[av_one_full first min_height=” vertical_alignment=” space=” custom_margin=” margin=’0px’ padding=’0px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ animation=”]
[av_heading heading=’Ejercito’s word against PAO’s on Dengvaxia ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=” av-medium-font-size-title=” av-small-font-size-title=” av-mini-font-size-title=” av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” admin_preview_bg=”]
BY HERBERT VEGO
[/av_heading]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=” av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” admin_preview_bg=”]
February 8, 2018
[/av_textblock]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=” av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” admin_preview_bg=”]
THIS writer is not new to mobs. I covered the entertainment beat for Manila newspapers in the 1970s. Getting on harm’s way – what with movie fans screaming, scrambling and clawing to touch their idols – was an everyday “ordeal” not just for the latter but for us reporters and photographers.
The mob we saw on the evening newscast the other day, however, was different and more threatening – that of four angry, cursing women trying to elbow their way into a Senate elevator where former Health secretary Janet Garin had ensconced behind her lawyer. Security personnel had to block the elevator entrance to prevent them from mauling their “prey.”
I thought it was “mothers’ instinct” that drove them into shouting unprintable invectives at the pretty woman. They had seen and heard Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) head Persida Rueda-Acosta hold Garin responsible for importation of the anti-dengue vaccine Dengvaxia that had “killed” their children.
The way I see it, however, it was the PAO personnel’s foul mouth that had driven the mob. Otherwise, those women would have kept their cool, knowing that no forensic expert had yet tagged Dengvaxia as the cause of their loved ones’ death.
Or was that elevator scene “scripted” for the newscast? The footage, you must have noticed, had unfolded before TV cameras, not caught on 24-hour CCTV.
The following day, Garin told media that the attempted attack by mothers was just for show.
“Nakita n’yo naman siguro kung ano ang nangyari,” she said, doubting whether those women who attempted to hit and punch her were mothers of children who died soon after submitting to Dengvaxia vaccination.
Stage-managed or not, there is no question that the PAO’s forensic expert, Dr. Erwin Erfe, had done nothing but perform inconclusive autopsies on children suspected of having died of Dengvaxia-related dengue.
Atty. Acosta should have heeded the call of Sen. JV Ejercito, chairman of the Senate committee on health, who had pleaded with her to calm down because she was causing panic among parents of both the living and dead Dengvaxia “victims.”
May I pat Ejercito on the back? He has set himself as an example of a parent who detests infectious hysteria. You see, he has a 17-year-old son, Jose Emilio, who was given three doses of the controversial vaccine in 2016. The teenager has not caught dengue.
If dengue were as “poisonous” as PAO infers, Jose Emilio could have died. His survival indicates that the worst adjective that could describe Dengvaxia is “ineffective.”
In the words of former Health secretary Esperanza Cabral, “Dengvaxia has only 60 percent efficacy.” Incumbent Health undersecretary Rolando Enrique Domingo agrees: No vaccination is 100 percent effective; some vaccinated individuals get the disease as well.
Philippine General Hospital director Gerardo Legaspi, on the other hand, said all three died due to “dengue shock syndrome,” and not necessarily because of the vaccine.
Where will all this lead to?
Incidentally, while sipping coffee at Hotel del Rio yesterday, I overheard a tattle-tale telling his companion that a certain “FG” was funding orchestrated “adverse public opinion” aimed at eventually prosecuting former President Simeon Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III for “wasting P3.5 billion” in emergency purchase of hundreds of thousands of vials of Dengvaxia from the French company Sanofi-Pasteur without much ado. That much money could not have been defrayed without presidential blessing.
“Why?” his companion asked.
“PNoy had been unkind to his wife,” the tattle-tale answered.
While I can’t confirm that, the Dengvaxia issue has already diverted public attention away from bigger controversies, such as China’s militarization of the West Philippine Sea. (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
[/av_textblock]
[/av_one_full]
