Michael Yang’s business pal linked to Pharmally

The Senate blue ribbon committee finally got confirmation on Tuesday that Lin Weixiong, a close associate of President Duterte’s former economic adviser, Michael Yang, was directly connected with Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp., a crucial piece of information that only came to light after 17 hearings.

The panel chair, Sen. Richard Gordon, presented to the body copies of financial documents identifying Lin, the husband of businesswoman Rose Nono Lin, who was also involved in companies linked to Yang, as the “financial manager” of Pharmally, contrary to earlier denials.

Confronted with documents showing Lin’s role in Pharmally, the trading firm’s executives were forced to admit the association, saying Yang’s business partner “was placed by the board” in the newly formed company that cornered the lion’s share of medical supply contracts with the government in 2020 and 2021.

Implicated in illegal drugs

Lin was earlier alleged to be the same person as Allan Lim, who was implicated in the illegal drug trade, but Rose Nono Lin denied this several times in the course of the inquiry.

According to the Senate blue ribbon panel, Lin, who has never attended the Senate inquiry, was in Dubai recovering from a second bout with COVID-19. His wife did not appear at Tuesday’s hearing and was reportedly out of town.

Pharmally’s Singaporean chair and president Huang Tzu Yen and its corporate secretary and treasurer Mohit Dargani both confirmed to the Gordon panel that Lin was connected to the company.

“Lin Weixiong, based on records, yes, it was earlier mentioned that Michael Yang did help Pharmally and act as a guarantor for the company,” Dargani said. “It was the board who placed him (Lin),” he told Gordon.

Dargani added that the Pharmally board was composed of himself, Huang, his sister Twinkle Dargani, who was the interim president, and directors Linconn Ong and Justine Garado.

‘Business partners’

But neither he nor Huang could say who had placed Lin in the company, both claiming no recollection. Ong also did not give a clear reply.

In previous hearings, Rose Nono Lin, who is connected with Pharmally Biological Corp. and holds various positions in several other firms, told the panel that her husband and Yang were “business partners and friends.”

“My husband is a business partner and a friend of Michael Yang but personally, if you ask me, we are not close because we don’t understand each other … I can’t speak Chinese,” she said during the Dec. 3 hearing.

In September, she denied that Pharmally Biological Corp. was a sister company of the other Pharmally, claiming there was no relationship between the two firms.

Yang had denied he was ever involved in Pharmally’s transactions, saying he only introduced Ong to his friends and suppliers in China.

But Ong and Huang testified that Yang had played a bigger role in the company than the latter claimed, serving as both a guarantor and financier during occasions when Pharmally was struggling to settle its obligations with suppliers or the government.