Pharmally exec Ong ‘mentally tortured’ in Senate, legal counsel claims

Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corporation director Linconn Ong was subjected to mental torture while in detention in the Senate, his legal counsel Ferdinand Topacio claimed Thursday.

“My client is so depressed, he is subjected to mental torture,” Topacio said in an ANC interview.

He said Ong was deprived of access to his mobile phone and other gadgets as these were taken away from him by the Senate Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms (OSAA).

Topacio claimed that when he visited Ong last Monday, he was escorted by the OSAA to get out of the room, but he insisted his client’s right to be heard by his legal counsel.

“After I left, the sergeant-at-arms talked to my client, ex parte, without the presence of his counsel and said ‘Walang kwenta ‘yan si Topacio, hindi ka matutulungan niyan, lalong lalala ang problema mo pag nag-abugado ka, (he cannot help you, your problem will get worst) etc.’ I have it all on record,” Topacio said.

The lawyer accused Senators Panfilo Lacson, Richard Gordon, and Senate President Vicente Sotto III of bullying and using the contempt power of the Senate in a “despotic manner.”

Asked why Ong refused to participate in an executive session, Topacio said: “The truth that the senators, Lacson, Gordon, Sotto, the truth that they wanted him to speak is not the truth. They are importuning him, pressure has been brought to bear on him in an executive session to point to President [Rodrigo] Duterte and Senator Bong Go.”

He said he was “informed” about this information and Ong has refused to do so.

“Whatever consent he was given before, was because of pressure. When he was able to reflect on the participation in executive session during the weekend, he began to have second thoughts then contacted me,” Topacio added.

Ong also refused to participate in an executive session when he realized that if he could be “bullied and terrorized” in a public hearing, what more in a closed-door session with the senators, Topacio said.

Moreover, he said Krizle Grace Mago, the Pharmally employee who admitted that the firm has “swindled” the government, was “bamboozled and cornered” when she made her statements.

Topacio said they are preparing documents that will question Senate’s contempt powers before the Supreme Court as he believes that there should be a “qualitative ruling” on this.

“My only message to the senators, gentlemen, you are not above the law, you are not the law, you may make the law but you are not the law,” Topacio said.

“I hope that you will see it in your hearts and in your mind that what you are doing is not only legally wrong, it is not only constitutionally wrong, it is morally wrong,” he added.

GMA News Online has reached out to Sotto, Lacson, and Gordon for comments, but they have yet to respond as of posting time.

On the other hand, Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Rene Samonte, in a text message to reporters, said he doesn’t want to dignify Topacio’s statements.

But he assured that Ong’s rights are upheld while he is detained within the Senate premises.

Ong was allowed by the OSAA to go out the Senate building to exercise and get some sunlight.

Samonte also said Ong’s original lawyer, Atty. Donn Rico G. Kapunan and his wife were able to visit the Pharmally official in the Senate.

The Pharmally official was even allowed to call his wife using OSAA's phone.

Ong was taken into custody by the OSAA last September 21 and has since been detained at the Senate building in Pasay City after evading the questions posed by the senators during the inquiry on the alleged overpriced pandemic supplies.

He was supposed to be transferred to Pasay City Jail, but it did not push through.

On Monday, Ong backed out of the executive session with  senators upon the advice of Topacio.

Gordon, chairman of the Blue Ribbon committee, meanwhile, expressed confidence that the panel's probe remains strong despite the absence of some resource persons.

Senators have been investigating the purchase of COVID-19 supplies made by the Department of Budget and Management-Procurement Service last year, during which Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corporation bagged more than P8 billion in government contracts for the procurement of personal protective equipment (PPEs), which were alleged to be overpriced.—AOL, GMA News