In a press conference, former President Benigno Aquino III explained that he approved the implementation of the program as one of the measures to address the rise in dengue cases at that time - from only 5,100 cases in 1995 to 200,415 in 2015. Aquino claimed there was nothing irregular about the immunization projects as he branded reports on deaths of schoolchildren inoculated with the vaccine as a "misinformation" campaign that has hurt the public's trust on the Department of Health and its immunization programs. He believed that such “publicity” could have something to do with the midterm elections next year initiated by “those who want to generate recall.”