President Duterte has ordered the relief of some 20 officials and employees of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Medical Center (AFP-MC) over alleged ghost transactions and anomalous purchases of medical equipment.
Presidential Spokesman Harry L. Roque Jr. said in a briefing that the alleged corruption activities involving hundreds of millions of pesos, including a single transaction of ghost deliveries amounting to P1.491 million, was brought to the attention of the President.
Roque added that, the President has since read the reports of the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission and AFP Chief of Staff General Carlito Galvez, and was “ballistic” over the “institutional corruption.”
“President Duterte has ordered their relief and court martial proceedings against the top military brass [AFP-MC] which includes Brig. General Edwin Leo Torrelavega, commander of the AFP Health Service Command [HSC]; Col. Antonio Punzalan, Commander of the V. Luna Medical Center, Chief of Management and Physical Office and the Logistics Office of the AFP-HSC, among others,” Roque said, adding that replacements are yet to appointed.
Based on the report, several high-ranking officials and employees of AFP-MC and AFP-HSC, undertook anomalous purchases of equipment, and allegedly engaged in fraudulent transactions, including ghost purchasing, splitting of contracts to circumvent mandatory bidding processes and conceiving fictitious suppliers.
Asked on the President’s reaction when he learned about the alleged corrupt activities, Roque said: “He’s ballistic. Because only recently he ordered that the sum of P50 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. And of course, 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.”
Pressed for more details on how the alleged anomalous acts were discovered, Roque said there was a whistleblower who went to the proper channels until the initial investigation.
“The President ordered the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission to investigate, and he also ordered the Chief of Staff to look into the matter,” he said, adding that the report came on the day of the Cabinet meeting when the President expressed his exasperation over corruption.
“But the reports came in last Monday which explains why the President was very aggravated in talking about corruption in the last Cabinet meeting because there was the issue of both Nayong Pilipino and V. Luna—information which he had just received concerning [alleged] fraudulent activities in both agencies,” he added.
According to Roque, Galvez said that he will immediately relieve Torrelavega and Punzalan, and convene court martial proceedings against them without prejudice to the investigation to be conducted by the Ombudsman for the military.
Last week Duterte sacked the entire board and management of Nayong Pilipino Foundation for a lease contract that President Duterte found “grossly disadvantageous.” The Palace announcement came amid the launch of a $1.5-billion NayonLanding project, an integrated casino resort inside the 100-hectare Entertainment City.