The Senate blue ribbon inquiry into the ghastly affairs of Pharmally Pharmaceuticals Corp. started with a very unusual budgetary transfer of P42 billion. The Department of Health (DoH) moved that big amount to the ProcureTment Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM) in 2020 even with the awareness that such jumbo transfer would always invite scrutiny. This question will always arise with a money transfer that big. Did Health Secretary Francisco Duque 3rd move the money at gunpoint? Or, as an act of drunken whimsy? Because that money transfer was beyond irresponsible, given the critical role of the DoH in the pandemic fight and the imperative to keep every peso of its funds for that fight.

The Commission on Audit, one of the few state institutions still true to its sworn mandate, indeed raised a red flag on the money movement. Because transfers of that scale are not really done and are in violation of all known spending norms and practices of the government. Government departments may park money, usually less than a billion pesos, with the PS-DBM or the Philippine International Trading Corp. to burnish their fund utilization records. But not at the level of P42 billion.