No big fish in Pharmally case?

It is commendable that the Office of the Ombudsman, recently saddled with filing charges related to the flood control scandal and other shenanigans by high officials, announced that it has filed an P11-billion plunder case over anomalies in the purchase of medical supplies during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla, in a press briefing last Friday, confirmed filing the nonbailable charge of plunder against 46 individuals, including officials of Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp., which bagged P11 billion in government contracts for pandemic supplies in 2020. Remulla, however, lamented that 23 of those individuals could no longer be located.

Indeed, much time and opportunity were lost pursuing Pharmally and Duterte administration officials involved in the corruption of public funds during the pandemic—a time when thousands of Filipinos, including medical frontliners, died.

It is only fitting that those involved with Pharmally should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law—with the gravest charge, such as plunder.

But does the new case include the big fish, finally? So far, only the names of Lloyd Christopher Lao, former head of the Procurement Service-Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM), several officials of Pharmally, and Michael Yang and associates were mentioned among the 46 respondents.

Perpetually banned

The controversial Yang, identified as a financier of Pharmally, was appointed economic adviser to Duterte. His brother, Yang Hong Jiang (or Tony Yang), was also named in the case. It is highly doubtful that the Ombudsman can get hold of the elusive Michael Yang, a Chinese businessman who vanished after his name was dragged into the Senate blue ribbon committee investigation in 2021.

The reports on the Ombudsman’s new plunder case did not mention former Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, who was earlier charged with graft in the case currently on trial before the Sandiganbayan.

In 2024, then Ombudsman Samuel Martires found Duque and Lao liable for graft for their role in the illegal transfer of P41 billion from the Department of Health to the PS-DBM for the questionable purchase of pandemic supplies. He ordered them dismissed and perpetually banned from government service and charged with graft. Their trial finally commenced in early June this year.

But in October 2025, current Ombudsman Remulla ordered the withdrawal of Pharmally cases before the Sandiganbayan in order to review them before filing new charges. He said that there was a lack of coordination among the fact-finding, evaluation, preliminary investigation, and prosecution teams in the previous cases filed with the Sandiganbayan prior to his term.

Public clamor

“Everybody was in the dark; [they were] not working as a complete team … It should be a fully laid-out plan. It can’t be segmented, with one team not knowing what the other is doing,” Remulla said at that time.

If that were so, how will the new plunder case affect the ongoing trial for graft against Lao, Duque, and other PS-DBM and Pharmally officials? Remulla said the review covered those who have not been arraigned, but Lao and Duque are well past that, having posted bail for the graft case.

The challenge for Remulla’s team is not only to file graver charges against the Pharmally scammers but also to ensure that the cases will stick. More than that, the plunder case would be more meaningful if it includes the masterminds, not just the underlings.

Just like in the flood control scandal, Remulla has responded to public clamor to account for the big fish by filing plunder charges against high officials, including former Speaker Martin Romualdez.

Frustration over the Pharmally case started during the Senate blue ribbon committee investigation in the 18th Congress, when then President Rodrigo Duterte barred his officials from participating in the probe. When the committee eventually came out with a 113-page report, it fell short of the required signatures because some senators disagreed with the recommendation to file charges against Duterte himself after he stepped down from office.

Easy part

“What kind of a blue ribbon would you have, and would there be a need for a blue ribbon if you are not going to make hard decisions? Second, can anybody in this country na nanood at nagbasa … can anybody not think that he [Duterte] doesn’t know anything about it?” Sen. Richard Gordon, who was blue ribbon committee chair at that time, asked.

Now that big fish is stewing in a jail facility of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the Netherlands, for crimes against humanity in connection with his bloody drug war.

But back home, the quest to make the other Duterte administration officials responsible for the corruption of billions in public funds that could have saved lives during the pandemic must continue. Filing the plunder case is the easy part. Now the Ombudsman might strive to bring it to its logical end—to see to it that those officials and individuals pay for their crimes behind bars. /atm