Health Secretary Francisco Duque II denied claims of Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. and Senator Panfilo Lacson that the Philippines’ bid to secure 10 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer was bungled, saying negotiations with the American pharmaceutical company are still ongoing.
“There is no such thing as dropping the ball,” Duque said, responding to Locsin’s comments that somebody failed to secure a supply of vaccines that was supposed to be shipped to the Philippines by January 2021.
Locsin said these vaccines were bankrolled by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
“Negotiations are ongoing, they are continuing,” Duque said in a mix of Filipino and English.
In a Twitter post on Tuesday, Locsin said somebody committed a mistake that apparently affected the shipping of Pfizer vaccines to the country.
Locsin refused to name who it was that “dropped the ball” on the shipment of vaccines.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson on Wednesday said it was a Cabinet secretary that dropped the ball, leaving the country behind its neighbors in vaccine acquisition.
Duque said vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez was best positioned to speak about the negotiations with drug companies.
He added that the DOH and Galvez had signed non-disclosure agreements with Pfizer in October and December.
Duque said that Galvez will discuss the list of COVID-19 vaccine supply deals that the Philippine government is working on securing during a media forum with the Health Department on Friday.
Previously, Duque admitted the Philippines is behind its peers in Southeast Asia in the overall budget for the COVID-19 response.
The Philippines was sixth with a $21.64 billion total coronavirus war chest based on the Asian Development Bank’s COVID-19 Policy Database, as of November 30. Indonesia has the largest COVID-19 response package at $116.33 billion, followed by Singapore with a total package of $89.14 billion.
Vaccines developed by Pfizer together with BioNTech, Moderna, and AstraZeneca have been proven at least 90 percent effective after human trials.
Only the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, however, has secured emergency use authorization by regulatory agencies in the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada so far.
The Philippines has secured 2.6 million COVID-19 vaccine doses from AstraZeneca, a supply good for 1 million people. These are being bankrolled by private companies as a donation to the government.
Locsin on Wednesday declined to identify the government official who dropped the ball on the purported delivery of 10 million doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, despite egging from Lacson during a Commission on Appointment deliberation on interim appointments of three officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Locsin said he lost his temper because he and the Philippine ambassador to the United States Jose Manuel Romualdez “worked really hard” and he didn’t want to see the efforts go to waste.
“But never mind, I don’t want to lose my temper on Zoom,” Locsin said.
But Lacson said he had an exchange of texts with the ambassador and that he knew who dropped the ball—but would not say.
“I think you can figure that out. As I said, he’s the captain ball. He keeps dropping the ball but he stays in the game. The coach refuses to replace him. Wonder of wonders!”
In the past, Lacson and other senators called for Duque’s resignation over mistakes in the handling of the pandemic, but President Rodrigo Duterte has consistently defended the Health secretary.
After posting on Twitter that “somebody dropped the ball,” Locsin said Galvez Jr. was now ordering the COVID-19 vaccines for the country.
“General Galvez is ordering. He is our savior. Note that he is a general. The generals are getting things done,” Locsin said.
Romualdez said the deal has not been scrapped despite mistakes that put the agreement in peril.
Romualdez said the vaccine will likely be delayed by a few months because other nations such as Singapore were able to finalize deals earlier.
He said there were ongoing negotiations with the US pharmaceutical company Moderna as well.
The Duterte administration is still banking on the vaccine made by China’s Sinovac to be the first vaccine to be administered here.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said Sinovac was the company that could supply vaccines the earliest, by March or April 2021.