THE Samahan ng mga Magulang ang mga Anak ay Biktima ng Dengvaxia (Smabd) on Tuesday expressed confidence that the family court judge would no longer entertain any dilatory tactics of the camp of ex-health secretary and now Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin and her co-accused.
Smabd President Sumachen Dominguez said her group, which is composed of relatives and parents whose children’s deaths several years back were tied to the banned anti-dengue vaccine, has found fresh hope in Judge Michael Ken de Jesus of Regional Trial Court-Branch 102, who denied late last month the several motions to quash (or to dismiss the case) filed by the defense lawyers for lack of merit.
“[The case] has dragged on for years; our quest for justice has already been delayed for years. Please pity us!” she told The Manila Times in an interview, in an apparent reference to the judge.
“We have been continuously grieving for the untimely loss of our children over the years, and only justice is what we long for for all of us to have peace of mind,” Dominguez added in Filipino.
Dominguez said they were reiterating their appeal to the judge, whose sala was one of the family courts in Quezon City designated by the Supreme Court to exclusively handle all Dengvaxia-related cases, not to allow Garin’s camp, including her co-accused, to file several motions in their bid to “buy time” and delay the trial in their favor.
“We have opposed several judges who previously handled the case because they appeared to have shown bias, but this time, we see Judge Michael Ken De Jesus to be impartial and determined to try the case up to the end,” the Smabd head said.
The defense panel had argued that the 35 cases currently being handled by De Jesus were no different from the first batch of eight cases, which were earlier dismissed by another family court judge, hence its claim of double jeopardy.
The prosecution panel had insisted that the cases were separate and distinct from one another, as the over 100 children, who all died after they were vaccinated with the banned anti-dengue vaccine, had different medical conditions.
Illustrating the “glaring factual” between a vehicular collision in the Jason Ivler v. Modesto-San Pedro case and “multiple, distinct acts of medical inoculation” in the Dengvaxia case, the judge said Ivler committed a singular act of driving his vehicle recklessly at a specific moment in time.
But in the Dengvaxia case, there were “continuous repeated acts,” and while the policy (mass vaccination) was singular, the proximate acts of negligence, the alleged indiscriminate administration of the vaccine without proper screening, were repeatedly committed with every individual injection, he said.
Aware that the rule against double jeopardy was intended as a safeguard to protect an accused from “vexatious and repetitive prosecutions,” De Jesus said: “The doctrine was never meant to serve as a shield against accountability for separate acts of negligence committed against different victims at different times.”
The vaccine, procured by the Department of Health for P3.5 billion for a nationwide jab campaign in 2015, was allegedly not evaluated thoroughly for safety and efficacy, leading to the deaths of many children, according to the findings of several health experts and the Forensics Laboratory Division of the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO).
Aside from Garin, charged were top executives of vaccine maker Sanofi Pasteur Inc. and vaccine distributor Zuellig Pharma, and officials of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, Philippine Children’s Medical Center, and Food and Drug Administration.
The Smabd has thanked PAO chief Persida Rueda-Acosta for continuously providing all forms of assistance and support to them, including the medical needs of some survivors, and the city prosecutors for giving their best to pursue the case in favor of the victims.