Probe Pharmally for as long as necessary

Jake Maderazo wrote: “Please, senators and congressmen, file those charges ASAP in the DOJ, the court, Ombudsman and jail those Pharmally officers and their government accomplices who will be proven guilty” (Inquirer.net, 11/9/21). He noted as the “best development” the announcement of Ombudsman Samuel Martires that his office is already “conducting (its) own investigation on Pharmally transactions … This is the better and quicker way of putting to jail the perpetrators, if any.”

Honestly, we are not sure what rock Maderazo has been under and is now crawling out of. His faith in the Department of Justice, the Office of the Ombudsman, and the courts is simply astonishing. Pharmally is just laughing at those charges because it has, not necessarily the best, but the most powerful defense lawyer in town: President Duterte, who can tell Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra to go jump in the lake and Ombudsman Martires to go fly a kite! Like dreams brought to the doorstep of Mona Lisa, any charges will “just lie there, and … die there.” And the courts, yeah right—20 years to come up with a final judgment, and the billions of money stolen all gone.

Never mind the investigation being conducted in the House of Representatives (by the committee on “good government and public accountability”—what a joke!), which is all “in aid of corruption.” The people are actually rooting for the Senate blue ribbon committee to keep on pressing for answers regarding the plunder of pandemic funds by Mr. Duterte’s friends. Like the previous Senate investigation into the venalities of then presidential candidate Jojo Binay in 2016 which lasted all the way to near election day, the ongoing probe into Mr. Duterte’s alleged complicity in Pharmally’s shenanigans must be kept in the minds of the voters for as long as necessary, before his underlings do their dirty work of burying all evidence.

Ramon Norman Torrefranca, [email protected]