SC affirmed Quezon City RTC proper venue of all Dengvaxia cases

The Supreme Court Second Division in a recent order affirmed that Quezon City Regional Trial Court may still be the proper venue of all Dengvaxia cases now pending.

In the said order, the SC said the Public Attorney's Office may act as counsel of the petitioners or the private complainants.

The latest decision of the high bench reaffirming that PAO under chief Atty. Persida Acosta may file a petition preventing the removal of cases involving children whose deaths are Dengvaxia-related at a Quezon City family court.

The 27 August 2020 motions of the accused in the criminal complaint that include former Health Secretary and now Congresswoman Janette Garin was earlier denied by the SC.

The SC said Garin and the other respondents' motion were "bereft of merit as they failed to present substantial grounds," citing their arguments on the jurisdiction over the subject cases lies with a regular court, and with a family court in Quezon City, and that a metropolitan trial court, not a regional trial court, has the jurisdiction over the reckless imprudence resulting in homicide.

The accused also argued that the Quezon City Regional Trial Court has no jurisdiction over the cases, and that PAO has no personality to file instant petitions.

But the SC in its decision said "Quezon City may still be the proper venue," of all Dengvaxia cases, and that PAO may act as counsel of the petitioners or the private complainants.

To recall, the DoH in 2016 until 2017, implemented a widespread vaccination of students in public schools against Dengue infection.

But in November 2017, Sanofi Pasteur Inc., the vaccine manufacturer, said those who have received the Dengvaxia vaccine without prior dengue infection could be vulnerable to more severe infections.

In 2019, the Panel of Prosecutors who conducted the preliminary investigation on the deaths of children allegedly linked to the administration of the Dengvaxia vaccine has found probable cause to indict Garin and nine other DoH officials, along with officials of the Food and Drug Administration, Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, and Sanofi Pasteur, Inc., for reckless imprudence resulting to homicide.

In its 127-page Resolution dated 11 February 2019 and officially released on 27 February 2019, the Panel found Garin and the other respondents to have exhibited "inexcusable lack of precaution and foresight" when they facilitated, with undue haste, "the registration and purchase of Dengvaxia" and used the vaccine in implementing a school-based dengue mass immunization program.

The panel found sufficient evidence that Garin and the other respondents circumvented various regulations in the purchase of P3.5 billion worth of Dengvaxia vaccine which constituted proof of their reckless imprudence.

The Panel ascertained that, at the time of purchase, the Dengvaxia vaccine was not listed in the so-called Philippine National Drug Formulary. A purchase request for the vaccine was made as early as January 2016. Actual purchase was made in March 2016.