Rectifying errors

It was like a deja vu when we saw Iloilo Rep. Janet Garin back into action at the opening session of the 18th Congress last Monday. Garin made sure to register to public mind her return to legislature when she boldly stepped on the floor to nominate the minority’s bet to the election for new Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Garin named Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante as the candidate from their bloc. Without identifying who are with them, Garin nominated Abante who belongs to Asenso Manileño. This is a local party in the city of Manila that included newly elected Mayor Francisco “Isko” Moreno Domagoso.

Returning to Congress under the Liberal Party (LP), Garin identified herself with the opposition bloc at the House. The Speakership election divided the 18-member LP group in the Lower Chamber into three blocs. LP congressmen reportedly chose to fragment themselves despite the impassioned appeal from their party president, Sen. Francis Pangilinan, to be part of the genuine opposition in the 18th Congress.

One group of LP congressmen was led by Caloocan’s Edgar Erice who voted for Taguig Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano for Speaker. Being Cayetano’s lone opponent, Abante automatically became the new House Minority Leader. The LP faction headed by Quezon City Rep. Christopher Belmonte supported Abante. Rep. Edcel Lagman of Albay opted to remain “with the independent opposition.” It was not clear who among Lagman’s LP colleagues have joined him.

Garin, who once served as Department of Health (DoH) Secretary, resurfaced amid a resurgence of deadly dengue in our country. Garin won her comeback bid at her home congressional district in this year’s mid-term elections last May. She took over from her husband Oscar who held the post after she got appointed as Health Secretary during the previous administration of former president Benigno Simeon Aquino III. 

Garin, along with other former government officials as co-accused, are facing several criminal cases filed before Quezon City regional trial courts. These cases with various claims – filed by relatives to seek restitution for those who died allegedly of severe dengue disease complications after receiving Dengvaxia shots – were recently consolidated.

Some 730,000 children reportedly received Dengvaxia shots – regardless whether they were previously infected by dengue or not – under the inoculation program launched notably a few weeks before the holding of the May 2016 presidential elections. The program was stopped in December 2017 after adverse findings against the world’s first anti-dengue vaccine came out in public.

Fast forward. Last July 15, the DOH declared a national dengue alert following the rapidly increasing number of cases observed in 13 of the country’s 17 regions. A total of 106,630 dengue cases were reported countrywide from January to June this year, up 85 percent from the 57,564 listed in the same semester in 2018. At least 456 deaths were tallied in the first semester, up 43 percent from the 317 logged in the same period in 2018, the DOH reported.

Re-elected Surigao del Sur Rep. Johnny Pimentel wants to ascertain the estimated number of Filipino children who had no prior dengue infection, but who received Dengvaxia shots anyway under a school-based public immunization program. Pimentel is former chairman of the House good government and public accountability committee that conducted in 2018 a joint inquiry with the House health panel into the vaccination program using Dengvaxia. At the end of the hearings, the 17th Congress earmarked a total of P1.4 billion under the DOH budget in 2018 “to provide the necessary health and medical assistance to Dengvaxia vaccinees.”

This is not saying comebacking Congresswoman Garin had something to do with the dengue spreading anew virulently across the nation.

But seeing Garin back in the thick of politics gives the public something to be concerned about. Of course, we adhere to the legal maxim of due process and one is presumed innocent until proven guilty. But will justice be served for the parents and other loved ones of victims of “Dengvaxia” while a principal accused in this case is now back in power? 

For as long as the country’s justice continues to grind – slow as it is –we still hope the guilty parties will have to pay eventually for their sins. We could only find comfort seeing some government officials, even Senators and Congressmen, got locked up in the past for corruption and other crimes.

Which brings to fore the back-to-back presidential digs to the members of the 18th Congress in last Monday’s state of the nation address (SONA) at the Batasang Pambansa in Quezon City. After making them to be the ones waiting for him this time around, President Rodrigo Duterte got away again with his “wicked sense of humor,” to borrow the words of American Ambassador Sung Kim.

 Justifying his call for the passage into law of the administration-endorsed creation of a Department of Disaster Resilience (DDR), President Duterte told them about a “psychic” who predicted the deadly earthquake called the “big one” in Metro Manila will open wide the grounds where the Batasan stood.

“Philippines is so corrupt. It’s so lousy that if you kill all congressmen, senators and the President, we will have a new day. So I pray that if the earthquake comes, it comes now. This moment,” the President deadpanned. 

Adlibbing from his prepared SONA the first time, the President ordered the 63 Customs personnel facing corruption charges to get out of the premises of Customs Bureau. “I will just allow them to have their plantilla positions but they have to report to Congress everyday to help me in the huge paperwork that we have to do everyday,” the Chief Executive said in straight face.

The former Davao City Mayor recalled him telling before a congressional hearing: “We, in government, talk too much, act too little, and too slow.” The same things, he rued, are happening again. “So I am here to rectify my own error,” the President vowed. As to how the President rectifies it, we shall hopefully see it sooner than later.