Malacañang
said on Monday confirmed on Monday that, President Rodrigo R. Duterte
has fired at least 20 high-ranking officials and employees of the Armed
Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP) Health Service Command over alleged
corruption at the V. Luna Medical Center in Quezon City.
“It was brought to the President’s attention that alleged corruption activities have been taking place at the V. Luna Medical Center,” Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said.
He
said the President has since read the reports of the Presidential
Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC) and AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Carlito
Galvez.
Based
on the report, Harry Roque said corruption activities include anomalous
purchases of equipment and fraudulent transaction, such as ghost
purchases, splitting of contracts to circumvent the mandatory bidding
processes, and conceiving fictitious suppliers.
Citing Galvez, Roque put the estimated number of sacked individuals at 20 but said he only had two names so far.
“I suppose the entire office that has to do with procurement will be relieved,” Roque said, noting that investigation has been concluded.
The
two sacked top military brass officials were Brig. Gen. Edwin Leo
Torrelavega, commander of the AFPHSC; and Col. Antonio Punzalan, head of
the V. Luna Medical Center.
The respective chiefs of the management and fiscal office and the logistics office were also ordered relieved.
Harry
Roque said Galvez has already released a memorandum relieving the
military officials, which shall be effective upon their receipt.
However, there has yet to be word on who will be their replacements.
“I think there will be widespread (removal) and many replacements to be appointed because according to the Chief of Staff, there will be no less than 20 individuals who will be relieved and subject to court martial procedure,” he added.
Roque
said the AFP currently has a report involving one ghost transaction
involving PHP1.491 million but a larger report involving hundreds of
millions of pesos will be released in due course.
“Tomorrow, they (AFP) will be releasing a larger report. The report that they have now only involves ghost transactions, ghost deliveries involving PHP1.491 million but there are (a) series of transactions involving almost hundreds of millions of pesos. So they will be releasing subsequent reports in due course,” Roque said.
“This is not an isolated transaction. It involves quite a number of anomalous transactions,” he added. “Apparently it’s a conspiracy. It was institutional corruption in V. Luna.”
Roque
was unsure whether medical equipment procured for the hospital were
delivered, but noted that there were “definitely overpricing and other
kinds of fraud committed.”
Roque
was mum on the details but explained that a report on the alleged
corruption activities at the medical center came in during the last
Cabinet meeting held on August 6.
He
said Duterte was “very aggravated” in talking about corruption during
the Cabinet meeting because there was the issue of both the Nayong
Pilipino Foundation and the V. Luna Medical Center.
On
Aug. 7, Duterte fired the entire board and management of the Nayong
Pilipino Foundation (NPF) over the “ridiculous” lease of government
property.
Roque
said alleged irregularities at the V. Luna Medical Center did not start
during the Duterte administration but “has been ongoing for a very long
period of time.”
“He’s ballistic because only recently, he ordered that the sum of PHP50 million a month be released to V. Luna to make sure that V. Luna will have sufficient funds to cover all medical requirements of members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines only to find out that bulk of the funds or much of the funds may be going to pockets of corrupt officials of the Armed Forces,” the Palace official said.
“He was personally aggravated when the information on corruption was confirmed in V. Luna. Personally aggravated and angered,” Roque added.
President Duterte
has repeatedly said that he will not think twice about sacking
officials involved in even “a whiff” of corruption in the Philippine
Government.