Drilon and Dick fall prone with unproven claims

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At least thank goodness that kind of yellow-black propaganda blitz didn’t last too long, to be exact only 23 days after Senator Franklin Drilon fired the first salvo, front page banner by, as usual , the Philippine Daily Inquirer opposition bulletin: “$ 8.7 billion in drug supply deals went to a small business. “

This time, however, clearly determined to run for a higher post in 2022, “independent” Senator Richard Gordon has joined the fray, even becoming the face of this blitz. The push of this desperate propaganda blitz: The Duterte government bought billions of pesos in overpriced masks, face shields and other personal protective equipment against Covid-19.

As usual, the chorus of Yellow columnists repeated the allegations, expressing outrage even though they did not bother to verify the facts, following the advice, attributed to the uncompromising Yellow Loida Nicolas Lewis, disclosed. on his social media platform, that allegations against Duterte “don’t have to be true, they just have to appear to be true.”

In a single hearing the other day of the House of Representatives ‘Good Government Committee, those who were drawn into the Senators’ allegations were calmly questioned about it and not yelled at and threatened like Gordon and Drilon’s did, and the truth was fairly easily revealed.

Gordon and Drilon kept repeating that it was the Audit Commission (CoA) that uncovered the overvaluation of the procurement department of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM). Well, during the House hearing, CoA Chairman Michael Aguinaldo (appointed by President Aquino in March 2015) actually declared Gordon and Drilon to be liars. I’m quoting the Inquirer’s report here – at length – so there’s no way I’m going to ignore her testimony and that of others.

Nothing

Aguinaldo told the hearing that there had been no findings of overpricing of pandemic supplies, but that PS-DBM had been called in for its deficiencies in inventory management which resulted in slow moving supplies that remained unsold by the end of 2020. “

The investigator’s report continued:

“Rhodora Ugay, supervising auditor of the Ministry of Health (DoH), stressed that the CoA had already specified that the audit report did not say anything about the search for corruption.

House Deputy Speaker and representative of Sagip Rodante Marcoleta questioned the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee’s insistence on pushing its investigation.

“‘If President Aguinaldo said that there had been no findings of price overvaluation, what would be the reason for the ongoing hearings in the other chamber? »» He said. “Does that mean the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee doesn’t believe the CoA’s findings?”

Former PS-DBM chief Lloyd Christopher Lao and former purchasing manager Warren Rex Liong said all dealings between the agency and Pharmally and other suppliers were fair.

“Liong, now Deputy Mediator, said Pharmally’s face masks were not too expensive at P27.72 as they were below P28’s DoH ceiling price for face masks in March 2020.

Pharmaceutically, he added, he had supplies and was able to deliver as early as March 2020, well ahead of local suppliers like EMS Components Assembly Inc.

“Liong said the price of P1910 per set of PPE that the PS-DBM purchased from Pharmally was ‘reasonable’ at the time.

In response to the findings of the Senate investigation that Pharmally’s papers were not in order and the company gave a false address, Liong said the only requirements PS-DBM needed were a license from the mayor, a tax return, omnibus affidavits and compliance with technical specifications. “

Bid

“Even in regular tenders, the general information sheet is not required. You don’t even have to go to the official company address as part of a regular tender, ”Liong said.

“The Bayanihan Law 1 allows the president to award contracts in a ‘quick’ manner by exempting emergency purchases from complying with Republic Law 9184 or the Public Procurement Reform Law.

Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., responsible for the implementation of the National Covid-19 Working Group, pointed out that if the government was using military planes to fly in PPE sets from China, it was was Pharmally delivering them to various ports in Manila, Cagayan de Oro City, Davao City and Cebu City.

“Marcoleta and Aglipay asked if PS-DBM favors a particular supplier, such as Chinese companies, while leaving out local suppliers.

“’No, we didn’t favor anyone. At the start of the pandemic, our supply was low, so we had to go directly to China because most of the masks are from China,” Liong said. no influential person like Senator Bong Go or any Malacaang official pushed the PS-DBM to award contracts to Pharmally.

“Galvez argued that he, too, was not in favor of any supplier. ‘The president told me to secure the supplies. He said,’ It’s up to you, as long as you produce the PPE, because I told him 17 doctors died, ‘In previous testimony he said authorities were frantically looking for PPE when 37 doctors and Health Secretary Francisco Duque 3rd also said the transactions were honest.

“If we waited for prices to drop, many health workers would have fallen ill, intubated or even died. We had to act quickly, ”said Duque. “

” Donors “

And for all those revelations that proved his screaming headlines over the past few weeks to be lies, which headline did the editors of the Inquirer use? “Duterte finds House supporters in resistance to the Senate committee’s Pharmally inquiry. This is the kind of journal it is. Even for an article that revealed the truth, it boils down to a case of Duterte simply having “House backers”.

Gordon and Drilon have probably aged so quickly in blockades that they haven’t fully investigated this issue. Even if there was a premium, it would be practically impossible to prove it in the case of the purchase of masks and face shields since these products are not standardized. If the government were to buy, say, a particular model of Toyota Fortuner for 4 million pesos, it would be easy to prove that there was an excessive price because a Fortuner is more or less standardized, its price being fixed in a particular range even with accessories.

Masks and shields aren’t just standardized, it would be impossible for Drilon and Gordon to acquire the particular brand the DBM ordered – they have all been distributed – and compare it with a cheaper brand. And of course, even if there was an excessive price, the people in the budget department would just shrug their shoulders and say, “Sorry, we didn’t have time to survey the market because we were in a hurry. . »Can they be sued for negligence? No, the Bayanihan Law 1 which authorizes purchases gives the government discretionary power on the grounds that it is an emergency purchase.

Drilon worked in a business law firm before entering politics. He knows he was lying when he expressed his outrage at how a “small business” could acquire billions of pesos in materials for the government. Brokers are simple intermediaries, they arrange the order between the buyer and the seller; the “billions” simply pass through them because, especially in this case, they do not keep an inventory of the items purchased.

Intention

Ridding the government of corruption was not Gordon and Drilon’s intention. It was to blacken Duterte’s image that even Gordon, as a corruption whistleblower, could become a “presidential” or a “vice-president”. And it doesn’t matter if he really doesn’t have a chance of winning. all he wants would be decent campaign funds poured into his bank account so he can make it to sunset with an overflowing purse.

Worse for Gordon and Drilon: Didn’t they first research who the DBM manager they claim is corrupted by overvaluing materials? Warren Rex Liong was appointed by Duterte as deputy general mediator last November. Would the ombudsman accept a complaint against him for overcharging? Ha!

But not only that, if you’ve ever been in government you know the ombudsman and his deputies are the most feared public servants in the country. Even if a case against you is so fragile, they could still accept it, put you on hold, and the case could go on for years, even long after you retire.

Perhaps it was this revelation that caused Gordon to panic, with his Facebook page now so filled with the vilest ad hominem against Duterte, perhaps thinking it could overthrow his reign or prevent his anointed from taking over in 2022. .

And my apologies for the title of this piece, as I couldn’t help but deliver some sort of verbal batok on Gordon and Drilon. I am outraged by their propaganda blitz. We are at the peak of a pandemic, we have 18,000 cases of Covid-19 per day and hospital facilities are 70% occupied. Yet these two have made the lives of those responsible in the face of the pandemic more difficult with false accusations – simply to improve their chances or those of their camps in the election battle of 2022, or to appear to be in order to obtain more campaign funds. .

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