Category: corruption

calling out mayor sara duterte — NCCC mall fire the 4th in the history of lim family

“… since fire inspection clearances are connected to other construction permits, which fall completely under the purview of the local government, the BFP racket requires the cooperation – connivance would be a better word – of the mayor’s office, which can be assumed to be compensated for its indulgence.”

read Asia’s Tinderbox by ben kritz and wonder WHY it was paolo duterte who resigned as vice mayor soon after the deadly fire (purportedly for reasons having nothing to do with the fire) instead of sara duterte the mayor under whose watch and patronage that NCCC mall got away with fire exits and sprinklers that didn’t work despite the lim family owning up to a history of fires burning down their business establishments not once, not twice, but thrice before.

“My grandfather and my father were extraordinary,” says Javelin “Javey” A. Lim, 43, New City Commercial Corp. (NCCC) supermarkets and community stores president. “Our stores burned down thrice yet they built the company from the ground up again and again.”  

extraordinary, indeed, and reprehensibly opprobrious, that no lessons were learned from the first three fires, no measures taken, either by the lim family or local government officials, to make sure a fire never happened again.

dengvaxia fiasco: a curious conspiracy

curious because it straddles two administrations, aquino’s and duterte’s.  former president aquino’s DOH sec janette garin started it rolling in april 2016 (though she alleges that it was secretary enrique ona (whom she replaced) who first pushed for the use of dengvaxia.  president duterte’s first DOH sec paulyn ubial tried to stop it but she was overruled by the 17th congress, it would seem.  read A huge conspiracy by jojo robles; though known to be a ka-DDS, he does not hesitate to call out both houses of the 17th congress for refusing to heed warnings by medical professioonals.

When the current Congress opened in the middle of last year, a two-term lawmaker from Quezon province, Rep. Angelina Tan, who was also chairman of the House committee on health, started an investigation into the P3.5-billion “midnight” anti-dengue immunization program of the Aquino administration using the Dengvaxia vaccine. By February of this year, the committee of Tan, a rural doctor by profession, had completed a draft report on its probe, which contained damning findings and recommended the suspension of the program.

According to the Tan committee, the Department of Health found that 997 children vaccinated with Dengvaxia, a product of French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi Pasteur, suffered “adverse effects” after being inoculated with the first of the three-dose vaccine. Fully 30 of these cases required hospitalization, the committee report said, and two of the 30 children died.

… what the House leadership of Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez actually did was to stymie the Tan committee and bury its draft report. The two committees were unable to form a consensus, thereby effectively “killing” the Tan panel’s explosive findings.

Instead of suspending the implementation of the Dengvaxia program, the House even convinced Health Secretary-designate Paulyn Ubial to expand it to the Central Visayas region. Under the Aquino administration, the program had only targeted children in public schools in three regions—Metro Manila, Central Luzon and Southern Tagalog—for inclusion in the program.

During the confirmation and budget hearings attended by Ubial, she was repeatedly pressured to widen the scope of the vaccination program, which the health secretary initially resisted on medical grounds. At the same time, a vocal anti-Ubial faction rose in the House, led by Kabayan party-list Rep. Harry Roque (who is now spokesman of President Rodrigo Duterte), among others, which Ubial decided would only stop opposing her appointment if she agreed to continue and expand the Dengvaxia immunization campaign; ironically, Ubial’s appointment was rejected by the Commission on Appointments despite her expansion of the vaccination scheme.

It is worth noting that a similar investigation started by Senator Richard Gordon on the Dengvaxia immunization program in the Senate in December last year also went nowhere. Gordon, in an interview this week, allegedly cited a lack of public interest in the case and the refusal of DoH officials led by Ubial to cooperate in the Senate probe.

read Roque hits DOH flip-flopping on dengue vaccines back in dec 2016.  read also Health professionals umalmang huwag ‘i-hostage’ ang DOH budget back in october 2016, this one naming cebu rep gwen garcia, yes, she who today assiduously argues for cj sereno’s impeachment, as leader of the pro-dengvaxia pack.

Sa ginanap na DOH budget hearing noong Setyembre, sinabi raw ng ilang mga mambabatas sa pangunguna ni Cebu Congresswoman Gwen Garcia, na hindi ipapasa ang DOH budget kung hindi isasama ang alokasyon para sa implementasyon ng mas malawakang dengue vaccine program.

Nauna nang sinabi ng DOH na itutuloy na lamang ang 2nd at 3rd doses ng vaccine para sa halos 500,000 na batang nabigyan na ng unang dose pero hindi na ito dadagdagan pa ng iba pang batch ng mga batang tuturukan ng bakuna hanggat hindi nasisiguro ng ahensya na ligtas ito.

Ito ang naging desisyon ng DOH batay na rin sa rekomedasyon ng panel of experts na kanilang binuo. Naniniwala kasi ang mga ekperto na posibleng may long-term at short-term side effects ang bakuna kaya’t kailangan pa nito nang mas masusing pag-aaral.

