setting aside what is commonly referred to in the government as SOP.
From what I heard, SOP is pegged at 30 percent and paid in advance. Imagine the amount that this triad must have made since Duterte took Malacañang by storm in 2016.
I am not good in mathematics, so I suggest that you do you math. Sure enough, you’d rather not just like I did. Hirap kayang kwentahin nun sa dami ng transaksyon ng gobyerno.