{"id":150502,"date":"2018-02-01T03:01:48","date_gmt":"2018-02-01T08:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=150502"},"modified":"2018-02-01T03:01:48","modified_gmt":"2018-02-01T08:01:48","slug":"doh-not-pao-should-be-probing-dengvaxia-linked-deaths-sotto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/02\/01\/doh-not-pao-should-be-probing-dengvaxia-linked-deaths-sotto\/","title":{"rendered":"DOH, not PAO should be probing Dengvaxia-linked deaths: Sotto"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_150505\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-150505\" style=\"width: 415px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/tito-sotto-3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-150505\" src=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/tito-sotto-3.jpg\" alt=\"Senate Majority Leader Tito Sotto (PNA Photo)\" width=\"415\" height=\"260\" srcset=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/tito-sotto-3.jpg 415w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/tito-sotto-3-300x188.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 415px) 100vw, 415px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-150505\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">FILE: Senate Majority Leader Tito Sotto (PNA Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0&#8212; The Department of Health (DOH) should play the lead role in investigating the deaths of children linked to Dengvaxia and not the Public Attorney\u2019s Office (PAO), Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III said Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Sotto made this remark during the confirmation hearing of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III telling him that the DOH taking the lead would help build a \u201csolid case.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you\u2019re going to be Secretary of Health, set your foot down and make the DOH the lead into these investigations especially scientific investigations,\u201d Sotto told Duque.<\/p>\n<p>Sotto questioned PAO\u2019s ability to investigate the Dengvaxia-linked deaths claiming that \u201cthere was no such thing\u201d as forensic experts in PAO.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs the Public Attorney\u2019s Office now a medical group? The last time I heard, PAO is under the DOJ (Department of Justice) not DOH,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Duque told Sotto that PAO was investigating the Dengvaxia-related deaths on behalf of the parents and family members of the victims.<\/p>\n<p>Over a phone interview, PAO chief Persida Acosta refuted Sotto\u2019s claim that PAO had no forensic experts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Madami kaming<\/em>\u00a0experts (We have many experts),\u201d she said enumerating names and noting that the PAO even had its own forensic laboratory which was set up in 2004.<\/p>\n<p>Acosta, meanwhile, explained that PAO was taking the lead role as allowing DOH might lead to conflict of interest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Maintindihan niyo sana may<\/em>\u00a0(I hope you understand that there is) conflict of interest.\u00a0<em>May mga taga<\/em>\u00a0DOH\u00a0<em>dati na<\/em>\u00a0involved<em>\u00a0sa kaso<\/em>(There are DOH employees involved in the case),\u201d Acosta said.<\/p>\n<p>She clarified that she did not mean to say that the DOH was not competent enough but that parents of children whose death is being linked to Dengvaxia wanted to sue the DOH.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Ang gusto ng karamihan ng magulang DOH ang idemanda<\/em>\u00a0(Majority of parents want to file cases against the DOH).\u00a0<em>May<\/em>\u00a0conflict of interest,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MANILA\u00a0&#8212; The Department of Health (DOH) should play the lead role in investigating the deaths of children linked to Dengvaxia &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":150505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[3693,29693,22985,16640],"class_list":["post-150502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-department-of-health-2","tag-francisco-duque-iii","tag-public-attorneys-office","tag-vicente-sotto-iii","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}