Former Senator Antonio Trillanes IV on Wednesday, August 18, linked Christopher Lao, former aide of Senator Christopher “Bong” Go assigned in Malacañang, to the questionable purchase and selling of high-priced personal protective equipment (PPE) by the budget department’s procurement service that was recently flagged by the Commission on Audit (COA).
“Wow!!! DBM-PS bought face masks at P27.7 each and face shields at P120 each,” Trillanes, a staunch administration critic, said in a Facebook post.
“DBM-PS, at that time, was headed by Christopher Lao, who used to be the Palace aide of Bong Go. He is the same person implicated in the frigate scam along with (President) Duterte and Bong Go,” he added.
The P16-billion frigate deal refers to the acquisition of two Philippine Navy frigates back in 2017. The choice of supplier was allegedly influenced by Go, who, at that time, was a Special Assistant to the President (SAP).
Lao, a former Palace aide to Go, used to head the Department of Budget and Management-Procurement Service (DBM-PS), which was tasked to handle big-ticket procurements during the pandemic, so government agencies can just buy from them and not deal with private suppliers.
READ: Drilon hits DBM for purchasing overpriced medical supplies
The state auditors recently flagged the DBM-PS for buying overpriced PPEs and other medical supplies then selling them to the Department of Health (DOH) without the required documents. It can be remembered that there was a shortage of PPEs and medical supplies when the pandemic started in March last year.
The audit report showed that DBM-PS bought face masks for as high as P27.72 each and face shields for P120 each in March 2020. The DBM-PS supposedly used market surveys as the basis for the procurement of these supplies.
Lao was with DBM-PS when senators flagged the overpriced medical supplies. Reports indicate that he is not with DBM-PS now.
READ: Gov’t ‘saved’, not lost to China-made PPEs—DBM
By September 2020, the DOH released a memorandum for the suggested retail prices of face masks and face shields. The memorandum said face masks can be sold between P2 and P4 per piece while face shields are priced from P26 to P50 per piece.
The massive difference from what the DBM-PS was selling such items for resulted in the slow movement of the medical supplies, so much so that according to reports, the “items remained unsold at the end of the year.”
This recent development came from the DOH’s admission during a congressional inquiry on Thursday, August 17, that P41.4 billion of the P42.4 billion worth of procurement that COA recently flagged them for over lack of memorandum of agreement (MOA) and supporting documents was paid to the DBM-PS.