4th Joint Hearing of the Committee on Public Order and Safety and Committee on Human Rights held on 19th March 2024. Discussions Centered on IHRs and Pandemic Treaty, Excess Deaths, Censorship,

Compensation fund access for harmed Persons, Human Rights, Slowing Population Growth with dropping births and their reasons, among others. After 3.75 hrs hearing was suspended for resumption in May.

Linked below is the 4th Joint Committee Hearing into excess deaths. The session was held in mixed English and Tagalog.

Executive Summary of three key observations / outcomes:-

• DOH came across as not having been honest, upfront and transparent with regards to the IHRs and the Pandemic treaty. DOH representative had to be pushed by the committee chair to reveal names of responsible parties discussing / negotiating on these instruments for the Philippines.

• While DOH appears unwilling to acknowledge the link between the excess deaths and covid-19 vaccination, DOH admitted that there are people who have been vaccine injured / have died following vaccination. They mentioned that there is a PHP500 Million indemnity fund available to assist vaccine victims. That fund has only been 0.4% utilized in the 2 years since it was set up.

• PHILHEALTH President / CEO willing and open to work with the citizen groups / Lunas Pilipinas to work out how to simplify processing of valid claims and facilitate the delivery of assistance to injured persons and the families of those who have died.

Far more detailed take aways that I have picked out (not transcribed), including time stamps for easy reference of anyone interested in only specific segments, but with no guarantee of the completeness of the points listed below. It was a very long session with very broad topics covered!

• 10:30 DOH’s USEC Tayag confirmed that the WHO representatives, according to their policy / WHO Constitution articles 67 and 68, will not participate in any parliamentary inquiry. However, they are open to receive any queries, subject also that any queries related to IHRs may need to be referred back to WHO Geneva Headquarters.

• This was followed by a detailed discussion with regards to the deadlines and implications of the WHO IHRs and Pandemic Treaty. Congressmen Fernandez and Romulo were both clearly frustrated by DOH USEC Tayag as he ducked and weaved as only a career bureaucrat can over the deadlines and details of the pandemic treaty and IHR modifications, and who was responsible for the Philippines evaluation and responses to these instruments.

• The committee is concerned that the IHRs would bind the Philippines, but that the DOH does not seem to appreciate this critically of the deadlines, and the consequences to the Philippines of this agreement. Who is in charge, who knows what is happening?

• 21:20 Why was there no responses back to the committee after the IHR issue was raised during the first committee hearing in the 23 November 2023 hearing just a week prior to the 30 November 2023 deadline for lodging any objection?

• 24:30 Congressman Romulo called on DOH to do its job! To know deadlines and implications! Why are unknown people making decisions instead of the representatives of the people? Philippines missed the November deadline to express reservations.

• 28:10 Cong. Dan said that blame for incompetence would be put aside for now, though will need to come in time, with current the focus on preventing similar mistakes in case of future pandemics which are clearly being planned for.

• There is another pandemic coming. A clip regarding Disease X was shared at 29:30.

• 32:30 PSA were asked questions and shared updated mortality data. Both 2021 and 2022 have higher deaths than have been officially reported. 2021 death rose to 44.3% higher than 2020 levels, and 50.9% higher than the 5-year 2015-2019 average. Between 2020 and 2022, deaths were 420,751 persons higher (excess deaths) above baseline. PSA said they do not explain these excess deaths - they just collate data and list COD (from the death certificates).

• 37:50 Former DOH SEC Duque was asked to explain the sudden rise in all causes of mortality in 2021. He stated that

  1. “not an insignificant number” were due to Covid-19. He then said that testing capacity in the Philippines was limited and this may have meant that Covid-19 deaths were probably missed¹!

  2. the focus of the IATF and DOH was to contain the virus to reduce its spread and reduce the case fatality rate.

     He went on to say that the fear during lockdowns was so pervasive² that people did not go to seek medical care for their health conditions. Implying they died from lack of medical care!

     He further elaborated that covid-19 cases and deaths were fairly low in the Philippines. Inferring that the Philippines did well and lockdowns worked?

• 42:20 Cong. Dan raised the concern that IATF resolution 148-B, which effectively mandated vaccination for adults to access public spaces and enforced vaccination in workplaces (alternative was covid-19 testing at own expense), was in violation of RA11525, which recognized that the vaccines were experimental and were not to be mandatory for employment, study, and access to government services.

  

  

• 43:20 Duque replied that the “law recognizes the experimental nature of the Covid-19 vaccines”. However, he clarified that, given that the pandemic was so deadly³, the DOH had to rely on the experts (WHO and Philippines own DOH technical advisory group and national immunization advisory group).

