The Public Attorney’s Office believes the 206 Dengvaxia-related cases filed against ex-health secretary Janette Garin and 38 other respondents, including Sanofi Pasteur Inc. executives, might not win in court due to suppression of evidence.
At a news conference in Quezon City, Dr. Erwin Erfe, PAO forensic laboratory chief, said Garin; former and active officials of the Department of Health, Food and Drug Administration, Philippine Children’s Medical Center and Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, “especially” those from Sanofi and Zuellig Pharma Inc. “are now rejoicing” over the “illegal” insertion of a provision in the 2021 budget that would effectively dissolve the agency’s forensic division.
“We have filed 155 criminal cases and 51 civil cases. When the hearing starts, the forensic laboratory could no longer testify in court to represent the parents of the school children,” he told reporters.
“Who could be the witnesses if those forensic experts who conducted autopsies on the children are no longer employees? Who holds the pieces of evidence? Only the PAO forensic laboratory,” he said.
“My source from DOH was right. Way back in 2019, I was told that ‘Operation Black’ would be launched against PAO. All the while, we thought it was a plot to kill us in October or November (this year) but it was a plot to kill the evidence,” he added.
He said while everyone was in a lockdown due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, PAO personnel were busy gathering and preparing evidence and documents to substantiate the allegations of the parents of the Dengvaxia victims.
“The quarantine period was the busiest time of PAO,” he told the Manila Standard.
PAO chief Persida Acosta expressed disappointment that even the double murder case filed by the kin of Richard Santillan and his companion, Gessamyn Casing, in Cainta, Rizal in 2018 could face dismissal as well as the criminal cases filed by the other indigent clients of PAO.
Erfe conducted the forensic examination on the body of Santillan, bodyguard of ex-Biliran representative Glenn Chong, saying he was tortured before he was killed.
In a Dec. 10 letter to President Rodrigo Duterte, Acosta cited Republic Act 6657, An Act to Protect the Security of Tenure of Civil Service Officers and Employees in the Implementation of Government Reorganization, saying the forensic laboratory personnel have the plantilla positions.
She maintained that the Office of the President established the forensic laboratory of PAO in 2019, and that the Department of Budget and Management under then secretary Benjamin Diokno created the permanent positions for the forensic personnel.
She appealed to the President to veto the budget insertion against PAO.
Senators Franklin Drilon and Sonny Angara inserted a provision in the 2021 national budget “prohibiting the use not only of the maintenance operating and other operating expenses for the operations of PAO forensic laboratory but now, even allocations for personnel services.”
Erfe said the insertion is a “big social injustice to the victims of Dengvaxia.”