The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which has its own set of processes to handle and investigate complaints, said Wednesday it would go ahead with a probe of unauthorized COVID-19 vaccinations of President Rodrigo Duterte’s security battalion.
This followed announcements that the 75-year-old chief executive had instructed the Presidential Security Group to “shut up” should lawmakers inquire about their vaccination, which prompted the military to drop its investigation into the PSG inoculation hours later.
Meanwhile, senators who previously insisted that the chamber probe how the President’s security men got the jabs have softened their stance, sources told Manila Standard.
They have instead vowed to focus on how the government plans to roll out its vaccination program in a meeting of the Committee of the Whole on Monday next week, as called by Senate President Vicente Sotto III.
Opposition Senators Franklin Drilon and Francis Pangilinan, who had called on fellow lawmakers to launch the probe, have said they will turn their sights on the entirety of the national vaccination program instead, sources told the Standard.
Senators Risa Hontiveros and Leila De Lima remain adamant in pushing through with the probe, with the latter filing Senate Resolution (SR) No. 603 on Tuesday.
“There is a need to inquire as to the facts surrounding the early inoculation of members of the Cabinet, the PSG and AFP officials,” she said.
PSG commander Brig. Gen. Jesus Durante III has taken full responsibility for the vaccination of his security unit.
Durante claimed that the vaccines were donated upon their request, but he refused to disclose the source.
FDA Director General Eric Domingo told a public hearing Duterte’s order to the PSG only applied to congressional hearings, adding: “The FDA has its own set of processes on how to handle and investigate complaints and reports like this. And we will go ahead with that according to the process laid out by the FDA.”
The National Bureau of Investigation is reported conducting a separate inquiry.
“As far sa the other agencies of the executive branch are concerned, that is at the discretion of the investigating agencies,” Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said Tuesday.
He added: “Please ask the NBI, FDA if they will continue their investigation.”
The FDA has not yet approved any COVID-19 vaccine for local use, making the drug’s importation, distribution and sale in the country illegal for now.
Duterte, who has commended his security detail for their “loyalty and courage” in having themselves inoculated, said they did it for “self-preservation.”
“I am prepared to defend my soldiers. I will not allow them, for all of their good intention, to be brutalized in the hearing,” Duterte said.
Roque, a lawyer, said the military detail broke no law.
“The president is saluting the PSG for what they did. They risked their lives to protect our president,” Roque told a media briefing.
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana last week called the PSG’s move “justified” even as he said the vaccines they took as far back as September, without his knowledge, had been smuggled into the Philippines.
Meanwhile, Senator Richard Gordon described the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ decision to call off its investigation on the vaccination of members of the PSG with unauthorized COVID-19 vaccines as “tragic.”
“That’s tragic… It leaves an impression that ‘hey, they’re with us, you cannot investigate it,’” Gordon said in an online interview with GMA News.
“Somebody should be responsible for it. They could reprimand, why not investigate? I wonder why because the Secretary of Defense said it was smuggled,” he added.
The AFP stopped its investigation on the use of unregistered COVID-19 vaccines among the PSG after Duterte ordered the troops to keep mum on the inoculation controversy.
“That’s unfortunate because I think he’s wrong. The President has got to respect the separation of powers clause,” Gordon said.
“I stand by the independence of Congress… No one can overwhelm the other and put it into submission in the same manner that we can’t bully the executive and threaten them with investigations,” Gordon said.
De Lima cited the need to inquire as to the facts surrounding the early inoculation of members of the Cabinet, the PSG and AFP officials.
“Those who have been vaccinated are senior officials of our country who are essential to the functioning of our democracy,” she added.
“As such, to have them vaccinated with unregistered and unvetted vaccines constitutes endangerment not only to themselves but also to our national security,” she added.
De Lima stressed that no less than Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana admitted that illegal means were undertaken for President Duterte’s close-in security to be vaccinated ahead of everyone else with unlicensed drugs.
While Lorenzana said the PSG had to explain to the FDA for violating the country’s regulatory laws, De Lima said he defended their action by saying it was “justified” because they supposedly did it to effectively carry out their duties.
It was reported that the PSG team who works as close-in security of Duterte has secretly completed their two doses over a month ago.
The report on this came out after the President revealed that “almost all soldiers” had been jabbed with China-made vaccine Sinopharm — which has not even applied for clinical trial nor emergency use in the Philippines.
In his address to the nation last Jan. 4, Duterte even ordered the PSG to remain silent on its clandestine and illegal vaccination if asked by Congress to appear in their investigation.
De Lima, Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Social Justice, Welfare and Rural Development, reminded that withholding of information on the said issue during any investigation only protected the criminals who smuggled and were probably still smuggling these illegal vaccines into the country.
In a separate statement, De Lima said the “state agents who place their loyalty on a man and turn a blind eye to his corrupt and criminal ways become nothing more than lapdogs of a mafioso who tramples on the law just to get what he wants.”
“While officials may invoke their well intentions in receiving the unregistered and unvetted vaccine, the fact remains that laws were still broken and our country was placed in danger by receiving this illegal inoculation without knowing its contents,” she said.
“The officials so inoculated must reveal all the information that they have on the unregistered vaccines if only to protect our country against forces seeking to influence the highest office in our land to the detriment of our people,” she added.