Pharmally made P393M profit from gov't transactions in 2020, says Drilon

The beleaguered Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corporation has reportedly earned P393 million profit from government transactions it got from April to June 2020, Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said Monday.

Pharmally is the firm being linked to the Department of Budget and Management's procurement of overpriced COVID-19 equipment.

"Ang tubo ng Pharmally dito sa government transactions ay P393 million. Ito po ay mga sales lamang mula April hanggang June 2020. Puwede namang dumeresto naman sa manufacturer bakit dito pa dumaan?" Drilon said in a radio interview.

(Pharmally's profit from government transactions is P393 million. These were from sales from April to June 2020. They could've gone straight to the manufacturer, why did they have to go through Pharmally?)

Further, Drilon renewed his call to Pharmally officials to appear before the Senate's probe into the questionable P10 billion supply deals that the firm got from DBM.

"Dapat humarap sila kung wala silang tinatago dahil marami akong itatanong. (They should appear before the probe if they are not hiding anything because I have many questions)," the senator said.

Meanwhile, the opposition senator also questioned whether Pharmally was able to pay taxes after the government awarded multi-billion peso contracts to the firm.

"Ang laki ng shares. Hindi exempted from income tax itong Pharmally. Ngayon nagbayad ba sila ng buwis? (They have lots of shares. Pharmally is not exempted from income taxes. Did they pay taxes)," Drilon said.

Malacañang, for its part, earlier said it did not need to check the profile of Pharmally, which allegedly had links with former presidential adviser Michael Yang.—AOL, GMA News