Economic leaders will also prioritize vaccines, says finance chief

MANILA, Philippines – Workers in the productive sectors of the economy will also be prioritized during the massive inoculation against COVID-19, as economic administrators continue to push for further easing of restrictions, which have exacerbated hunger and unemployment in areas that are still under strict quarantine. .

“Along with our economic recovery measures, we are accelerating the launch of our national vaccination program. As we speak, the negotiations for the purchase of vaccines and their delivery are well under way. The doses that we are acquiring are more than enough to inoculate 100 percent of the adult population of the country, which is approximately 70 million people of our total population of 110 million ”, said the Secretary of Finance, Carlos Domínguez III, who heads the economic team of President Rodrigo Duterte. he said on Friday.

Domínguez is also seeking money to fund the national government’s vaccination program, which will be implemented by the Department of Health.

As such, Domínguez said that “in addition to our healthcare workers, we will prioritize vaccinating our front-line economic workforce.”

“Doing so will help us reopen the economy safely,” he said.

For Domínguez, “the most sustainable path to recovery is to promote the reactivation of our companies and the restoration of consumer activity; a strong private sector is the key to our recovery strategy ”.

For the economic team, the reopening of a larger part of the economy would solve the lack of food and jobs, instead of giving more donations to vulnerable households.

“The current economic recession cannot be fully addressed by launching subsidies to everything that is looming. This would only drive inflation without driving expansion. It will lead us to a debt crisis later on, ”Domínguez said.

But Duterte has rejected the proposal of the acting Secretary of Socioeconomic Planning, Karl Kendrick Chua, to place the entire country under a modified general community quarantine to reactivate up to 95 percent of economic activities, as mass vaccination has not yet begun. .

However, Domínguez said that “the prospects for 2021 are encouraging” since “we have been through the worst episodes of this pandemic.”

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