Senate Dengvaxia probe: Politics and health should not mix
IATTENDED the second joint public hearing of the Senate committees on accountability - tions (blue ribbon), health and Senate on December 11, 2017. I served as one of the assisting legal counsels of Dr. Francisco S. Cruz, former consultant of the Department of Health (DoH) during the tenure of former Health Secretary Paulyn Jean R. Ubial.
Dr. Cruz revealed that he had raised red flags on the dengue vaccination program because he feared that there might be a big cover-up on the involvement of questionable procurement and implementation of the program.
At any rate, the public waited for the appearance of former President Benigno S. Aquino 3rdin the subsequent joint public hearing on Thursday, December 13. Former Budget Secretary Florencio Abad and former Executive Secretary Ochoa also appeared at the hearing.
The President was kept in the dark
It was clear from the answers of Aquino, if we are to believe him, that he was kept in the dark about the true nature of his meetings with the officials of Sanofi- Pasteur.
Upon questioning by Sen. Richard Gordon, Aquino admitted that paper before meeting anyone. Dr. Enrique Ona was the Secretary to Aquino, he was told that they would discuss the stage of the development of the dengue vaccine and its possible availability.
“Do you know the background Gordon followed up with the allegations of fraud, false claims and asked Aquino, “Were you made - swered in the negative.
It seems that the DoH team sanitized the information passed to Aquino or they did a sloppy
Aquino, however, revealed that they were in a hurry to implement the program before the end of his term. He said: “Bottom line was this, I was told that this was al- ready available. They told me that the approval was in process, [that the] budget allowed us to use these savings. If we follow the process of asking for a supplemental budget, vaccine would be in 2017 of the new administration, that there was no guarantee that this would be implemented in 2016.”
Garin hiding something?
Former Health Secretary Janette L. Garin’s demeanor gave the impression that she was hiding something. She appeared reluctant to give direct answers. She always qualified her answers. She gave narrative answers to questions answerable with a mere “Yes” or “No.”
Gordon asked Garin if she went to the Neuville factory of - nize the place. Anyway, Neuville is some 520 kilometers from Lyon, where the headquarters of
Gordon confronted Garin with the fact that they ( Garin and company) discussed the pric during their meetings. As usual, Garin was hard put to answer the question directly. But however convoluted her responses, the fact remained that they discussed the pricing—whether it was for the private sector or for the government. Gordon emphasized several times – “I am the one asking the questions here. Secretary, just answer the question.”
Based on the notes of the Philippine ambassador to France, it was Garin who assured Sanofi that “there is now a faster approval” of new vaccines in the country.
A month after their December 2015 meeting in France, Garin recommended to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) the multi-billion procurement of three million doses of the dengue vaccine.
PCMC started bidding process without legal basis
According to Dr. Julius A. Lecciones, executive director of the Philippine Children’s Medical Center (PCMC), the PCMC was ordered by the DoH to procure the dengue vaccines. He confirmed that they started the bidding process pending the execution of the memorandum of agreement ( MoA) between the PCMC, as the procuring entity, and DoH as the end- user.
Lecciones claimed that even without the MoA, the Government Procurement Reform Act (GPRA) allows them to start the bidding process but short of issuing a notice of award.
I believe that that is a precarious and erroneous position.
The MoA is supposed to contain the recitals, which provides a general idea about what the contract or agreement is all about. Moreover, the provisions of the agreement spell out the duties and responsibilities of the parties which signed the document. The MoA was notarized on February 19, 2016. However, PCMC made a purchase request (PR) on January 21, 2016 – 30 days before the MoA was perfected.
Section 17 of RA No. 9184, or the GPRA, requires that the procuring entity prepare the bidding documents which should include the approved budget for the contract, the terms of reference, and the delivery time/completion schedule, among others. How can they prepare the bidding documents when these mentioned items are supposed to come from MoA is just pro forma and that everything is pre-arranged.
Lecciones has a lot of explaining to do and legal battles to fight in the future.
Politics pressured Ubial
Gordon was about to adjourn the hearing and requested Ubial to make a final statement. Ubial’s last words made Gordon to re-think his position and possibly conduct further hearings in the future.
August 14, 2017 hearing of the House committee on appropriations, Rep. Oscar Richard Garin Jr. told her to purchase more dengue vaccines in this wise — “According to your NCR Director, P425,000 given P675,000. Put additional budget to comply with the third dose.
budget.” Out of the more than 290 representatives, it was only Garin Jr. who brought up the issue of dengue vaccine.
Incidentally, Garin Jr. is the husband of ex-health secretary Garin.
Ubial earlier said that politics and health should not mix. Obviously, she succumbed to political pressure in deciding to continue with the Dengvaxia implementation – to the distress of our helpless countrymen.