• 44:50 C. Dan emphasized that 148B was a violation of RA11525, and effectively forced vaccination. People were harmed and complaining. Moving forward, that these resolutions must be corrected! He mentioned the DILG incentivizing for LGUs that reached 100% vaccination.

• 47:20 C. Dan. The WHO and the IHRs could bind the Philippines to repeat the violations of the Covid-19 pandemic. The WHO One Health measures will be problematic! Dignity and life, liberty and freedom of Filipino Citizens are being curtailed.

• 48:20 Duque highlights that he appreciates Congress for asking questions. Again, he emphasized that the law recognizes the experimental nature of the Covid-19 vaccines and that data used was based on preliminary data from Phase 3 clinical trials. He then went on to mention that there was a PHP500 million Indemnity Fund put in place to assist those persons injured or killed. He said that of this fund, only 0.4% has been disbursed after 2 years (P2,008,000 = 20 total persons @ PHP100,000 capped maximum assistance). This level of utilization being very low, Duque said people with severe adverse events following immunization should be assisted and should make claims.

• 51:20 USEC Tayag indicated, eventually after much runaround, that the Epidemiology Bureau (under DOH) will be in charge / the point agency for the IRH amendments and Pandemic Treaty (under charge of Director De Guzman). Dr. Jojo Roque (appeared at 55:49) is the person in charge of IHR / Pandemic Treaty negotiation. Also involved are other agencies including DFA (department of foreign affairs). Time frame discussions continued.

• 58:56 C. Dan reminded USEC Tayag that he is required to completely tell the truth to the committee. Tayag finally gives names of people representing the Philippines to the 75th World Health Assembly in May 2022, Director of Bureau of Internation Health Regulation - USEC Vega and ASEC Ho who just happened to have been present the first hearing (last November 2023) - but did not reveal their representation to the WHO when discussions on IHRs were taking place. C. Dan was clearly irked that they had attended the prior hearing but been silent on their involvement.

• 1:02:00 Global Healthcare Control Clip discussing the WHO IRHS and the implications. One Health! A global coup / takeover by the WHO.

• 1:07:44 C. Barbers raised his concern with Disease-X. Lead into discussion on the Non-disclosure Agreements made with pharmaceutical companies. He said that lockdowns curtailed threat, but there were economic consequences. Then the Philippines waited for vaccines and that the Non-Disclosure Agreements signed were a concern. Duque responded that issues with NDA had been previously looked at and referred to a 2022 committee report. He said the NDA were imposed. Essentially, the Government / DOH had no choice but to agree to the NDA if they wanted to acquire the vaccines to protect Filipinos. He even said they were desperate!

• 1:15:35 Vaccine Manufacturers have indemnity from liability under the NDAs. C. Dan brought this up while concurrently referring to the more than 113K reports of AEFI and more than 10K reports of SAE following injection. Said that the non-liability of the manufacturers needs to be modified.

• 1:18:00 C. Barbers referred to the mass excess deaths which are under investigation. “a painful lesson.. so many dead”. He stated that the WHO treaty needs to be looked into and internal procedures need to be looked into.

• 1:21:40 C. Dan referred to Filipino excess deaths in 2021 and continuing in 2022 and 2023, a common experience worldwide. Duque and then Tayag went on to speak about the Philippines Pharmacovigilance system and monitoring and assessment of AEFI.

• 1:25:30 Atty Soguilon from Lunas Pilipinas pointed out that under RA11525, Section 13 had reporting requirements. DOH had statement on their web page that in case of 2 or more event from same brand, in the same location, the vaccination would be suspended, and an investigation would be triggered. He raised that DOH had not been carrying out adequate monitoring of vaccination status and adverse reactions. Duque responded that DOH was monitoring AEFI, but that any reactions had to be subject to causality assessment. Discussion ensured.

• 1:36:46 Atty Tanya Lat discussed the harsh censorship that the team working to bring recognition justice for the vaccine injured and the families of those who died had experienced. She raised that the Dengvaxia rollout was stopped after 50 pediatric deaths, but that the Covid-19 vaccine rollout was not stopped even after nearly 3000 deaths (2,864 deaths). Further, it is expected that actual deaths are massively under-reported.

• 1:40:00 Sally Clark discussed Filipino adverse reactions in the VAERs system, pointing out that the majority of the reported adverse events / deaths happened starting from 0 - 3 days following injection.

• 1:43:35 Nicanor Perlas, lead petitioner in case filed against IATF in the supreme court and founder of Covid Call to Humanity spoke. He provided the committee with a copy of a letter he sent to Duterte in April 2020 advising him that the science and global experience was not showing, even then, that Covid-19 was not an actual threat. This letter was ignored. He provided copy of cease-and-desist letter with notice of liability that he had issued on 18 October 2021 to all heads of government (executive, legislative and judiciary) documenting scientific evidence that the vaccines do not work and they are harmful / kill.

