Still clueless

Noynoy Aquino never got it then, he still doesn't get it now. Speaking at the death anniversary of his mother, he said the Dengvaxia issue has been so much politicized, as if his critics are to blame for the widespread scare that surrounded what was then touted as the first cure for dengue.

Of course his political opponents pounced on the deadly fiasco that hounded the closing days of his administration. If Noynoy doesn't know it yet, that is precisely how the cookie crumbles in politics. But if he didn't have any clue as to what he was getting into, then he should never have entered it in the first place.

But while the issue was most certainly politicized, it does not follow that Dengvaxia should not have been an issue at all. On the contrary, it is an issue of the highest order, pertaining as it does to public health, the criminal negligence of which has already resulted in scores of perhaps unnecessary deaths.

And in case Noynoy forgot, or conveniently pretended not to remember, it was not a politician of whatever color that made an issue of Dengvaxia. It was the French manufacturer of the drug itself, Sanofi, that announced a pullout, saying the still not fully tested product can be harmful when given to certain types of patients.

Nothing can be a more apolitical statement than that, given no less by a foreign pharmaceutical giant that had nothing to do with politics in the Philippines. The announcement, and the resulting scare, was something that begged to be an issue, as indeed it was.

For Noynoy to say it was politicized is indeed politicizing it. In fact, Noynoy is pushing it way beyond its original political worth. He is recycling an old product and charging even more for it. Noynoy is not only a bad president, he is an even worse political salesman.

Noynoy apparently wants to gain some reprieve from culpability in the Dengvaxia mess by seizing on the stated desire of the successor Duterte administration to now use Dengvaxia against the dengue scourge. What he remains clueless about is the fact that the Dengvaxia of today is not the same Dengvaxia that he aggressively pushed as a legacy drug in his time.

In his time, the drug was not fully ready, which was why the manufacturer subsequently issued the recall order. There was no politics in that. It was a matter of grave health concern. It became political only when it became clear it was introduced in the Philippines for a massive vaccination campaign despite safety limitations of the drug at the time. And Noynoy still misses that.