DOJ to summon Aquino, 43 others over Dengvaxia

MANILA, Philippines — A Department of Justice (DOJ) panel of prosecutors is set to issue subpoenas to former president Benigno Aquino III, two former Cabinet secretaries, Department of Health (DOH) officials and executives of two pharmaceutical companies allegedly responsible for the distribution of the defective Dengvaxia anti-dengue vaccine.

During yesterday’s clarificatory hearing, the DOJ panel led by Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Rossane Balauag said all 44 respondents would be summoned to appear before the department at 10 a.m. on May 15.  

Aside from Aquino, the 43 other respondents include former health secretary Janette Garin; former budget secretary Florencio Abad; DOH undersecretaries Carol Tainio, Gerardo Bayugo, Lilibeth David and Mario Villaverde; former DOH undersecretaries Nemesio Gako, Vicente Belizario Jr. and Kenneth Hartigan Go; and DOH assistant secretaries Lyndon Lee Suy and Nestor Santiago.

The complainants, Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) and Vanguard of the Philippine Constitution Inc. (VPCI), have also included executives from French pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur Inc. led by its chairman and president Carlito Realuyo and its local distributor Zuellig PharmaCorp., led by its chairman American national Michael Becker. 

The VACC and VPCI filed the complaint against them for possible violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act (Republic Act 3019); Government Procurement Reform Act (RA 9184); technical malversation and criminal negligence, punished under the Revised Penal Code (RPC) and for other violations of the law. 

Meanwhile, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III has been dragged into criminal charges involving the deaths of children inoculated with Dengvaxia.

The family of 13-year-old Abbie Hedia from Muntinlupa City, one of the 43 casualties from the vaccine documented by the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO), filed yesterday a complaint before the DOJ that included Duque among the respondents. 

PAO chief Persida Acosta said Duque was included in the complaint because the inoculation of Dengvaxia to Hedia was done in November last year when he was already DOH chief.

Also named respondents in the complaints are physicians Socorro Lupisan and Maria Rosario Capeding of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine.

Other executives of Sanofi named in the complaints are Sanislas Camart, Jean Louis Grunwald, Jean-Francois Vacherand, Conchita Santos, Jazel Anne Calvo, Pearl Grace Cabali and Marie Esther de Antoni.

Aside from Zuellig’s Becker, included in the charge sheet are Kasigod Jamias, Ricardo Romulo, Imran Babar Chugtai, Raymund Azurin, Nilo Badiola, John Stokes Davison, Marc Franck, Ashley Gerard Antonio, Ana Liza Peralta, Rosa Maria Chua, Danilo Cahoy, Manuel Concio III, Roland Goco and Ma. Visitacion Barreiro.

“The case filed by PAO is malicious and oppressive. (Acosta’s) actions are clearly unbecoming of a public official and their counterproductive effects are prejudicial to the best interest of the service,” Duque said in a press briefing.

Duque noted that he was not even at the DOH yet when the agency launched the dengue vaccination campaign in April 2016.

The health chief said he could not understand why his predecessor, former secretary Paulyn Ubial, was spared from the case although she expanded the program to community. 

As this developed, DOH undersecretary Rolando Enrique Domingo revealed that the report of the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization of the World Health Organization (WHO) “supports” his decision to suspend the anti-dengue vaccination program.  – With Edu Punay, Sheila Crisostomo, Paolo Romero