THE Supreme Court (SC) has ordered a reopening of 35 Dengvaxia-related cases some of which have been previously dismissed by a Quezon City Regional Trial Court (RTC).
This developed after the Office of the Solicitor General filed a petition for certiorari challenging the RTC dismissal of eight of the complaints.
The SC directed a Quezon City family court to initiate a pre-trial procedure in the litigation the cases involving deaths of school children after being administered Dengvaxia vaccines against dengue.
“In view of the foregoing, in accordance with the Office of the Court Administrator Circular No. 105-2022, Acting Judge Cecilyn E.Villavert should hear and try Case Nos. R-QZN-23-07131, R-QZN-23–07144, 07159 to 69. The OCC, RTC, Quezon City, is directed to forward the records of the cases to Branch 102, RTC, Quezon City. For your guidance and compliance,” the two-page order of SC assistant court administrator Lilian Barribal-Co read.
Sumachen Dominguez, Samahan ng mga Magulang, Anak at Biktima ng Dengvaxia (SMABD) president, viewed the SC’s directive as a welcome development after RTC Judge Cleto Villacorta III inhibited himself from the case.
Cited as respondents in the charges were former Health Secretary Janette Garin, ex-Philippine Children’s Medical Center director Julius Lecciones, Dr. Vicente Belizario Jr., Dr. Kenneth Hartigan-Go, Dr. Irma Asuncion, Dr. Maria Joyce Ducusin, Dr. Gerardo Bayugo, Dr. Rosalind Vianzon, Carlito Realuyo, and Conchita Santos.
Villacorta dismissed earlier eight charges of reckless imprudence resulting in homicide against then Health Secretary Janette Garin and the other respondents. questioning the credibility of three medical doctors as expert witnesses.
“The case of Dengvaxia is just new. How can we have experts on this?” Dominguez argued.
Barribal-Co, in a two-page letter to the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Executive Judge Rosanna Fe Romero-Maglaya, clarified that judges designated to hear an inhibited case or to whom the case was re-raffled “cannot raise the issue of propriety of the exercise of the discretion of judges to disqualify themselves under Section 1 or 2 of Rule 137.”
“Thus, being the judge to whom the criminal cases mentioned above were re-raffled, it is incumbent upon Judge Burgos-Villavert to immediately take cognizance of the cases and try the same,” Barribal-Co stated.
Following Villacorta’s inhibition, the 35 criminal charges were re-raffled off to Burgos- Villavert’s sala.
In 2015, the DOH under Garin’s administration procured P3.5 billion worth of Dengvaxia vaccines for the mass inoculation of public school children in 2016.
More than a hundred of children who got inoculated reportedly died, with their deaths attributed to the controversial vaccine.
In 2017, the Dengvaxia manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur Inc., admitted in a social media post that the vaccine could lead to adverse effects in individuals without previous infection of dengue.