The Department of Justice has dismissed the criminal complaint filed by former Health Secretary Janette Garin against her successor, former Health Secretary Paulyn Jean Ubial, over the deaths of schoolchildren inoculated with the controversial Dengvaxia vaccine.
In a seven-page resolution, the DOJ exonerated Ubial of criminal liability for lack of probable cause to indict her for reckless imprudence resulting in homicide case.
Assistant State Prosecutor Claire Eufracia Pagayanan, who is handling the case, cited Garin’s failure to prove her allegations against Ubial by citing specific cases of Dengvaxia deaths during earlier preliminary investigation.
“In order to establish the liability of Ubial for the crime charged, it must be shown that there is a direct causal connection between such negligence and the death complained of. However, Garin failed to name a single victim who reportedly died as a result of Ubial’s alleged negligent approval and implementation of community-based Dengue immunization program,” the resolution stated.
“Considering that Garin failed to show the existence of the corpus delicti of the crime of reckless imprudence resulting to homicide, the complaint against Ubial shall be dismissed for lack of probable cause,” it said.
In her complaint, Garin said that Ubial should be held criminally liable because it was her who decided to shift the dengue immunization program from being school-based to community-based contributed to alleged reported deaths among immunized children. Rey E. Requejo