Ten more criminal cases have been filed before the Department of Justice against former Health secretary Janette Garin and 38 others over the deaths of schoolchildren inoculated with the Dengvaxia vaccine.
Families of 10 more victims, including a policeman who died after getting the dengue immunization vaccine, asked the DOJ to prosecute Garin, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III as well as executives of manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur and local distributor Zuellig Pharma for reckless imprudence resulting in homicide under the Revised Penal Code and violations of Anti-Torture Act and Consumer Act.
Seven of the victims in this third set of Dengvaxia cases in the DOJ were schoolchildren from Cebu—Wiljen Alcontin, Eleazar Brigoli Jr., Trishanne Asona, EJ Christian Apa, Joaniña Cortes, Gladimeir Juevesano and Kianah Mae Racuya.
The two other children were Adeline Castroverde from Valenzuela City and Jessica Viaros from Sariaya, Quezon. The 10th complaint was for the death of Senior Police Officer 2 Vicente Arugay from Quezon City.
In the complaints, Garin and others are accused of negligence through “arbitrarily, maliciously, and deliberately failure to inform the Dengvaxia recipients and their parents/families of the dangers and risks related to Dengvaxia and to obtain their informed consent.”
The new complainants, assisted by the Public Attorney’s Office, cited the failure of the DOH under Garin to conduct proper screening of Dengvaxia recipients and to implement active and aggressive monitoring and surveillance over the recipients considering the risks posed by the vaccine to seronegative recipients or those who had no history of dengue.
The complainants said the respondents “displayed grave recklessness, utter bad faith, lack of foresight, lack of skill, want of care, gross neglect and deliberate, arbitrary and even malicious disregard of the safety and lives of thousands of Filipino children.”
PAO chief Persida Rueda-Acosta said Duque was included in the charge sheet on Arugay’s case.
“Secretary Duque is included in the policeman’s case because he did not provide a master list of policemen injected with the vaccine that’s why they were not properly monitored,” Acosta added.
The Philippine National Police earlier said Arugay died of leptospirosis.
The 10 new cases brought to 27 the total number of cases filed so far before the DOJ by the PAO, which had documented at least 96 Dengvaxia deaths so far.
The first batch of cases involved the deaths of nine schoolchildren—Aejay Bautista, Angelica Pestilos, Lenard Baldonado, Zandro Colite, Abbie Hedia, Jansyn Bataan, Mark Axel Ebonia, Rey Justin Almagno, and Alexander Jaime.
The panel led by Assistant State Prosecutor Maria Emilia Victorio already concluded the preliminary investigation on these cases after final hearing yesterday.
The second batch, on the other hand, involved the cases of eight other schoolchildren—Clarissa Alcantara, Christine Mae De Guzman, Erico Leabres, Roshaine Cariño, Naomi Nimura, John Paul Rafael, Michael Tablate and Christine Joy Asuncion.
A separate panel chaired by Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Susan Dacanay has started the preliminary investigation on these cases.