"UN: Corruption endemic in health sector"

The above title is the title of a page one article in The Philippine STAR issue of September 13, 2021. It speaks volumes of an elephant in the room that everybody pretends is not there. But it is there. And it does not only involve the rapacious greed for money made illegally. It can also involve the simple act of facilitating that greed, of helping create the right conditions for that greed to flower and flourish.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting emergency situation provided exactly the right conditions for the greedy and the corrupt to do what they are very good at. An example of this would be the huge government order of personal protective equipment or PPEs amounting to more than P8 billion that went to Chinese suppliers favored by the powers that be.

Chinese suppliers are not the only sources of PPEs. There are local ones too who are just as reliable, if not even more so. But people close to the president managed to see to it that the Chinese firm Pharmally Pharmaceuticals Corp. bagged the deal. Never mind if Pharmally was underfunded and even had to "borrow" money from the people who facilitated the deal. If the local firms have no connections they are defenseless from abuse.

Legitimate local suppliers are left spinning in the resulting wind. They have to contend with the consequent oversupply of PPEs. It is not just a matter of who got favored by a huge multi-billion-peso contract but how such contract would result in a flood of supplies that, added to production by local manufacturers, caused a serious oversupply of PPEs in the market.

Good for the supplies contracted from Pharmally because government is bound to their agreed price. But what about the local manufacturers who have their own supplies? Why did the government of President Rodrigo Duterte not pause to consider the impact of the Pharmally contract on the local supply of PPEs?

If the president needs to be told, local PPE manufacturers have to consequently sell their supplies at a huge loss just to recoup a little part of their investment. The president needs to protect the interests of local manufacturers too. Or let me rephrase that --the president needs to protect the interests of local manufacturers over and above the interests of his friends, foreign or Davao-based.

Forget about overpricing because the Senate probe has not been able to prove that. But for this government to ignore the fact that the economy is reeling from the pandemic and that those businesses that have not closed are barely keeping their noses above water is insensitive and smacks of poor judgment.

Does government even realize that failed businesses not only mean lost capital but also unemployment and consequently hunger and, to a dangerous extent, anger? Thank God that the Filipinos are generally peaceloving people, otherwise the conditions are really and inexorably leading to a tipping point where people would have had enough. Conditions are really ripe and rife for that.

Clearly there was failure in judgment and leadership when a multi-billion-peso deal was given to an under-funded Chinese company instead of local amply and legitimately funded manufacturers who now have to sell their products at a loss because of the oversupply ensuing from the huge imports of the same products. Will the locals even be restituted? Will they be protected in the future? Or will they die by the hand of their own government?

“The president needs to protect the interests of local manufacturers over and above the interests of his friends, foreign or Davao-based.”