The Senate blue ribbon committee’s draft report on the P3 billion Dengvaxia mass vaccination drive was “silent on the role played by the Duterte administration in perpetuating” the program, an opposition lawmaker said Wednesday.
ACT Teachers party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio, in a statement, said Senator Richard Gordon’s draft report “rightly holds” former President Benigno Aquino III, former Health Secretary Janette Garin, and former Budget Secretary Florencio Abad “for their key role in approving and promoting the program.”
But Tinio pointed out that the report “is silent on the role played by the Duterte administration in perpetuating the same, despite the availability of more information and studies regarding the risks of the experimental vaccine.”
The lawmaker also acknowledged that the report presented by Gordon in a Senate forum earlier, was “a mere draft that does not, at this point, represent the findings of the Blue Ribbon Committee.”
“We hope that the Senate as a whole will not allow its investigation into this issue to be reduced to yet another one-sided and partisan exercise but will ascribe accountability to all who played a role in exposing the health and safety of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos to undue risk,” he stressed.
Meanwhile, AKO BICOL party-list Rep. Rodel Batocabe said appropriate charges should already be filed against responsible officials.
“Then file the proper cases in Court so that the truth will come and there will be justice for everybody including public officials allegedly responsible,” he said.
The draft report recommended that Aquino, Garin, Abad and other officials be charged for violating among others the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act and the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees.
The government, it said, purchased the vaccine “in undue haste,” with the approval of Aquino through Abad and Garin and other health officials.
Gordon is set to submit the report to the committee members for signature before presenting it to the plenary for approval.
READ: Aquino, Abad, Garin ‘caused’ Dengvaxia ‘tragedy’ – draft report
Current Health Secretary Francisco Duque III ordered the suspension of the vaccination when French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi Pasteur bared in November 2017 that Dengvaxia could worsen symptoms of the disease for people who had not been previously infected by the virus.
The anti-dengue vaccine was given to more than 830,000 children in areas with high incidences of dengue during Aquino’s term. The program was later expanded under Duterte’s term. /muf
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