Garin, others charged over Dengvaxia

MANILA, Philippines — The Office of the Ombudsman has filed criminal charges against former Department of Health (DOH) secretary and incumbent Iloilo First District Rep. Janette Garin and four other former and incumbent officials in connection with the allegedly anomalous P3.556-billion dengue mass vaccination program of the Aquino administration.

Filed at the Sandiganbayan on Oct. 24, the cases involve violations of Section 3 (e) of Republic Act 3019 or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act and illegal use of public funds or property, also known as technical malversation, under Article 220 of the Revised Penal Code.

Named as Garin’s co-accused in the graft case were DOH Supply Chain Management Service director Maria Joyce Ducusin, former DOH undersecretaries Gerardo Bayugo and Kenneth Hartigan-Go as well as Philippine Children’s Medical Center executive director Julius Lecciones.

Except for Bayugo, the three other mentioned officials were also named as co-accused of Garin in the technical malversation case.

The ombudsman has recommended against Garin and her co-accused a bail bond of P90,000 for the graft case and P18,000 for the technical malversation case in exchange for their provisional liberty.

The cases stemmed from the Aquino administration’s purchase of P3.556 billion worth of Dengvaxia dengue vaccines manufactured by French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi Pasteur, and distributed locally by Zuellig Pharma.

The vaccines were administered to about 800,000 public school students aged nine years old and above, especially in the National Capital Region, Central Luzon and Calabarzon starting in April 2016 in connection with the implementation of the School-Based Immunization Program.

The DOH suspended the mass immunization program on Dec. 1, 2017, a day after Sanofi Pasteur disclosed that Dengvaxia poses threat of severe symptoms to those who had not been afflicted with dengue before.

Based on the charge sheets prepared by ombudsman’s graft investigation and Prosecution Officer III Rodil Casal, the money for the purchase of the Dengvaxia vaccines was sourced from government savings under the 2015 Miscellaneous Personnel Benefit Fund and from the 2014 General Appropriations Act (GAA).

The ombudsman said the release of the P3.556-billion fund was made possible through the issuance of a Special Allotment Release Order dated Dec. 29, 2015, supposedly to augment the budget of the DOH’s Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI).

The Ombudsman, however, said that the purchase of Dengvaxia vaccines was never part of the DOH’s EPI.

Furthermore, the ombudsman said Dengvaxia was not among the listed drugs under the Philippines National Drug Formulary Volume 1 nor had any valid exception from being listed in the PNDF.

The ombudsman said the purchase of Dengvaxia was an “open defiance” of Executive Order No. 49 series of 1993 which directs the “mandatory use of PNDF Volume 1 as the basis for procurement of drug products by the government” and other related administrative orders and issuances of the DOH.

Among the listed witnesses of the ombudsman set to testify against Garin and her co-accused were lawyers Glenn Chong and Eligio Mallari, representing the original complainants Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) and Vanguard of the Philippine Constitution Inc. (VPCI), respectively.

Also among the ombudsman’s listed witnesses were disease prevention and control experts, doctors Anthony Leachon and Clarito Cairo Jr.

The VACC and the VPCI have earlier said that the release of the fund for Dengvaxia was anomalous as the purchase was not listed in the 2015 GAA.

The late former president Benigno Aquino III and former Department of Budget and Management secretary Florencio Abad were included in the original complaint filed by the VACC and VPCI before the Department of Justice and the ombudsman in 2018.

However, in a resolution approved by Ombudsman Samuel Martires just last July 19, the ombudsman review panel said that except for Garin, Ducusin, Bayugo, Hartigan-Go and Lecciones, it did not find any probable cause to charge Aquino, Abad and several other former and incumbent officials of the DOH named as respondents in the original complaint.

Meanwhile in a statement, Garin maintained that there was “no corruption” involved in the controversial Dengvaxia procurement. — Delon Porcalla