{"id":159560,"date":"2018-04-11T07:11:55","date_gmt":"2018-04-11T11:11:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=159560"},"modified":"2018-04-11T07:11:55","modified_gmt":"2018-04-11T11:11:55","slug":"gordon-says-aquino-ex-cabinet-officials-criminally-liable-for-dengvaxia-mess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/04\/11\/gordon-says-aquino-ex-cabinet-officials-criminally-liable-for-dengvaxia-mess\/","title":{"rendered":"Gordon says Aquino, ex Cabinet officials \u2018criminally liable\u2019 for Dengvaxia mess"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Former<\/a>
Former President Benigno \u201cNoynoy\u201d Aquino III and some of his Cabinet officials must be held \u201ccriminally liable\u201d for the controversial P3.5-billion dengue immunization program, Senator Richard Gordon said on Wednesday, April 11. (Photo<\/a>: Senate of the Philippines\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Former President Benigno \u201cNoynoy\u201d Aquino III and some of his Cabinet officials must be held \u201ccriminally liable\u201d for the controversial P3.5-billion dengue immunization program, Senator Richard Gordon said on Wednesday, April 11.<\/p>\n

Gordon, chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, called Aquino, former Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, and former Health Secretary Janette Garin as “primary conspirators\u201d and that they must be prosecuted \u201cfor all the tragedy, damage, and possible deaths resulting from the Dengvaxia mass vaccination program.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFormer President Aquino is responsible because he caused the purchase of Dengvaxia and in the process caused irreversible damage, possibly death, to children, [and] anxiety, sleepless nights, unnecessary expense on the part of the parents and guardians,” Gordon said in a press conference.<\/p>\n

Gordon added that the \u201cgreatest sin and transgression\u201d of the former Philippine leader was to \u201cput the lives of Filipino children in grave peril.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reading the draft report of the committee, Gordon recommended that Aquino and his former aides should be charged with graft and violation of the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees or Republic Act 6713.<\/p>\n

“President Aquino is guilty of malfeasance, misfeasance, and nonfeasance. From the time he inappropriately met with Sanofi in Beijing on November 9 2014, and once again a year later in December 1, 2015,” the report stated.<\/p>\n

Gordon also noted that Aquino met with mere senior vice presidents of Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccine manufacturer. He stressed that by meeting with them, Aquino was sending a strong message of perception that he was dispensing undue patronage.<\/p>\n

He added that each time they met, the administration started acting with \u201cundue haste, losing all forms of objectivity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report came after the Senate Blue Ribbon committee conducted several hearings to investigate who are responsible for the alleged anomalous purchase of Dengvaxia.<\/p>\n

Gordon said that the committee\u2019s draft report will be delivered to the offices of the senators for their signatures and will be reported to the plenary session when session starts in May.<\/p>\n

Both the Senate and the House of Representatives conducted a series of probe into the now-suspended immunization vaccination program for public school students after Sanofi revealed that the vaccine could lead to severe diseases if administered to people who have not been infected by the dengue virus beforehand.<\/p>\n

Experts from the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH) were tapped by the DOH to confirm alleged deaths due to the vaccine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former President Benigno \u201cNoynoy\u201d Aquino III and some of his Cabinet officials must be held \u201ccriminally liable\u201d for the controversial …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":159590,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[38799,49565,38848,15773,19489],"class_list":["post-159560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-dengvaxia-controversy","tag-former-budget-secretary-florencio-abad","tag-former-health-secretary-janette-garin","tag-former-president-benigno-noynoy-aquino-iii","tag-senator-richard-gordon","mauthors-joanna-belle-deala","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159560","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=159560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}