Gordon cites Pharmally鈥檚 Dargani siblings for contempt for no-show in hearing
MANILA, Philippines — Siblings Mohit and Twinkle Dargani of the Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp. have been cited for contempt by Senator Richard Gordon for not showing up to the Senate blue ribbon committee probe on the alleged overpriced pandemic supplies.
During the hearing on Thursday, Gordon wanted to shift the questions to Mohit Dargani as they continue looking into the transactions entered by the government, particularly the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM).
However, both Mohit and Twinkle, who were attending virtually, did not respond to Gordon’s statements.
“I would like to ask questions to Mohit with the permission of everybody. Can we switch to Mohit, with your permission, everybody? Mohit Dargani. Can you show yourself in the video? Mohit Dargani?” he asked.
“Okay while we’re looking for Mohit, sorry Twinkle, I’ll have to ask you the questions, you’re the president of the company after all. Twinkle Dargani please?” he asked.
Senator Risa Hontiveros informed Gordon that they don’t see Twinkle online, while Senator Francis Pangilinan noted that Mohit is actually on the list of participants.
Article continues after this advertisementGordon then said he did not want to issue another contempt order immediately, and asked for both Mohit and Twinkle again. However, they still did not get any response.
Article continues after this advertisement“The chair will now entertain a contempt order for not appearing in spite of the fact that they were here, and I don’t care if you are millionaires, we can put you in contempt,” Gordon said.
“There’s a motion to put them under contempt for not appearing now, you know there’s so many questions that can be asked of Mohit and Twinkle,” he added.
Mohit eventually showed up, reasoning out that his signal was bad which prevented him from showing up. Then, Pharmally president Huang Tzu Yen told Gordon that Twinkle cannot be present because she is attending to their mother whose blood pressure shot up.
“Now you appear. ‘Pag tinakot kayo na meron nang warrant of arrest sa inyo, ‘Hello Mr. Chairman, I’m here sir’. No, no, I cannot forgive you, you’re an Indian, that is where that very famous Bangalore, number one ang India sa computer, and you’re no exception to that you look like a smart young man,” Gordon said.
“I think Twinkle is going to the hospital with her mom because her mom had a (high) blood pressure, I think that was communicated by our attorney to the director general,” Huang noted.
Pharmally is at the center of the Senate’s investigation on the Commission on Audit (COA) report that showed deficiencies in the Department of Health (DOH) COVID-19 funds amounting to P67.32 billion.
Part of that P67.32 billion is the P42 billion funds transferred by DOH to PS-DBM. The procuring agency then gave P8.7 billion worth of contracts to Pharmally, despite it having a small capital of P625,000.
