Senator Sonny Angara said the Bureau of Customs has no record of the two expensive vehicles of two officials of the controversial Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corporation.
Angara announced this on Wednesday during the Senate deliberation on the 2022 national budget proposal after Senator Richard Gordon found out if the BOC had information about the expensive vehicles of Pharmally officials.
“We’ve actually received some information already from Commissioner [Rey] Guerrero…I think you wrote to him also regarding the vehicles involving some of the personalities of the Blue Ribbon,” said Angara.
“According to him, all of the vehicles have appeared in their records as having gone through the process, the legal processes, and the payment of taxes and duties except for the 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S and the 2021 Lexus RCF,” he added.
At the September 17 hearing, Gordon said Pharmally corporate secretary Mohit Dargani took a Porsche 911 Turbo S, while Lexus RCF took over the company’s director Linconn Ong.
The Senate blue ribbon committee headed by Gordon is investigating Pharmally for having secured billions worth of government contracts on COVID-19 supplies, which were allegedly overpriced.
At such hearings, Pharmally officials maintained that there was no irregularity in their transaction.
2 luxury cars of Pharmally execs no record in BOC
At the same time, Angara said Bureau Internal Revenue Commissioner Cesar Dulay issued an order to conduct an audit on the taxes paid by the people and companies being investigated by Gordon’s committee.
“And also [the] commissioner has also given us a copy of this his internal memo to at least 11 regional directors of the BIR and attention to at least 20 revenue district officers for the conduct of an audit investigation for taxable years 2019 and 2020 with the list of the taxpayers to assess their potential liabilities and any potential penalties that could be levied,” said Angara.
But Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon objected to the BIR’s regional departments conducting the investigation.
“We are surprised by that, can we have a special tax audit of these companies since these are very substantial amounts and alam niyo po pag binigay mo na sa regional offices ito wala nang mangyayari,” according to Drilon, who prefers BIR head office to form a special team for the audit.
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