MANILA, Philippines — Former budget undersecretary Lloyd Christopher Lao finally showed up at the Senate in person months since he appeared at the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee's previous investigation into government pandemic purchases through his former agency.
Lao was previously grilled over government deals with healthcare equipment supplier Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp. and was in hiding for months after the Senate panel's final report recommended his arrest during the 18th Congress.
Related Stories
The former head of the budget department's procurement service attended the current committee's first two hearings on the purchase of overpriced laptops remotely.
On Thursday, Lao confirmed the authenticity of his signature on the notarized memorandum of agreement between the Department of Education and the Procurement Service-Department of Budget and Management dated February 2021. That was the same memo that Senate Minority Leader Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III said other personnel did not seem to be informed of.
Lao claimed that while he recognized his handwriting on the signatures, they did not include his surname. He said the discrepancy was because the paper was placed awkwardly on his desk when he was made to sign them.
In the previous hearing, senators asked why the February MOA disclosed a 3% service charge for the DepEd while other documents from later in March 2021 outlined a service charge of 4%. Documents acquired by the office of Sen. Francis Tolentino, the committee chair, that were also signed by Lao and addressed to the Department of Education set a date for the invitation for bidding.
"I recognize my stroke but it’s possible that I was signing this in a rush," Lao said multiple times. "I believe everyone was in good faith and was just doing their job."
Lao said the MOA with the DepEd was not notarized in his presence and that it was only routed to him for his signature. He could not explain why other budget department officials said in the previous hearing that they had no knowledge of the MOA.
Letters to DepEd
Lao then brought up another document dated sometime between February 23 and 24 — this time a letter addressed to then-DepEd Secretary Leonor Briones outlining the documents needed before the transaction could proceed — which he claimed got no response.
DepEd director Abram Abanil said he did not have a copy of that letter.
Briones was not around to touch on this. She was only present at the first hearing, where committee chair Tolentino allowed her to skip succeeding hearings due to her age and health.
He said then that Briones likely had nothing to do with the botched transaction and that DepEd staff should be able to field senators' questions.
Lao then presented another follow-up letter to the DepEd that he wrote dated February 26. It was a "request for the PS-DBM to undertake the procurement activities," its subject line says. But the DepEd records division only received it months later, on April 21.
It was eventually released, and the DBM only received it again on May 12 when Lao was no longer with the office.
To recall, the last hearing by the panel established that the PS-DBM does not have a manual outlining official procedures on how to select suppliers who will be given requests for a quotation. The PS-DBM conducts a price analysis based on the quotations submitted.
"They only follow a desk procedure, which is part of the PS-DBM’s internal operation manual, which requires the [project management officer in charge] to send at least three suppliers," the Senate’s transcript of stenographic notes presented at the beginning of the hearing reads.