Syjuco files mass murder, plunder raps vs Aquino, Garin over Dengvaxia

Former TESDA chief and Iloilo Rep. Augusto “Boboy”Syjuco.  (INQUIRER FILE PHOTO)

A day after President Benigno S. Aquino III faced the Senate hearing on the Dengvaxia vaccine fiasco, a complaint for mass murder and plunder was filed against him and former Health Secretary Janette Garin before the Office of the Ombudsman on Friday.

The complainant was former Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) chief Augusto “Boboy” Syjuco Jr., who also filed a complaint against Aquino in connection with the alleged corruption in the Department of Agriculture (DA) in 2015.

“I file this complaint for the crimes of mass murder and other related and resultant crimes through reckless imprudence, and negligence, and plunder, and graft and corruption, for and on behalf of 733,000 school children who were inoculated with the deadly vaccine Dengvaxia through apparent recklessness and negligence, and their apparent anxiety to spend P3.5 billion of public funds,” Syjuco said in his complaint.

Syjuco titled his complaint “Dengvaxia is Mamasapano is Dengvaxia,” as he compared the bungled vaccination program to the police operation that led to the death of at least 60 Filipinos, including 44 Special Action Force (SAF) troopers, in 2015.

Syjuco, however, mistakenly referred the Mamasapano operation to a military-led operation.

Calling Aquino and his Cabinet officials “sick-os,” Syjuco also likened them to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler for committing a crime against humanity.

“Mr. Aquino is the same ‘sick-o’ who had committed the same murder through reckless imprudence and negligence in the military fiasco that brought about the murder of 44 soldiers in the same kind of wild abandon by an incompetent who placed little or no value in the lives of our people,” Syjuco wrote in his complaint.

“History did not forgive messers Adolf Hitler and Adolf Eichmann for being ‘sick-os’ then. Similarly, history cannot forgive messers Benigno Aquino III, Secretaries (Enrique) Ona and Garin for being the ‘sick-os’ of our time on their similar crime against humanity,” he said.

Syjuco also hit Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales for her supposed inaction on the previous complaints he filed against Aquino.

“There has not been an ounce of shame in her standing practice of selective justice to protect by all means, the interests of her appointing authority,” he said.

Aquino, former Health Secretary Janette Garin, and other cabinet officials during his term were blamed for allowing the implementation of the P3.5 billion anti-dengue immunization program using Dengvaxia.

The anti-dengue immunization program commenced under the Aquino administration but was continued by the current Duterte administration.

The Department of Health (DOH) stopped its vaccination program days after French pharmaceutical giant, Sanofi Pasteur, reported that its Dengvaxia vaccine might be potentially harmful to people not previously exposed to dengue virus.

Dengvaxia had been administered to over 700,000 patients, mostly children, according to DOH.            /kga