THE Senate Blue Ribbon Committee on Monday filed the report on its investigation into the Dengvaxia vaccine mess, which placed the lives of more than 830,000 children in danger.
Senator Richard Gordon, who heads the committee, said more than the majority of the members of the Blue Ribbon signed Senate Committee Report No. 368.
“More than the majority signed the recommendations and we can debate it,” Gordon said. “I am happy it will be discussed on the floor because it is there that it should be debated and not outside. We should debate within the chamber and within the rules.”
A committee report may only be filed after at least the majority of the members of the committee had signed it.
Gordon said there was nothing political in the investigation or in the report submitted by the Blue Ribbon Committee.
“The aim of an investigation has always been the protection of the children, so we investigated in order to protect the children and to insulate the [Health department] from politics that endangers the health of the public,” Gordon said.
“What we are doing here is not political. It is precisely to prevent the [department] from being co-opted again.”
One of the recommendations in the report was to provide sufficient budget for monitoring, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of all children injected with Dengvaxia. The report proposed to authorize the allocation of a portion of the P1.2-billion refunded by Sanofi Pasteur for the unused vaccines for such.
In the committee report, the Blue Ribbon committee found former President Benigno Aquino III, former Health secretary Janette Garin, former Budget secretary Florencio Abad, PCMC director Julius Lecciones and other officials of the Health department and the Food and Drug Administration liable for violating some laws in connection with the procurement and distribution of the Dengvaxia vaccine.
