EDITORIAL - File charges

After months of investigation, the Senate Blue Ribbon committee report on the Pharmally supply deal lacked two signatures for plenary approval of the findings and recommendations. With the chamber adjourning sine die this week, however, plenary approval may no longer be possible within the current Congress.

Even without the formal approval of the chamber, however, there’s no stopping anyone from using the findings, signed mostly by opposition senators plus Blue Ribbon head Richard Gordon, to file criminal charges against the officials implicated in the alleged anomalies together with the Pharmally executives accused of unduly profiting from the COVID supply deal.

Both the Senate and the House of Representatives, in separate probes, came up with similar general conclusions that the billions in supply contracts awarded to Pharmally Pharmaceuticals were overpriced and anomalous.

Where the two chambers differed was in the level of culpability. The Blue Ribbon panel included President Duterte, his former economic adviser Michael Yang and Lloyd Christopher Lao, who headed the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management when Pharmally bagged the lucrative deal without public bidding, among those who should be held liable.

All three were excluded from the House report, which recommended the filing of syndicated estafa complaints against six Pharmally officials led by chairman and president Huang Tzu Yen, and falsification of public documents against PS-DBM officials Mervin Mendoza and Mervin Tanquintic.

Gordon, on the other hand, sees a “grand conspiracy” that he says could not have happened without the “imprimatur of the executive, from beginning to end.” His belief in the culpability of the President apparently held back certain senators from signing the Blue Ribbon report.

Only a formal investigation by state prosecutors and subsequent court trial, backed by material evidence, will establish the level of culpability in this mess. But first, whether or not the Senate and House reports have the full imprimatur of the two chambers, the charges have to be filed.

A private company is accused of unduly benefiting, purportedly with the connivance of certain public officials, from the misery of Filipinos during an unprecedented deadly pandemic. If true, this is an unconscionable offense that cannot be left unpunished.