Lloyd Christopher Lao. Do readers remember the name?
A little more than a year ago, Lao was arrested in his home city of Davao. His case – graft charges related to the Pharmally corruption mess during the term of Rodrigo Duterte. Along with Duterte’s health secretary Francisco Duque III, Lao was charged over the illegal transfer of P41 billion in public funds for the procurement of medical supplies during the Wuhan Virus pandemic.
But take note: would Lao have been arrested if Duterte would still be in power? That is a leading question if one realizes how Lao’s star shines in the Duterte universe. There is a paper trail as to how he became undersecretary in the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) where he was tasked with the sensitive department called the Procurement Service of the DBM.
And the PS-DBM truly has a sensitive role. It is the national government’s buying agent for all government agencies. It is the national agency for centralized procurement of common-use supplies and equipment. It has the power to purchase. It is awash in cash.
For a president who wants to steal big time from government, the method is simple – just put in your trusted kawatan in the PS-DBM even if that person has no previous procurement experience in government.
Who exactly was Lloyd Christopher Lao? Duterte’s fair-haired boy was a fraternity brother in the Lex Talionis fraternity. He was a legal officer in the city mayor’s office when Duterte was mayor. Upon assuming the presidency, Duterte’s first task was to issue Executive Order No.1. This EO created the Office of the Special Assistant to the President (OSAP). If the Presidential Management Staff (PMS) was an office that already existed since the previous presidents, the OSAP was to supervise the PMS.
Appointed as secretary of the OSAP, with cabinet rank, was the Duterte man Friday Christopher Lawrence T. Go. His undersecretary was Lao. As USec, Lao was at the beck and call of Go who became the most powerful man in Malacañang, surpassing even the so-called Little President, the executive secretary.
In 2018, after two years in OSAP, Duterte appointed Lao as chief executive officer and commissioner of the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB). This is the agency of government that deals with private housing developers engaged in socialized and low-cost mass housing projects.
In the HLURB, Lao issued a memorandum circular that made licensing approvals of developers very hard to attain. Apparently, the aim was not to make the licensing process rigorous. A group of developers wrote a confidential letter to the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission. The allegation? Lao was extorting money from real estate developers.
The case was never investigated because by January 2019, Duterte transferred Lao to the PS-DBM. What can you say of a president who does not file cases of graft and corruption against his appointees but merely transfers them to another agency? Why, that president must be corrupt himself.
The Pharmally scandal that erupted was not unlike shit hitting the fan – Duterte allowed the purchase of overpriced face masks and medical supplies, Pharmally was chosen because it had the guarantee of Duterte Red Chinese friend and alleged drug lord Michael Yang, and that Lao was in the PS-DBM to do the bidding of Duterte to steal.
When the Senate Blue Ribbon committee started investigating the mess, Duterte threatened, telling his cabinet officials: “if you are cited in contempt, if I find out, I will jail the senators.” He also told police and military not to arrest resource persons who ignore the Senate subpoenas. It needed only common sense – Duterte was the instigator of the Pharmally corruption scandal.
Duterte publicly defended Lao that he had a debt of gratitude to his fraternity brother and former city hall lawyer.
As for Lao, he simply went into hiding in Davao City, as did the Pharmally executives Mohit and Twinkle Dargani who also hid in Davao City until they were arrested in November 2021. The choice of Davao City became the butt of jokes to many observers – Davao City is the safest city in the world for criminals.
Now we get to the interesting part. How did Bong Go behave in all these? He was Lao’s boss. Lao was his No. 2 in the OSAP, surely a position of trust. Go’s defenses were incredible, short of articulating that Lao never worked for him. This is what Go said:
“I know him. He is also from Davao. But he was never under me or was my aide. If he has done something wrong, then hold him accountable for it. If he needs to be jailed, then let him be jailed. If he has to be cited for contempt, then let him be cited for contempt.”
This is how Go said the second line in Tagalog: “Pero di ko sya tauhan or aide.” At that time, Go was already senator. He also called up Sen. Richard Gordon who chaired the Blue Ribbon. “Huwag naman ako (Don’t drag my name).” No, because in Davao City nobody but nobody drags the name of Bong Go who, the confessed Davao Death Squad hitman Arturo Lascañas said, operated his own death squad permitted by Duterte.
That is the flashback. Now we fast-forward to October 2025 when Go went on a Senate press conference to deny that his family’s Christopher Lawrence Tesoro Go (CLTG) construction company had joint ventures with a Discaya construction firm.
He said the same line of defense as he did with Lao:
“Hindi ko kilala ang mga Discaya (I do not know the Discayas).”
“Kung may anomalya, kasuhan nyo ang pamilya ko. Ako pa ang complainant (If there were anomalies with the Discaya joint venture, file a case against my family. I will even act as the complainant.).”
“Bakit nilihis ang katotohanan sa akin? (Why did the investigation drag my name?).”
The Lao Pharmally pattern of lying is there. In Cebuano, a nasty sounding word is reserved for the congenital liar: botboton.
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of VERA Files.