• 1:45:40 Perlas raised the topic of the false positives resulting from the DOH specifying that the RTPCR tests should be run at very high cycles (35-40 cycles). Raised massive excess deaths worldwide estimated at between 13 to 17 million [my comment: surely more by now as the death toll continues to rise]. He raised the plan for future vaccines to be developed in mere days. Raised the gene modification implications, toxicity and deadly nature of the covid-19 vaccines as bioweapons.

• 1:50:12 C. Dan recognized Nicanor Perlas’ discussion and that he has read these things as well. He said though, that the focus of the enquiry is to deal with reality, with people dying, and direct outcomes from the vaccination, to hold people responsible, and how to move forward. Considering that another pandemic will hit, the committee must prepare for better outcomes next time.

• 1:41:55 Mr. Ledesma of Philhealth spoke. He joined Philhealth at end of 2022. He confirmed that the current uptake of the indemnity fund is only at 0.4%, with onlyP2,008,192 of the PHP500 million fund which is supposed to assist in case of hospital confinement, permanent disability, or death following receipt of covid-19 vaccination having been disbursed in the 2 years it has existed. Current method for filing claims was discussed in detail: a very complex onerous process, which used algorithms and requires detailed causality assessments. Mr. Ledesma expressed interest to sit down with Lunas Pilipinas group to work out how to better distribute compensation to victims and their families, while still being mindful of responsibilities to COA (commission on audit).

• 2:06:00 RA11525 will need to be amended to extend the period for compensation payments, given the current low disbursement.

• 2:19:20 Commission on Human Rights confirmed that they had received letters from Atty. Lat with regards to 495 violations of human rights on January 3, 2022, on behalf of people who did not wish to be receive covid-19 vaccines. Discussion ensued. Including the CHR’s issue of a 189-page National Human Rights Report for 2021 which addressed inequalities during the pandemic, and which they will share with the committee.

• 2:23:30 PNP was asked about their awareness of excess deaths within the police force with C. Dan asking about the recent death of a 41 YO PNP personnel who died suddenly. The PNP spokesperson did not have any information about the particular case mentioned by C. Dan.

• 2:25:30 USEC Tayag responded to Atty Soguilon’s comment about not receiving adequate responses from DOH when queries were sent via the Philippines FOI system, saying that the FOI requests were successfully answered. Atty. Soguilon said the FOI was listed as successful, because it was responded to, not that the query was answered. The response was ‘DOH does not have the requested information”.

• 2:27:20 Atty. Bello raised that the Philippines FOI portal has been down, “under maintenance” and not accessible for the past 3 months. Past requests also cannot be accessed. FOI system has allowed private citizens to access critical information about the pandemic responses, and its being offline goes against government sworn transparency standards.

• 2:33:40 Philhealth discussed the procedures for filing a claim for vaccine injury compensation, including the agencies and parties involved in assessment. Complex procedures and algorithms apply to the compensation application processing making the compensation system very onerous to access.

• 2:45:00 Duque. Health Technology Assessment Council allowed to make recommendations to DOH on the vaccines to be adopted based on preliminary data from Phase 3 Clinical trials, and there has to also be a WHO recommendation. He suggested perhaps there should be no more need to rely on a recommendation from the WHO, and instead they should just to rely on Philippines own advisory council, which could be a future amendment.

• 2:47:09 Nicanor Perlas referred to foreign agencies relied upon to guide decisions for the Philippines due to limited local technical capacity. Tayag responded that although local experts referred to WHO guidelines, they were still independent from the WHO. Perlas then raised the topic of the Pfizer files which were released after being forced by FOI, and which revealed long lists of adverse reactions. The commission asked to receive further details of this.

• 2:51:10 Mr. Ledesma of DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs) was questioned about the pandemic treaty after taking an oath. During last WHO Assembly, there was an agreement among member states to come up an agreement they called CA+, which is an international agreement on pandemic preparedness and response. C. Dan asked about the 307 amendments clarifying that while a treaty would have to pass through the senate of each country, a convention or agreement it can be accepted without passing through the senate. C. Dan said that these amendments are not acceptable. Mr. Ledesma reiterated that the 307 amendments are under the IHRs and not the Pandemic Treaty, which has not been finalized yet.

• 2:56:20 C. Romulo asked USEC Tayag who would decide on acceptance of the IHR amendments: DOH, DFA, or other agency? Tayag responded that there is a working group. Michelle from the Epidemiology Bureau was invited to speak to answer who in the Philippines would decide on the IHRs. She replied these are being discussed by a working group on amendments which includes representatives from the Epidemiology bureau, from the IHRs Focal Point, from the Bureau of International Health Regulations, from the Bureau of Quarantine, and from the Legal Service, and the DFA. Technical inputs are shared with the DFA. C. Dan brought up the IHRs updated amendments final reported dated Feb 9, 2024 [from online source - Roguski], for decision in the 77th World Assembly in May 2024. He asked how can this be reviewed within such short time? Yet they will be accepted for ratification by May? Discussion continued.

