The Justice department will come out with its resolution in January on the second batch of Dengvaxia complaints filed against former and incumbent Health officials by the families of eight victims believed to have died after being inoculated by the untested anti-dengue vaccine.
Senior Deputy State Prosecutor Richard Anthony Fadullon, who has supervision over the department’s prosecution panel that conducted the preliminary investigation on the Dengvaxia complaints, said he was expecting to submit the resolution to Prosecutor General Benedicto Malcontento next month.
“I think we would be coming out soon with the [resolution for the] second batch of Dengvaxia complaints by January,” Fadullon said.
He said while he might be able to complete reviewing the resolution prepared by the panel of prosecutors on the second batch of Dengvaxia cases by next month, it might not be immediately released because it had to be evaluated and subsequently approved by the Prosecutor General.
“I can tell you straight off I will be submitting it from my end to the Prosecutor General. But if it [resolution] is not released, that would not be my call. He [PG Malcontento] has to approve it first before it can be released,” Fadullon said.
He said that while there was a prescribed 60-day period for investigation, a draft resolution goes through several levels of checking before it is released to the parties, and there is no fixed number of days for a resolution to be finally released.
“The period there is not clear,” he said.
A draft resolution crafted either by a prosecutor or a panel of prosecutors goes through the reviewers and the draft could go back and forth between them if they thought there were errors or information that were missed in the draft. When it reaches his level, Fadullon would review it and if he thought there were errors not seen by the reviewers, he would send it back to the prosecutors.
Once he had approved the draft resolution, it would be forwarded to the Prosecutor General who would again go through the draft and if it does not meet his approval, he could send it back until the errors had been corrected.
Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Susan Dacanay handled the second batch of Dengvaxia complaints.
The complaints were filed by parents, assisted by the Public Attorney’s Office, and concern the deaths of their children Roshaine Carino, Christine Joy Asuncion, Clarissa Alcantara, Erico Mendoza Leabres, Christine Mae de Guzman, John Paul Rafael, Michael Tablate and Naomi Nimura.
The respondents in the case are former Health Secretary Janette Garin and Department of Health officials Vicente Belizario Jr., Kenneth Hartigan-Go, Gerardo Bayugo, Lyndon Lee Suy, Irma Asuncion, Julius Lecciones, Joyce Ducusin, Rosalind Viianzon and Mario Baquilod.
Also named respondents were Food and Drug Administration officials Maria Lourdes Santiago and Melody Zamudio; officials of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine Socorro Lupisan and Maria Rosario Capeding; and Philippine Children’s Medical Center official Sonia Gonzales and former official Raymundo Lo.
Executives of Dengvaxia manufacturer Sanofi Pastuer and local distributor Zuellig Pharma were also included as respondents.