A GROUP of parents whose children’s deaths were linked to the Dengvaxia vaccine has asked a Quezon City judge to reconsider her decision voiding 34 out of 35 cases that they filed.
The Samahan ng mga Magulang ang mga Anak ay Biktima ng Dengvaxia (SMABD) led by its president, Sumachen Dominguez, said that Judge Maria Luisa Gonzales-Betic of Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 229 violated a recent resolution of the Supreme Court giving the green light to try all Dengvaxia-related cases separately.
The group said Gonzales-Betic also disregarded the ruling of another family court judge that handled the cases but who inhibited himself when he rejected the several motions to quash the appeal of the accused led by former Health secretary Janette Garin.
Accompanied by the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) led by Annie Gabito, the group’s members said they could not accept the December 7 order that favored Garin and her co-accused.
Speaking in Filipino, Dominguez said Gonzales-Betic’s ruling adds to the suffering of the parents.
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Gonzales-Betic granted Garin’s motion to reject all but one of the 35 new Dengvaxia cases, citing Article 365 of the Revised Penal Code that there should be no splitting of charges and that “only one information shall be filed regardless of the number or severity of the consequences of the imprudent or negligent act.”
The prosecution was given 15 days to file a single information against all the accused.
“We will definitely file a motion to ask her to inhibit from further handling the case because. We believe, she violated the rules that the Supreme Court has imposed in connection with the Dengvaxia cases,” the group said.
They said they would file first a motion for reconsideration to persuade the judge to reverse her order.
“Our children died due to different complications aside from the fact that they were inoculated with Dengvaxia in different times and places, so how can the judge rule that the cases must only be consolidated into just one case? That’s unbelievable!” one parent said.
Gonzales-Betic’s court was one of the family courts that the Supreme Court designated to handle Dengvaxia-related cases.
Deputy City Prosecutor Irene Resurreccion-Medrano said she was surprised by the judge’s order.
“That same motions to quash were already dismissed by the judge from Branch 107 before he decided to inhibit from the case which was raffled to Betic’s court,” Resurreccion-Medrano told The Manila Times.
“The Court is very clear with respect to its denial in the consolidation of cases as each should be tried separately because they are not based on the same facts, they involve different victims whose medical histories are distinct from that of the other victims,” the group said.
Gonzales-Betic also handled the first batch of Dengvaxia cases filed by at least eight parents of schoolchildren whose deaths were linked to the controversial dengue vaccine which was eventually banned by then-president Rodrigo Duterte in 2017.
Garin and at least eight other co-accused pleaded not guilty to the eight cases. Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) Forensics Division chief Dr. Erwin Erfe helped the prosecution present evidence and witnesses.
PAO chief Persida Rueda-Acosta said the cases filed before the Quezon City family court were separate from the over 160 cases filed by the parents early last year before the Department of Justice “which remain unresolved until this time.”
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