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Parents' group slams Garin for 'picking on' PAO

A GROUP of parents whose children's deaths were linked to the Dengvaxia vaccine has criticized former Health secretary and now Iloilo 1st District Rep. Janette Garin for demanding the Public Attorney's Office (PAO) to reveal its expenses in pushing for court cases involving the anti-dengue jabs.

The parents and relatives, belonging to the Samahan ng mga Magulang ang mga Anak ay Biktima ng Dengavaxia (SMABD), lashed out at Garin for going after PAO amid the criminal and civil cases related to the banned anti-dengue vaccine she and other co-accused have been facing.

Late last month, Garin, over radio and television interviews, demanded the PAO to make public all its expenses in pushing Dengvaxia cases over the years.

The Iloilo lawmaker criticized PAO's apparent tendency to spend public funds to push Dengvaxia cases, instead of allocating the same to other underprivileged sectors that «need [the agency's] services more.»

She praised the Department of Justice (DOJ) for dismissing all 98 Dengvaxia complaints filed before the agency.

«We are angered by the call of Garin for PAO to make public its expenses in pushing Dengvaxia cases. Instead of focusing on defending her case, she is now after PAO which was only doing its job by assisting Filipino indigents who are seeking justice for the loss of their innocent children,» said Girlie Samonte, a mother and SMABD officer.

Speaking for other parents and relatives, Samonte said it was a blessing for them that there was a government agency like PAO under the leadership of its chief public attorney, Persida Rueda-Acosta, which has not abandoned them in their quest for justice over the years.

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«Besides, PAO and its public lawyers could not say no in the first place because it had to abide by the directive of then-DOJ secretary Vitaliano Aguirre to assist the Dengvaxa victims' parents in seeking justice,» she said.

«The PAO and it lawyers were ordered to help us file cases against Garin and other responsible for the untimely death of the children when they were inoculated by Dengvaxia through DOH's mass vaccination in 2016 despite the fact that it was still experimental as it was under a clinical trial,» SMABD

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