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HEALTH Secretary Francisco T. Duque III denied on Wednesday that “someone dropped the ball” on Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine for negotiations, which he said are still ongoing.
In a media forum, Duque was asked to react to a tweet from Foreign Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin Jr. on Tuesday about the reason for the delay in shipping the vaccines.
Locsin posted: “So said, likewise, my thanks to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, we, Babe Romualdez and I, got 10 million doses of Pfizer funded by the World Bank and ADB to be shipped through from FEDEX to Clark in January. BUT SOMEONE LEFT THE BALL. I have steel ball bearings. I just need a sling. Someone made a mistake that apparently affected the shipment of Pfizer vaccines to the country. “
However, Duque denied it. “There is no such thing as dropping the ball. There is still a negotiation in progress, ”he said.
He explained that he was informed on September 24 that the Office of the Executive Secretary and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) will no longer sign the Confidential Disclosure Agreement (CDA), but it would be his office that would.
Duque said he reviewed the CDA before signing it to make sure the provisions are not “disadvantageous” to the government.
“I would just like to refer this to our attorneys, the DOST attorneys, attorneys for the Executive Secretary,” Duque said.
“So, on October 20, the day that [CDA] was given [back] for me, I already signed it. So there is no such thing as dropping the ball, ”he explained.
The health chief added that none other than the secretary of the National Task Force against Covid-19 and vaccine czar, Carlito Gálvez Jr., also signed the CDA.
“He [Galvez] he is in the best position to tell them, to tell us at what stage of the negotiations we are, ”added Duque.
Senate probe
The Senate is conducting an investigation into the Duterte administration’s Covid-19 vaccination program to assess how the country’s workforce would be covered given initial estimates from vaccine czar Gálvez that the planned inoculation is intended to cover 70 percent of the population in the next three to five. years.
This, like Senator Joel Villanueva, when presenting Resolution 598 paving the way for the Senate commission of inquiry to review the implementation of the National Covid-19 Vaccination Program, sought to ensure the inclusion of the workforce “that helps sustain the economy, as well as providing essential first-line services. “
Villanueva Resolution 598 also aims to allow senators to discuss the details of the plan, in particular the willingness of the national government to implement an “effective, equitable, affordable and timely Covid-19 vaccination of 100 percent of the Philippine population, especially for members of the workforce. “
Under the government’s vaccination plan, the first priority in mass vaccination would be front-line health workers who make up 1.6 percent of the population or 1.76 million Filipinos, followed by the indigent elderly who comprise 3.78 million or 3.5 percent of the population; the rest of the elderly (5.67 million or 5.3 percent of the population); the rest of the indigent population (12.9 million or 12 percent of the population) and uniformed personnel (525,523 or 0.5 percent of the population), said the resolution.
Villanueva’s resolution also seeks to order the Labor Commission to conduct an investigation into the government’s vaccination program, specifically to assess how workers would be covered, given public pronouncements by the country’s vaccine officials that the planned inoculation is intended. cover 70 percent of the population in the next three to five years.
