Watching congressional hearings uncover more details of how the Duterte government handled the country’s pandemic funds left local PPE producers pained. READ:
also shows how Pharmally, through a network of companies, is connected to President Rodrigo Duterte’s former economic adviser, Chinese citizen Michael Yang.EMS alone had the capacity to provide at least 8.5 million masks per month and had pledged to provide 100 million masks to the government after the PS-DBM awarded it one contract in late April 2020. The company secured its lone contract after it was requested to submitted an offer on April 24, 2020.
“Now that I know [these findings]...it is hard to describe the feeling,” Ferrer said. “At the end of the day, our company, our management team felt negative about it, but we decided, let’s just do it as our service.” It was only in July 2021 when the firm would finally complete delivery of its 100 million masks to the government – mostly at a loss. Of the 100 million, a fourth or 25 million were supplied at P13.50 from June to November, while the remaining 75 million were provided at P2.35 per piece.
The commitment meant Ferrer would end up investing about P200 million to renovate and prepare parts of EMS’ factory to create a medical-grade production area, which was necessary to produce quality surgical face masks. “We Filipinos are capable of producing these items. We created a new industry, and now I feel bad for the other companies,” Ferrer said. “We are a bad example of what could go wrong.”With congressional hearings placing President Rodrigo Duterte in hot water, the chief executive’s men have been on the, saying the government only gave billions worth of deals to Pharmally because of its “good prices” and ability to deliver within a certain time frame.
EMS, Ferrer said, was also ready and able to provide 8.5 million medical-grade surgical masks per month by the end of May. The figure could have been ramped up to as much as 12.2 million if the government needed as much, he added. The group was also manufacturing about 3 million coveralls and isolation gowns, which were mostly sold to hospitals including the Philippine General Hospital and the National Kidney and Transplant Institute – which independently procured their own PPE – as well as hospitals in Cebu and Cavite, among others.
EMS, which had a domestic bidders preference certification, did not win any additional contract to supply the Philippine government with surgical masks. It offered its certified and tested medical-grade masks for P2.6 to P2.35 per piece.” in the procurement of COVID-19 items.showed Pharmally bagged a total of P8.68 billion worth of deals – the biggest among suppliers awarded contracts under the Bayanihan procurement, or procurement for pandemic response, in 2020.
After demonstrating the capability to manufacture items like coveralls and various face masks, Carillo and Ferrer said that, in November 2020, the DTI again approached firms, this time to consider venturing into manufacturing medical-grade gloves.
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