COULD THE DENGVAXIA TRAGEDY HAVE BEEN AVOIDED?:

What might have been had Noynoy Aquino been Impeached in 2015.

Back in 2015, nobody knew of the human drama and tragedy that was about to unfold involving some 800,000 school children and their families and of the waste of some 3.5 Billion pesos worth of taxpayer’s money.  I am of course, referring to the Dengvaxia controversy.

(Source:  CNN Philippines)

Well documented are the meetings President Aquino and his Cabinet secretaries had with Sanofi, makers of the vaccine.  It is also clear as day that regardless of the merits of the Dengvaxia vaccine, its procurement was railroaded and implemented in record time.  The whole purchase reeks of irregularity and of an administration drunk with impunity.

The timeline for this purchase was around November 2014, when the first meeting between President Aquino and Sanofi executives took place in China. Within the year, Sanofi arranged to have the drug included in the Philippine National Formulary even if it had not undergone sufficient testing.  Then, in a blitz on December 2015, Aquino and DOH Secretary Janette Garin met with Sanofi official, submitted a proposal to the DBM for its purchase and licensed the drug as a Dengue Vaccine for “all types of Individuals from 9-45 years old living in high-risk areas.”

It is simply chilling and mind-boggling to learn that this tragedy was very nearly avoided.

We recall back in July of 2014, there was a move to impeach then President Noynoy Aquino over the Disbursement Allocation Plan (DAP) controversy.  Three complaints, one filed by Oliver Lozano, another filed by Buboy Syjuco and another filed by Neri Colmenares.  The impeachment complaint was unsurprisingly thrown out in September of that year by the highly sympathetic House of Representatives.  Had the impeachment succeeded in gaining traction, the impeachment may very well have prevented the tragedy that was to become Dengvaxia.  Worse may have been that the failure of the impeachment may have further emboldened Aquino, who, unsurprisingly, used the same DAP playbook in raising the funds for Dengvaxia.

(A news report from that time)

Some have argued that the same would have been a waste of time, as it was already the twilight of Benigno Aquino III’s administration.  We could weather whatever incompetence and “Noynoying” that was about to come right?  Political stability was the more important concern back then.

Let us mull the irony of this argument for a moment.

Of course, one shouldn’t impeach an official on the basis of preventing something he/she might do just as much as one shouldn’t withhold impeachment on the argument that his/her term is about to end.  We punish an official on the basis of what he/she has done and not on the basis of damage potential.

To Impeach or not to Impeach

The takeaway is this:  It is never too late in the day to impeach an official.  Once that person has committed an impeachable offense, it is time to let him go, regardless of the damage he might or might not do.

ON THE ARMS DISPARITY BETWEEN PHILIPPINES AND CHINA

I just had a discussion with a Makati resident regarding Vice President Binay and why Makati residents will consistently and continuously keep voting for him in spite of the numerous allegations of corruption which, if true would mean that his dynasty squandered billions and billions of pesos. Well, to be honest, she was a bit of a simpleton, her main argument was that the “poor” keep getting benefits under Binay, hence they will keep voting for him - damn poor argument and full of holes.

To begin with, Makati City is possibly the richest city in the Philippines and one with a relatively small resident population. The fact that there are still “poor” people in Makati speaks volumes on the utilization of capital.

That leads me to the thesis of this article:  The way we handle our capital leaves much to be desired. Plans get bogged down for want of corruption, corruption saps funding and capital that would result in first class projects.

Contrast this with the Chinese Approach

We often hear of people complaining of the poor roads, housing and other infrastructure in an area, say a city. Doesn’t it just put you to shame that the Chinese can just go ahead and build new infrastructure seemingly in the middle of nowhere, while over in this country, a road reblocking is already considered a huge undertaking!?

Chinese Armed Forces

It isn’t just infrastructure where the Philippines lags behind China. We also lag behind militarily.

(Above) Chinese “infrastructure” project in the West Philippine Sea

versus

Philippine Naval Installation, the BRP Sierra Madre

[Source: Both pictures are from Rappler]

The problem with the Philippines is that we never had a “martial tradition”. Procurements for the military are treated in the same way as any other government project rather than as a class of their own. This means that if we buy aircraft, for example, we have to put out a public bidding, everyone’s going to know how much our budget is, etc.

Naturally, the media is going to pick all this up and all of our tech acquisitions, both planned and accomplished are going to go on TV, print etc.

A little secrecy helps

Chinese don’t need to fly spy satellites over us if the media keeps this up. All they need to do is download the iWantTV app and watch the news for everything relating to troop movements and deployment.

This is really a problem with our gossippy, I-can-piss-higher-than-you braggadocio culture. A new helicopter is big news! You can count on ABS-CBN showing off our latest frigate and letting the entire WORLD know exactly where it is anchored.

The 2015 SONA

The President’s last State of the Nation Address went into the details of the AFP modernization program. One of the highlights of the 2015 SONA was an interview with a Philippine Airforce Man on how, “the long wait is over” - That we are finally going to start receiving aircraft to beef up the Philippine Air Force (PAF). You will see this PMA graduate stating the obvious in the clip below.

In a country like ours, things like these make the SONA!

Clearly, we’ve got to improve our own domestic capacity for infrastructure projects and arms/equipment manufacture. Government can start by following the National Socialist model of partnering with local manufacturers and helping them grow.