Some blogs are claiming that former President Benigno Aquino III said that he is willing to give back the money he earned from the Dengvaxia deal that was approved during his administration.
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Given the public’s growing interest in the issue, the story quickly picked up on Facebook, where it has already been shared thousands of times. It was carried by blogs such as bayangpilipinas.com, philspot.blogspot.com, localhero.altervista.org. However, Okd2.com is the likely source of the story.
Facebook page “President Rodrigo Duterte” shared the story, while individual Facebook users shared it to Facebook groups, such as “(vf)DDS/DIEHARD DUTERTE SUPPORTERS.”
Aquino was said to have expressed his willingness to return the money that he allegedly got from kickbacks in the Dengvaxia deal. The former president was even quoted in the articles saying the following:
“Wala namang problema. Willing naman tayong magbalik kung may kailangang ibalik. Hindi lang naman tayo ang direktang nakinabang doon, yong iba nasa kasalukuyang administrasyon din.”
“Pag nasa gobyerno ka kasi, normal talaga ang SOP. So part na sya lagi ng process. Whether you like it or not, you can do nothing but to accept it.”
But we cannot find these remarks carried by credible sources.
And the reason was clearly because the remarks and the claim that Aquino said he’d return the money he earned from forging the Dengvaxia deal are all made up for a “satirical” story “Pnoy Willing to Return the Money Earned from Dengvaxia Deal” from Okd2.
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Aquino attended the Senate hearing into the Dengvaxia vaccine issue on December 14. During the hearing, he justified the use of government savings he described as “unutilized” funds in 2015 because it would expire at the end of the year. He was also questioned by Senator Richard Gordon over the quick approval of the purchase of the vaccine. Gordon also grilled Aquino over whether he knew of Sanofi’s record of false claims and bribery, the same grounds that earned them penalties in other countries. To this, Aquino said that he did not know about these incidents before meeting Sanofi officials in 2015.
Aquino’s alleged remarks about returning kickbacks from the Dengvaxia deal all came from the imagination of the writers of the “satirical” story, but many netizens have reacted to the story as if it was true.
This is not the first story that attributed fake statements to Aquino. We also busted fake stories about him taunting how Duterte took 5 months to kill Hapilon when it only took him one day to kill Marwan and him tweeting how the lost P3.8 billion over the wrong train coaches is nothing compared to EJK.
Sources: ( newsinfo.inquirer.net , news.abs-cbn.com )
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