Health Secretary Francisco Duque III on Monday denied claims the government passed up the chance to obtain 50 million syringes from the United States, saying the price of the supplier went over the approved budget.
Duque issued the remark after Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. claimed a government official had “dropped the ball again.”
“Wala, wala ‘yun, hindi totoo ‘yun. Kasinungalingan ‘yun, puro kasinungalingan ‘yun. Hindi totoo ‘yan (No, that’s not true. That’s a lie, it’s all a lie. It’s not true),” Duque said in an interview on Super Radyo dzBB.
“What Locsin wanted was for us to cater to the price of the supplier. But that’s not allowed. We’re not stupid to do that. We have a law for that—RA 9184,” he added.
This drew the ire of Locsin, who later Monday on Twitter rebuked the health secretary for denying that his department lost the opportunity to obtain cheaper syringes.
“Don’t ever, Duque, ever question my motives,” said Locsin, who also revealed the issue on the social media platform.
Duque said they were offered P411.5 million for 50 million syringes with each syringe priced around P2.38. However, he said taking the contract would lead to a violation of Republic Act 9184 or the Government Procurement Reform Act.
“What he’s saying doesn’t make sense. First of all, we backed out because we cannot provide the budget. Why would we follow that? We will be charged with graft,” the health chief said.
Locsin previously said that the Department of Health’s (DOH) offer of 4.7 US cents a syringe is “hallucinatory.”
Meanwhile, Duque expressed disappointment that Locsin did not reach out to him to clarify the situation since they belong to the same administration.
“Of course. Because he tweeted about it and he did not talk to me. Our communications are open. We belong to the same administration. Talking to each other for clarification is easy,” he said.
Duque said he will talk to President Rodrigo Duterte about the issue later.
He said the country has enough supply of syringes.
At least 44 million syringes were ordered three months ago, but in the first tranche of four million, only two million syringes arrived in the country.
The remaining two million syringes are expected to be delivered next week.
The government on Monday also assured the public there are enough vaccines and ancillary supplies for this week’s second round of the national COVID-19 vaccination drive “Bayanihan, Bakunahan.”.
Presidential Adviser on the COVID-19 response and testing czar Secretary Vince Dizon said the national government, LGUs and the private sector have already prepositioned their pooled resources for the Dec. 15 to 17 activities.
“We don’t have problems with vaccines. We also don’t have problems with different supplies such as syringes. It’s all complete,” Dizon, also the deputy chief implementer of the National Task Force (NTF) Against Covid-19, said in an interview during an inoculation site visit at a mall in Bacoor City, Cavite.
