THE head of the country’s COVID-19 task force response team expressed gratitude to the Senate for backing up the proposal to use P45 billion in unprogrammed appropriations for the procurement of COVID-19 booster shots next year.
National Task Force Against COVID-19 chief implementer and vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez, Jr. thanked the Senate’s Committee on Finance and committee head Senator Sonny Angara, who emphasized during the plenary session for the 2022 General Appropriations Bill (GAB) that the procurement of life-saving COVID-19 vaccines remains a top priority under the law.
“To allay fears that placing it in the unprogrammed appropriation would place uncertainty as to its release, there are provisions in the budget which ensure that even the funds in the unprogrammed [appropriations] will be released,” Angara said.
“And there is also a special provision which states that funds for vaccines shall be given utmost priority,” he added.
In the current Senate version of the 2022 GAB sponsored by Angara, P61 billion has been allocated for vaccine procurement, including the P45 billion in unprogrammed funds and P16.245 billion in programmed appropriations under the Department of Health (DOH).
Galvez lauded Angara for prioritizing the procurement of these life-saving vaccines, and his support to the national government’s overall pandemic response and mitigation efforts.
“I commend and extend our deepest gratitude to Senator Angara for supporting the proposal to utilize unprogrammed funds for vaccine procurement. This will certainly provide a major boost to our national immunization program,” he said.
“As we have emphasized even before the rollout of our vaccine program, vaccinating our people against COVID-19 will be the key in preventing the spread of the disease, bringing down our active cases, breathing life into our nation’s economy and ensuring the safety of our children and our future,” Galvez added.
Angara likewise thanked Galvez for providing recommendations on how to further enhance the country’s pandemic response interventions.
The vaccine czar earlier confirmed that the government’s economic and diplomatic teams had already started negotiating with different multilateral partners who can provide funds to finance the procurement of booster shots for next year.
During the Senate hearing, Galvez reported that the government had already started procuring some 20 million doses of booster shots using savings from 2021 funds.
Galvez also promised that he will bring up the issues raised by senators concerning the education, tourism and health sectors in the next meeting of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID).
For this year, the Philippines has secured 197 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, including those procured by the government, donated through the COVAX facility and by bilateral partners, and purchased by the private sector and local government units.
These vaccine doses have a total contract cost of P80.34 billion.
As of November 10, the Philippines has already received a total of 118,112,370 COVID-19 vaccine doses from various manufacturers.