Imee wants probe vs. alleged US military’s anti-vax campaign in Phl

Senator Imee Marcos has filed a resolution urging the Senate to investigate in aid of legislation the alleged anti-vaccine propaganda by the United States military in the Philippines during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In Senate Resolution No. 1052, Senator Marcos directed the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, which she chairs, to probe the “deliberate and clandestine anti-vax effort by the military of the United States of America to discredit China’s Sinovac vaccines.”

Citing a report from Reuters, she noted that “there is a need to verify if indeed, the anti-vax effort and misinformation campaign was orchestrated by the US military.”

“In the affirmative, there is a need to determine the ramifications of the actions of the US Military, any potential breach of international law by the United States of America, and the possible legal recourse available to the Philippines, considering that such anti-vax and misinformation campaign threatens national security,” the senator said in the resolution.

Before this, ACT Teachers Representative France Castro, over the weekend, urged the House of Representatives to investigate the said report.

Reuters revealed that the US military used at least 300 accounts on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to sow doubts about the China-made vaccine Sinovac at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

The report alleged that the US military used fake internet accounts, posing as regular Filipino social media users, to discredit China's Sinovac vaccine.

For its part, the US Department of Defense did not deny the accusation against the Pentagon, stressing that the move was an answer to Beijing’s “malign influence campaigns.”

"The Department of Defense (DoD) conducts a wide range of operations, including operations in the information environment (OIE), to counter adversary malign influence. DoD activities, including OIE, conducted outside areas of armed conflict are coordinated and deconflicted with other departments and agencies, as appropriate. This process is deliberate, methodical, and comprehensive," DoD Spokesperson Lisa Lawrence told a news outlet.

The Department of Health previously expressed support for an investigation into the alleged US military’s misinformation campaign in the country.

“The findings by Reuters deserve to be investigated and heard by the appropriate authorities of the involved countries,” DOH spokesperson Assistant Secretary Albert Domingo told reporters in a Viber message.