DOJ probing PNoy over Dengvaxia
MANILA — The Department of Justice has formed a fourmember panel to conduct a fact-finding probe into the possible criminal liabilities of former president Benigno Aquino III over the controversial Dengvaxia vaccination program.
In a one-page office order, Acting Prosecutor General Jorge Catalan Jr. designated Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Rossane Balauag to lead the panel.
Other members assigned to the panel are SASP Hazel Decena Valdez, Assistant State Prosecutors Consuelo Corazon Pazzluagan and Gino Paolo Santiago.
Balauag also headed the investigation into the Mamasapano incident, where more than 60 people died in a police operation. A police audit team found that the operation suffered from poor planning and lack of coordination on the ground.
Aquino was commander-inchief at the time.
VACC files complaint over Dengvaxia
The investigation emanated from the complaint filed by nongovernment group Volunteers against Crime and Corruption's lawyer Manuelito Luna and the Vanguard of Philippine Constitution Inc.'s suspended lawyer Eligio Mallari.
The two groups filed technical malversation and criminal negligence complaints against Aquino, former Budget chief Florencio Abad, former Health chief Janette Garin, several employees of the Department of Health, and the boards of pharma firms Sanofi Pasteur and Zuellig.
Despite contrary statements from medical experts, the VACC and VPCI insist that Aquino and his executives should be held accountable for the "deaths and dengue shock following inoculation of Dengvaxia."
"The causal relationship between vaccine and deaths, dengue shock or adverse events, under the circumstances, could hardly be ignored. And the number of counts would be the number of subjects inoculated irrespective of the number of doses administered," the complaint read.
Experts from the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital denied the claims of the VACC and VPCI, which have been parroted by the Public Attorney's Office. The PGH panel said that in the 14 deaths they are currently investigating, three have a "causal association" to the vaccine.
The two Houses of the Congress are currently holding separate legislative inquiries into the vaccine program.