• 3:09:50 Atty. Belo of Lunas Pilipinas raised that the final version of any amendments should have been presented 4 months in advance of the world health assembly. She stated that the WHO has violated its own regulations by not following it’s own procedures. That the modifications to the IRHs should be considered void under this circumstance.

• 3:12:40 Perlas said the PH delegates do not need to wait to raise concerns with regards to IHR clauses that are not acceptable. He went through the relevant clauses of concern which will override the sovereignty of nations in case of an actual or presumed international health emergency.

• 11:15:45, back to PNP with regards to deaths. The forensic team only acquires cases if they are referred for autopsy. They had not received any cases from PNP. They had received a case from Bureau of Fire where a 30-yo serviceman, who had been medically cleared, died suddenly and was shown to have myocarditis. Philhealth confirmed that the spouse of the deceased person could file a claim and undertook to coordinate with PNP on this.

• 3:18:44 Philippines Attorneys Office. PAO confirmed that they had received request for legal assistance, and had filed a case against DOH with regards to the expansion of the Covid-19 vaccination to the pediatric population, with indirect mandatory vaccination.

• 3:21:09 Commission on population. Confirmed that birth rates are falling and there is a rise in maternal deaths. The representative said that registration of births were very delayed during the pandemic year 2021 [Note: harsh lockdowns were pushed in early to mid-2021 concurrent with the vaccine rollout - no doubt to encourage uptake, but also because cases and deaths soared as the vaccine distribute continued]. POP Com showed that there has been a continued drop in birth rates observed from year to year, even though 2022 was better than 2021 (with likely many missed registrations).

• Commission on population noted that the Philippines is experiencing slowing population growth rate. She said women don’t want as many children, on average only 3 children, and as of 2022 the birth rate is 1.9 children per women. She referred to cost of raising a child as well as lifestyle changes not being family friendly. She referred to strollers with dogs (instead of babies) in malls.

• 3:31:40 back to discussing the IHRs that were to be ratified in May, and the deadlines. 2/3 of the member states must vote in favor to ratify the IHRs.

• 3:37:10 C. Romulo reminded that the Philippines Constitution states that sovereignty resides in the people, and all government authority emanates from them! Sovereignty cannot just be given up!

• 3:38:40 National Security Council secretariate expressed support for the resolutions being filed by the joint committee. They emphasized the importance of reporting deaths accurately, to make sure of the country’s health system capabilities in responding to diseases. In return, this will also help in recalibrating Philippines policies and regulations on health care in preparation for and in response to future pandemics. We need to work for the Filipino people in order to protect their lives and rights.

• 3:40:08 NSC are aware of reports of PNP and AFP personnel dying, but unfortunately don’t have the capability or data base on number of deaths and excess deaths at the moment. They will look further into this and collate reports and data.

• 3:43:20 Philippines did not provide any comments on the amendments to the IHRs.

• 3:43:50 Perlas asked that the Philippines Delegates working on the IHR amendments should provide their position on the amendments to the committee before May 2024.

• 3:46:20 motion to suspend the hearing was passed.

So many very diverse items were discussed, so very quickly. The hearing was suspended, to be resumed in May 2024 (after the April Easter Recess). We will be back!

1. I disagree that deaths with Covid-19 were missed. Recall the first year of the pandemic DOH reported relatively few Covid-19 deaths (about 11,785), and during 2020 registered deaths were lower than those in 2019. There were also no excess respiratory deaths in 2020, even when respiratory and Covid-19 deaths were combined. All persons who died during the pandemic were required to be tested for covid-19 before their body could be buried - a requirement that continued up to the end of 2023. Given the high cycle threshold used, it is likely there were many false positive reports of covid. Cases and deaths were sure grossly over-reported, NOT under-reported.

2. Pervasive fear was fueled by 24/7 media coverage of covid and covid-deaths, combined with military style control measures, and harsh lockdowns. People also couldn’t get into hospitals without having been tested for covid-19. Hospitals were also obligated to reserve beds just for covid-19, meaning they had less space to treat patients for other conditions.

3. Still spouting the deadly lie! When we all know by now that it was only deadly to people who were already critically ill or had multiple comorbidities, who were also not offered any early treatment. It was also deadly to people who were killed by hospital protocols including remdesivir or who were denied the use of antibiotics for secondary bacterial infections, or appropriate use of steroids for inflammatory / immune over reactions to the illness.