Senator Panfilo Lacson on Saturday, September 18, expressed his support for Senator Richard Gordon and the Senate's ongoing inquiry into the government's purchase of COVID-19 supplies.

While he refuses to meddle in the word war between Gordon and President Duterte, Lacson said he stands by his colleague for defending the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee's investigation on the alleged anomalies in the Department of Health's (DOH) procurement of medical supplies.

"I join my other colleagues in standing foursquare behind our chairman, Sen. Dick Gordon," he said in an interview over radio DWIZ.

"Pagdating sa mga issues, pagdating doon sa talagang concern -- hindi lang ng Senado, kundi ng buong bansa -- eh 'yon ang talagang suportado kami. Kasi may basehan naman, eh (When it comes to issues, to the concern -- not only of the Senate, but of the entire country -- we really support him. Because there really is a basis for doing that)," he added.

In his harshest rebuttal to Duterte yet, Gordon, at the resumption of the Blue Ribbon panel's hearing Friday, September 17, called the President "cheap" for supposedly lawyering for the personalities involved in the questionable transactions.

Lacson maintained that the investigation is not targeting Duterte or any other personality, but aims to get to the bottom of the corruption hounding the P42-billion transfer of funds from the DOH to the Department of Budget and Management Procurement Service (DBM-PS).

He said some of the Senate panel's findings, including the purchase by Pharmally executives of expensive vehicles after bagging contracts with the government, could be considered circumstantial evidence.

"May lumalabas...in spite of the pagtatago ng (evasiveness of the) resource persons, 'yong ayaw makipag-cooperate madalas (their refusal to cooperate most of the time), unti-unti naliliwanagan natin kung ano talaga ang story behind paglipat ng P42 bilyon ng DOH sa PS-DBM (the facts are slowly emerging on the transfer of P42 billion from the DOH to the PS-DBM)," he added.

Lacson said he doubts that conducting just one more hearing will be enough to complete the picture on the award of contracts to Pharmally Pharmaceuticals Corporation.

There are still questions as to how the start-up bagged over P8 billion in deals from the DBM-PS, which supposedly ballooned to over P11 billion, for the purchase of PPEs and medical equipment, he said.

"Agad-agad parang napakaraming pera (It seemed they got so much instant money to spend). That would buttress suspicions ang laki ng kinita nila (that they made a windfall from this)," he said.

The senator also belied insinuations that politics was behind the investigation, saying the Senate has already been investigating irregularities in various issues in aid of legislation.

On Malacañang's insistence that the Commission on Audit already clarified there was no conclusion of overpricing or corruption in its report on the DOH's procurements, Lacson stressed that the constitutional body's mandate is to audit and not investigate possible corruption.

"Para sabihin na walang corruption, may prejudgement kaagad (To say there is no corruption, there was already a prejudgement of the issue)," he said.

Duterte had cleared Cabinet officials from accusations of corruption in the purchases.

Lacson reiterated that the executive department should be one with the Senate in going after corruption, which Duterte himself vowed to eradicate.

"Ang pinupuntirya rito misuse ng public funds. After all isa lang sinisigaw natin: lahat tayo ngayon anti-corruption na (The investigation is after the misuse of public funds. After all, we are all after the same thing: to fight corruption)," he said.

The Senate Blue Ribbon panel has conducted seven hearings so far, and is scheduled to continue on Tuesday, Sept. 21.