Iginigiit naman ng mga mambabatas, kailangan ng kanilang constituents ang vaccine.

looking forward to senate hearing tomorrow.  meron daw surprise witness from DOH.    it would be good to hear from dr. ona, too, and from spokesman harry and rep gwen na rin, please.

The Dengue Vaccine Fiasco… Papaya Leaf Juice, Anyone?

A CASE FOR ALTERNATIVE THERAPIES  

Dr. Godofredo U. Stuart

The Dengvaxia vaccine is “the biggest government funded clinical-trial-masked-as-a-public-health-program scam of an experimental drug in the history of the DOH.”

It’s a damning charge made by Dr. Susan Pineda-Mercado, former DOH undersecretary and international public health expert. it is an indictment of our health care system—the politics, the lobbying, the sway of big pharma, the conflicts of interests, and possible complicity of many in fast-tracking and green-lighting the processes of exemption, procurement and purchase of the vaccine.

Rep. Estrelita Suansing supports the charge with comments that were no less forgiving: that approval and P3B budget allocation for the vaccine purchase seemed hasty and impulsive. . . that the fund source might not have undergone Congressional scrutiny . .that the purchase was not included in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) of 2015. Others in the medical community concurred the vaccine program had misplaced priorities, procedural lapses, and conflicts of interest.

Even after the approval was criticized as hasty and impulsive, there were signs early on that the vaccine was laden with problems. The public health community has been outraged for a year, said Dr.Mercado. Why did it take so long to take it down? Why did it have to wait for Sanofi’s confessional?

Read on…

andy’s endgame

wednesday morning he said he was resigning as comelec chief, effective end of the year.  medyo nagulat ako, sabay mabuti naman, he should have done it (as advised) two months ago, faced tish’s charges squarely, or better yet, settled with her, never mind defending the “integrity” of the 2016 elections.

wednesday afternoon he was impeached by congress anyway.  the plenary overturned the justice committee’s dismissal (insufficient form) of the complaint against him; many more reps signed it instead, along with the original 3, finding the charges serious and deserving of a senate trial.

nagulat uli ako, sabay salamat naman, let it be on record that he was impeached, never mind that he had promised to resign.  because that’s all it is, a promise to step down come dec 31.  but what if he doesn’t, say ni rep gwen garcia, what if he waffles and changes his mind about resigning?  indeed.  despite his sweeping denials of any wrongdoing, the comelec chief has lost some / a lot of, if not all, credibility.

Bautista said that he wanted to give the President time to choose a new Comelec chairman and effect a smooth transition.

At the same time, Bautista said that he has still a commitment to fulfill as chairperson of the Association of Asean Electoral Authorities in a scheduled meeting with his counterparts to be held in Cebu in December.

umm.  seeing as he is resigning under a cloud of shocking allegations, among them serious questions re the conduct of the 2016 elections, and seeing as he has been impeached by congress to boot, why would he still deserve to chair, and host, that ASEAN electoral authorities affair?

“Kung makahanap sila o kung gusto nila mas agahan yung aking pagbibitiw, walang problema basta lang maayos ang transition,” he said.

clearly andy would rather not step down until duterte has appointed a new comelec chief.  i suspect that there’s stuff he needs to formally turn over, such as contracts maybe that he has signed, maybe with the likes of smartmatic?  sabay dasal, or demand? that these be honored by the new chief?  or else, what?  this may have been the topic of conversation when andy met with executive sec medialdea oct 10.

interesting endgame.  the next move is the president’s.  the palace has already distanced  from the impeachment.  but not from the resignation.

KIT TATAD: In Bautista’s case, since he had already decided to resign, DU30 could simply supply the immediate effectivity of his resignation. This would render Bautista immediately vulnerable to criminal prosecution, in relation to various questionable transactions during the last presidential elections, and, in particular, his estranged wife Patricia’s allegation that he had amassed over P1 billion in unexplained and undisclosed wealth during said elections, which he hid in 35 separate bank accounts in a rural (thrift) bank.

But the more important point is that it would give DU30 a chance to name a new Comelec chair through whom he could either reform the electoral system or control it for his own ends. Given his autocratic bent and tendency to exploit every opportunity to extend his power, he could indeed use Bautista’s replacement for his own political ends; but given the huge outcry against our thoroughly corrupted automated electoral system, which has given us so many illegitimately elected officials in 2010, 2013 and 2016, he just might allow the reformist groups to put in their desired reforms for the 2019 and 2022 national elections.

who knows, duterte might still surprise us.  though it would be surprising as well if he allowed the impeachment to proceed.  say ni harvey keh in a public status sa fb:

To Comelec Chair Andy Bautista, some unsolicited advice: Now that our disgusting members of Congress decided to impeach you, I suggest you now withdraw your resignation letter. Tang Ina, ilaban na natin ito.

We only need 7 votes in the Senate to win this, lets push back and push hard to show this administration that it can’t mess with the Filipino people. #LabanAndy

a full-length impeachment trial, yung hindi mapuputol, yung wala nang resignation come dec 31, yes, please.  otherwise mabibitin masyado ang taong-bayan, and who knows where we might end up.