Dengvaxia deal above board – Aquino

Former president Benigno Aquino 3rd holds a chart showing dengue cases from 1995 to 2015. He maintained that the deal on the acquisition of Dengvaxia, which was used in the massive dengue vaccination program, was above board.

FORMER President Benigno Aquino 3rd maintained on Thursday that he committed no election offenses when his administration implemented dengue by using Dengvaxia.

Aquino showed up at the Commission on Elections (Comelec) yesterday to attend a closed-door hearing

- teers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC). Francis Cruz and Clarito

Cairo Jr. for alleged violation of the Omnibus Election Code (OEC).

The complainants alleged that Aquino and his co-accused, former Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, former health secretary Janet Garin, Department of Health (DoH) violated, Election Code, which prohibits the the holding of an election.

Aquino said the immunization program, which cost the govern

legal process. He added that it was implemented to arrest the soaring cases of dengue.

He said the complaint filed against him would be junked because it was baseless. “Wala po akong ginawang mali (I did nothing wrong),” Aquino to harass him.

The former president explained that he approved the use of government savings on December which, he pointed out, was beyond - chase order was made on March 9, the start of the ban on disbursement of public funds.

“So if you look at the available records when the fund was disbursed, when it was authorized, they were all before the start of the election ban or election period,” Aquino said.

clinical test on Dengvaxia has not yet been completed, Aquino claimed that the controversial anti-dengue vaccine has passed all the required tests and studies not only in the Philippines but elsewhere in the world.

“There was a tool, it passed through all the tests necessary and we used that tool to address the situation of dengue,” he said, adding “the job of protecting the people’s health cannot be held in abeyance by elections.”

- dren and police personnel were inoculated with Dengvaxia under the massive vaccination program. Some of the children who were injected with the vaccine died, and these cases are being investigated by the VACC and the Public At

The VACC alleged that Aquino, Abad and Garin were behind the schoolbased immunization program.

“In the case of other DoH of involved, directly or indirectly, in of the Dengue Immunization Pro the election ban,” the group said.