Links to the Philippines 5th Congressional Hearing into Excess Deaths held on 11th June 2024 at HOR.

This was the 6th session, but 1 session was not "official" and thus is not "counted". The session was rushed coming after an POGO hearing session which ran over, however, still some key revelations.

Link to session here. Please start at timestamp 1:36.

Key points from the resumed hearing:

1:36 - Hearing on excess deaths should have been concluded and a report submitted within 60 days, under section 15 of house rules: the time frame of the hearing is extended with a motion to extend.

1:39:42 - Opening Remarks by Chairperson of the Committee on Human Rights, delivered by Congressman Abante., Jr., with my best transcription effort.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you again for sharing your time with us as we convene for this joint hearing of this Committee on Human Rights and Committee on Public Order and Safety. Of course, the purpose of every legislative inquiry is to dive into the facts so that we can study the issues before us and make recommendations that will resound to the benefit of our people.

The issues in this case, include, as has been mentioned already by our Chairman on Public Order and Safety, the possible ratification of the Pandemic Treaty and the International Health Regulations, or IHR, within the context of the close the 300,000 excess deaths that were reported by the PSA in 2021. To accomplish this task, it is essential for us to gather all of the relevant information and necessary data to understand the various facets of all decisions. This we have learned is a challenge in itself as we have encountered concerns with regards to the data itself. Never-the-less, we must soldier on and maximize what we have. It goes without saying that we must ensure that our recommendations and actions are informed and serve the public good.

As we proceed, I want to emphasize that we are here to listen, to enquire, to discuss, to deliberate, and ultimately to recommend actions that will safeguard the health of our people while respecting their rights.

Again, I would like to extend my thanks to all our resource persons for their input and expertise. Your contributions are vital to productivity and success of this hearing. I invite everyone here to engage constructively so that together we can navigate the issues on hand with the diligence they deserve.

So, in closing I would like to share a passage from the good book that underscore the value of every life and the significance of the tasks before us. In Jerimiah 30:17 it says For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds says the Lord. Let this be a reminder of the shared duty to protect and cherish the lives of our fellow citizens and our collective responsibility to promote the welfare of our fellow Filipinos.

Thank you!

1:42:49 Persons present were introduced.

1:45:47 Discussion related to the Pandemic Agreement and IHRs as well as the lawmakers asking what happened in Geneva. DOH representative was a lawyer, who was a member of the negotiating body for the Pandemic Agreement, authorized by the President to negotiate on the Pandemic Agreement. She confirmed that the IHR have been passed and that the Philippines has 10 months to provide their response. Pandemic Agreement negotiation is still ongoing, which will contain obligations, and which will be subject to ratification based on the constitution of the member states once it is finalized.

1:55:05 Cong. Dan Fernandez referred to what happened during Covid-19 as medical martial law. "…. and we don’t want that to happen… ”.

1:59: 20 Cong. Abante Jr. asked to what extent Filipino representatives had inputs on the IRHs. Director De Guzman confirmed that Filipino inputs were to ensure that the principles of equity and solidarity would be followed, and in compliance with national law. Cong. Abante asked if the WHO were aware of what happened in the Philippines over the pandemic. Were they aware of the excess deaths that happened because of Covid-19 or because of the vaccine? De Guzman said that the WHO was aware of the spikes in cases. “I hope you are acting as one concerned for the plight of Filipinos!” “You have the right to speak for the Philippines.”

2:09:00 Cong. Fernandez: A lot of groups are writing us letters asking for justice. In their allegations, their rights have been violated.

2:09:37 “Prepare for the next pandemic. Prepare for the next virus. As if they are already conditioning the minds of our people and the whole world. A next pandemic is about to come. We in the congress have to be prepared. Lockdowns, forced vaccination; we don’t want that to happen again! The vaccinated have rights and so do those who don’t want to take vaccines. Don’t force our people to be vaccinated”.

Local news media, usually silent on events in these hearing, did publish an article discussing this point.

2:11:30 Cong. Abante Jr. raised the issue that more than 90% of the deaths were cremated. However, cremation goes against the religious beliefs of many groups. Yet, the dead were compulsorily cremated, which is a human rights violation. Asked that funeral parlor owners should be invited to the next hearing. C. Fernandez raised that the compulsory cremation was required by the IATF. IATF personalities will be invited to the next hearing.

2:16:20 Lunas Pilipinas resource person Dr. Jody Dalmacion, pharmaco-epidemiologist and former chair of department of pharmacology and toxicology spoke with regards to the Philippines pharmacovigilance system. She stated that the Adverse reaction reporting system in the Philippines is passive and therefore unreliable. Spontaneous reporting increases the chances of underreporting of adverse events.

