JV sees liability of PNoy’s Cabinet officials in Dengvaxia controversy

Senator Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito said yesterday the blame on the controversial R3.5-billion purchase of dengue vaccine should fall on the department heads of former president Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III.

As the 2016 presidential elections approached, the search for funds of such magnitude and eventual signing of the purchase contract with Sanofi Pasteur, maker of the Dengvaxia vaccine for dengue, “was unprecedented and smacks of undue haste,” he said.

He then said the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee chaired by Sen. Richard J. Gordon should recall former Department of Health (DOH) Janette Garin; former Executive Secretary Pacquito “Jojo” Ochoa; and former Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Florencio Abad to the witness stand to explain their side on the controversial vaccination of more than 800,000 school children.

Ejercito said one of his children was vaccinated under the DOH vaccination program.

He said he finds something fishy with the vaccine purchase because it was not approved by Congress and that it came from the government’s miscellaneous funds.

Ejercito said he does not buy Abad’s statement that that the realignment of funds was a standard practice.

At the vaccine was purchased, no emergency situation existed at the time, he added.

Ejercito said the Senate should show respect to Aquino who once held the fate of the Republic when was the President by not inviting him again to the next Senate Blue Ribbon committee hearing on the dengue vaccine purchase in 2016. PNoy acted in good faith – JV In so far as Ejercito is concerned, the former president acted in good faith because he relied on the decisions of his former Cabinet members and that the recommendation to buy was a result of “due diligence.”

Ejercito pointed out that he is soft on Aquino although is no fan to the former President during his incumbency, adding that Filipinos “magbibigay galang” (give due courtesy).

“We should give due respect to a former President,” he added.

Ejercito is a son of former President Joseph Estrada.

The former President’s integrity is intact “but I cannot say the same for his men,” he explained.

Ejercito, however, put his gloves off in so far as Abad is concerned.

He cited the former DBM chief’s “record” in the controversial illgal disbursement of the multi-billion-peso Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) to lawmakers and some government agencies.

The Supreme Court, according to Ejercito, ruled that some parts of the DAP was illegal and unconstitutional. This refers to the questionable realignment of government funds.

Without congressional approval of the use of R3.5 billion to buy the dengue vaccine, those involved in the Dengvaxia vaccine purchase could face charges of technical malversation, he added.

As a lawyer himself, Abad should know that there is a need for Congress to appropriate funds for such a purchse, Ejercito said.

On Gordon’s” one-man show” during his committee hearing where his colleagues, including members of the Senate minority bloc, were not given enough chance to crossexamine resource speakers, Ejercito said each committee chairman as his own style.

In firing most of the questions at the time, Gordon was laying his predicate, he explained.

As in accepted parliamentary rules, the committee chairman should act as a traffic enforcer who allows senators and resource speakers enough time to go through the question and answer routine.

“Ideally all (senators) should be given a chance to ask questions. The mood was tense then,” he said.