Senators bare records of P5-billion deals on medical goods deleted

Senators on Friday grilled an officer from the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM) over the deletion of inspection reports involving almost P5 billion worth of government deals, which were earlier submitted to the Senate Blue Ribbon committee.

During the continuation of the Senate inquiry into the alleged overpriced pandemic goods, Senator Francis Pangilinan disclosed that at least 19 documents on various PS-DBM transactions for the procurement of medical supplies worth P4.4 billion were deleted from the Google drive folder that was submitted to the panel.

Last September 10, Pangilinan said the PS-DBM has submitted the documents at 7:42 a.m. These documents contain a cover letter from PS-DBM officer-in-charge Jaysonmer Uayan.

“Ang nakita namin, biglang nawawala na nung hapon at around 5 p.m. ‘yung inspection report ng P600 million ng Pharmally. Suddenly, ‘di na makita ‘yung inspection report ng P688 million ulit ng Pharmally. At initially akala namin technical glitch,” Pangilinan narrated.

(The documents suddenly disappeared at around 5 p.m. This includes the inspection report worth P600 million for Pharmally and suddenly, the inspection report for another P688 million transaction with Pharmally also disappeared. We though it was just a technical glitch.)

“So ito ang sumunod P4.4 billion purchases na. Nawawala ang 19 inspection reports. It was there in the morning and it was no longer uploaded and somebody from your end took it down,” he added.

(Eventually, the documents on the P4.4 billion purchases also disappeared. The 19 inspection reports were missing. It was there in the morning and it was no longer uploaded and somebody from your end took it down.)

The folders that were missing contain the inspection and acceptance reports, inspection and evaluation reports, inspection and certification of acceptance report.

“One of these reports, doon namin nakita iyong 6-month expiry [of test kits]. Doon natin nakita iyong mga tinanggap,” Pangilinan said.

(It is in one of the reports where we found out about the test kits that have six-month shelf life. We saw that the DBM-PS received it.)

Among the folders that were missing are:

- 19,061 Thermoguns from Philippine Blue Cross Biotech Corporation

- Various Medicines and Vitamins from Medico Exelente Marketing

- 8,000 kits BGI Real-time fluorescent RTPCR kit from Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corporation

- 2,000 kits of A*Star Fortitude Kit 2.0 COVID- 19 RT-PCR Test

- 41,400 kits BGI Real-time fluorescent RT-PCR kit from Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corporation

- MGIEasy Magnetic Beads Virus DNA/RNA Extraction kit from Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corporation

“Maybe you are unaware that somebody in your staff are doing something behind your back,” Pangilinan told PS-DBM Director Jolas Brutas, who was representing Uayan during the hearing.

Apart from the documents on the P4.4 billion worth of transactions, Senate blue ribbon chairman Richard Gordon also reported a same incident which involved P507 million worth of government transactions which was noticed by one of the committee’s staff members.

"I had my staff pick up a document that suddenly disappeared in the PS-DBM. And I will show it to you, on the matter of the last transaction of Mr. [Christopher Lloyd] Lao if I’m not mistaken,” Gordon said.

He was referring to former DBM Undersecretary Lao who was the head of the DBM-PS when the government procured the alleged overpriced medical goods.

Senate blue ribbon committee's lawyer Queenie Evangelista said the documents that were deleted are PS-DBM transactions with Pharmally in 2021 in relation to the procurement of personal protective equipment.

The said files were uploaded on August 26 and they were able to make a timeline out of the said documents.

“After making the timeline we tried to review the documents again a week after, and we found that the whole set of documents was missing already from the Google drive originally submitted by the PS-DBM,” she said.

The documents involved P507.261 million transactions for the procurement of over 500,000 PPEs last April 22, 2021.

Evangelista said this is the last transaction signed by Lao.

“So now somebody’s cleaning up the mess that he left behind. That is how it would appear,” Gordon said.

Pangilinan asked the panel to have these investigated by the Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms to find put if the senators are being “hoodwinked.”

“Are the documents being withheld? Is there a cover up? Is the DBM-PS staff involved in a cover up?” Pangilinan asked.

At the latter part of the hearing, Gordon said some of the deleted documents were reposted in the said Google drive.

“When this was revealed, voila, it reappeared again… And it appeared that it was created at 4:02 p.m. and it was opened by 5:44 pm by the blue ribbon committee after it was reported to me earlier on that it was missing and we complained,” Gordon said.

“So talagang nag-uurong sulong, natakot na ang inutusan binalik na siguro. Res ipsa loquitur. The things speak for itself,” he added.

(They are hesitating and maybe the one who was told to delete the files was already afraid of the consequences of what they did. Res ipsa loquitur. The things speak for itself.)

Before the hearing ended, Brutas explained that some files were deleted as these were not covered by the subpoena for PPE-related documents issued by the Senate panel last September 9.

“The inspectors inadvertently uploaded copies of documents pertaining to test kits and non-PPE items and that is the reason why they had to remove some of the documents in order to comply based on the subpoena,” Brutas said.

However, Pangilinan was not convinced of Brutas’ justification, saying he was the one who asked for the submission of the documents.

Still, the PS-DBM officials said they will submit the complete documents on all transactions regarding the medical supplies.

The agency will likewise submit the investigation report that would explain why some of the inspection reports were deleted from the folder that was originally submitted to the panel.—LDF, GMA News