2:19:00 Cong. Dan asked the DOH how reliable their Pharmacovigilance system is at detecting adverse reactions. Mark addressed this (2:20:15); stating that during the surveillance “the WHO recommendation is to have at least 10 reports per 100,000 doses administered.” He went on to state that their “surveillance system has received 62.33 reports per 100,000 doses administered. So, this is an indication that our surveillance system is working!”

Wow! So, they know from the WHO that they should expect at least 10 adverse reactions per 100,000 Covid-19 doses. 10 people per 100,000 are dispensable?

But then they actually got more than 6x higher rates of adverse reactions reported. It seems they are satisifed that this harm is enough and they can stop counting?

Their rationale is back-to-front! There is NO guideline for how many adverse reactions should be seen. For a safe product there should be NO reactions. The more toxic the product the higher the adverse reactions!

None of these data gives any indication of the Philippines under-reporting factor, which is surely well over the internationally accepted 40-100X URF for mature reporting systems.

2:24:25 Cong. Fernandez discussed that the recommendations for handling the pandemic came from the WHO. Philippines as directed by their IATF followed these recommendations. C. Fernandez stated that there can be repercussions / sanctions for not following the recommendations, for example impacts on access to donations, aid, loans, etc.

But so many people died. This was experienced by the whole world. We experienced that. We learned from this mistake. Never again will we allow this kind of (excess) deaths.

2:26:30 Cong. Abante Jr. referred to a stick and carrot approach by the WHO. Don’t we have any right to ask questions as a sovereign nation?

2:27:40 Lunas Pilipinas Dr. Dalmacion stated in response to Mark of DOH that there is no such thing as a fixed sample size for adverse reaction reporting because reports are spontaneous. She went on to explain that typical vaccines take 10 or more years for development. Yet the Covid-19 vaccines were developed in only 10 months. C. Fernandez raised the concern with the use of experimental vaccine being used on Filipinos without proper testing. We must be careful with the vaccine used in the next pandemic. Dr. Dalmacion said the (covid-19) vaccine trials were abbreviated. There were no toxicology studies, no reproductive health studies, no mutagenicity studies…

2:31:50 Cong Acop determined that the head of the NAEFIC (AEFI assessment group) did not attend the hearing despite having been invited twice. Conversation ensued on the importance of her attendance to understand population health outcomes following immunization. She is a private citizen based in Cebu not a government employee. She was invited to be part of the NAEFIC group, as in independent, non-biased, non-partial expert. The committee is engaged of non-government personnel. Cong. Acop requested that the NAEFIC head should attend the next hearing to answer questions.

2:43:00 DOH was asked what is the stand of the Government on the pandemic agreement and IHRs. Cong. ACOP read the statement of the secretary of DOH, which provides conditional support for these instruments. Pandemic Agreement will pass through the Senate. The IHRs were adopted. Philippines needs to respond within 10 months on their acceptance. DOH said that the IHRs will not impinge on sovereignty. DOH are still studying the package of IHRs for implications. Congress was not consulted on past approvals for IHRs. DOH stated that the IHRs are considered as an executive agreement; the working group have not yet determined if the Senate should need to be involved. Cong. Abante stated that this will need to go to the oversight committee.

2:54:50 Lunas Pilipinas Atty Ting Bello spoke. She asked whether the Philippines has opportunity to state a different position when the DOH have already expressed support for the WHO instruments. Went on to state concern that even protective laws (RA11525 - stating vaccine cards not required for work, study, access to services in the Philippines) were not respected by the executive.

3:00:00 Cong. Acop stated that the government had to act at the time that the pandemic was called. Even a wrong decision (in retrospect), was still better than no decision. Pastora Cherie of Lunas Pilipinas responded (in Tagalog).

3:03:00 Cong. Acop’s wife died from Covid in 2021 (she was a doctor). She chose not to be vaccinated with Sinovax which was the product available at the time).

3:06:43 Lunas Pilipinas Dr. Landrito spoke that DOH did not listen to any parties proposing and offering alternative treatment. Dr. Landrito is the Dr. responsible for first making ivermectin available in the Philippines.

3:09:40 Lunas Pilipinas Sally Clark stated that there were massive underrporting of adverse reactions in the Philippines.

3:11:10 Bureau of Quarantine was asked about the High Alert issued with regards to FLIRT variant. The alert was based on cases outside of the Philippines (Singapore was specifically mentioned). This alert was somehow leaked to media and created local fear in the Philippines. Cong. Fernadez and Acop both said they had recently been in Singapore and there was no sign of any concern: Singapore has 40,000 visitors a day and everything is normal!

3:19:08 PSA said they had to update their official registered deaths baseline data to include late submissions. With this update, the excess deaths have reduced! 297,000 excess deaths are reduced to 293,000 excess deaths; hardly a drop in the overall scheme of so many unexpected dead from a mass mortality event. The total of 879,479 deaths in 2021 have been updated to 885,876 deaths.

Another hearing will be scheduled, with details to be advised. The hearing was suspended at 6:09 pm.