The Sandiganbayan acquitted former Health Secretary and incumbent Iloilo First District Rep. Janette Garin and four other former Department of Health (DOH) officials after finding insufficient evidence that they acted with bad faith in the government’s P3.56-billion purchase of Dengvaxia vaccines.
In its October 13 decision, the anti-graft court’s Special Second Division cleared Garin, former DOH undersecretaries Gerardo Bayugo and Kenneth Hartigan-Go, former officer-in-charge director Joyce Ducusin, and former Philippine Children’s Medical Center executive director Julius Lecciones of graft and technical malversation.
The case stemmed from allegations that P3.556 billion from the 2015 Miscellaneous Personnel Benefits Fund was illegally used to pay for the dengue vaccines.
The court said the reported adverse effects of Dengvaxia on vaccinated schoolchildren did not, by themselves, establish that the officials acted with evil or sinister intent.
“Whatever the adverse consequences of the Dengvaxia vaccines administered to schoolchildren may be, the Court cannot find sufficient link that such unfortunate incidents were motivated by evil or sinister design by the program implementors, mainly by the accused,” the decision penned by Associate Justice Edgardo Caldona stated.
The ruling also cited a Commission on Audit finding that no public funds were lost in the procurement.
On the technical malversation charge, the court said former President Benigno Aquino III had directed the use of savings from the 2015 fund for the vaccine purchase.
“The buck stops with the President, so to speak, and not with the member of his cabinet,” the ruling stated.
The court also noted that a dengue outbreak was underway at the time, with cases concentrated in three regions, and considered the vaccine purchase a justified response to the public health threat.IMT
