Ona probe results out ‘in due time’

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang will make public the results of a series of investigations on resigned health secretary Enrique Ona regarding the Department of Health (DOH)’s procurement of vaccines, an official said yesterday.

Speaking over state-run dzRB radio yesterday, Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said the results of the investigations will be released to the public at the proper time.

“We continue to follow the policy of transparency,” he said.

Last November, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) was investigating Ona on the questionable procurement of pneumoccocal conjugate vaccine 10 (PCV 10) in 2012.

The probe on Ona and Assistant Health Secretary Eric Tayag started last June.

De Lima said a complaint filed with the Department of Justice (DOJ) alleged that the DOH had no use for PCV 10, a vaccine for children to prevent pulmonary diseases like pneumonia, meningitis, sinusitis and bronchitis.

PCV 13 should instead have been procured as it is acknowledged to be more effective and addresses more diseases, the complaint added.

Quoting the complaint, De Lima said the DOH bids and awards committee recommended the procurement of PCV 13, not PCV 10.

However, Tayag allegedly directed the DOH to push through with the contentious purchase, while Ona issued a “certificate of exemption” for the PCV 10 deal.

Sources said the cases against Ona were more about command responsibility than corruption.

Ona was given a number of opportunities to explain, contrary to perceptions that Aquino treated him differently from other Cabinet members implicated in controversies, the source added.

Other Malacañang insiders said Ona will face graft charges in connection with a regional hospital in Luzon that has undergone groundbreaking ceremonies.

However, the construction of the DOH-run hospital didn’t push through because Ona has repeatedly refused to award the multimillion-peso project after a contractor he allegedly favored lost in the bidding, the source added.

Talks were rife that Ona was out of the DOH Monday last week after he had called his staff to gather his personal belongings and have them sent to his home in Pasig.