The Department of Health (DOH) said it is eyeing a probe on the alleged secret anti-vaccination campaign of the United States (US) Pentagon to discredit China’s Sinovac vaccine in the Philippines.
“The findings by Reuters deserve to be investigated and heard by the appropriate authorities of the involved countries,” DOH Assistant Secretary and spokesperson, Dr. Albert Domingo, told reporters Sunday evening.
The DOH made the comment after Reuters released an investigative report on US military’s secret campaign to “counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus” during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China,” the report read.
“Through phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, the military’s propaganda efforts morphed into an anti-vax campaign,” the report further read.
It added that social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits, and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines — China’s Sinovac inoculation.
The wire service identified at least 300 accounts on X, formerly Twitter, that matched descriptions shared by former US military officials familiar with the Philippine operation.
Almost all were created in the summer of 2020 and centered on the slogan #Chinaangvirus — Tagalog for China is the virus, Reuters noted.
Domingo added that there were published, peer-reviewed studies that found “[v]accination decisions among Filipinos are determined by their age, educational attainment, health insurance, employer requirement, high awareness of the disease, and a high level of vaccine confidence.”
After Reuters asked X about the accounts, the social media company removed the profiles, determining they were part of a coordinated bot campaign based on activity patterns and internal data.
According to the England-based news agency, the US Pentagon’s anti-vax effort began in the spring of 2020 and expanded beyond Southeast Asia before it was terminated in mid-2021.
