The government vowed Saturday to punish individuals found to be behind the reported sale of COVID-19 vaccination slots in the cities of Mandaluyong and San Juan.
“We assure the public anyone found to be responsible—if the reports are true—will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” said Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya of the Department of the Interior and Local Government.
The DILG has asked the Philippine National Police to investigate the incident reported to their office on Friday afternoon.
Immediately, PNP chief Gen. Guillermo Eleazar said the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group would be coordinating with local government units to investigate the reported selling of COVID-19 vaccination slots and various vaccine brands by unscrupulous individuals.
In a related development, the government appealed to community leaders to conduct a house-to-house campaign to register residents with no access online so they can be listed, vaccinated and protect them from the deadly coronavirus disease.
The DILG made the appeal as it welcomed the latest survey made by the Social Weather Stations showing 51 percent of Filipino adults were confident of the vaccines.
Malaya said to be able to continue the positive trend, local government units need to increase social mobilization in the barangays.
“We are urging barangays to conduct more house-to-house or mobile registration to assist people with no internet connection or with no gadgets so that they can register,” he said.
Malaya said the key to the increase in vaccine confidence was the concerted efforts of both national and local governments, the medical community, and other stakeholders to educate and inform the public about the benefits of vaccination and why it’s important to the government’s overall strategy to end the pandemic.
“The increase in vaccine confidence is also confirmed by our daily vaccinations which have reached 229,600 vaccinations a day nationwide. Our 7-day Moving Average of Vaccinated Individuals has also increased to 108,540 as of May 18 which is a marked improvement from 67,780 as of May 11,” he said.
Malaya said LGUs might also tap homeowners’ associations and other community-based organizations to help in the education and registration campaign.
Malaya added: “We can file several cases against them. First of all, if this modus operandi is really true and not just a scam, definitely, this is a case of theft of government vaccines.
“We could also file several charges in relation to fraud. These are now being studied and investigated by the PNP and we will file appropriate charges based on the result of the investigation.”
A concerned citizen in Mandaluyong City had reported receiving messages from a college friend supposedly offering COVID-19 vaccine slots for P12,000 to P15,000.
Mandaluyong City Mayor Menchie Abalos denied that such a scheme was happening in the city. Abalos also urged residents who might encounter such schemes to immediately report these to their office.
Abalos said: “The vaccines are free. Even if they only sell slots, they will not succeed, that is a fraud. Please, don’t believe them, just wait for announcements on our social media.”
On Friday, San Juan City Mayor Francis Zamora said they were aware of the scam but clarified that the San Juan Vaccination Team was not part of it.
“This is a scam to defraud people of money for something that the government is offering for free to its citizens,” he said in a statement.
Zamora said San Juan had an online system where qualified citizens could register for vaccination.
Eleazar said the Food and Drug Administration had not approved the marketing or sale of any COVID-19 vaccine which makes selling or any kind of this activity illegal.
The public is urged to report any complaint or concern on their community or even PNP personnel involved in any irregularities through its official SMS hotline — 0919-160-1752 (Smart); 0917-847-5757 (Globe).
Information may also be forwarded to their email address: [email protected] or through social media – facebook.com/OfficialPNPhotline and web portal (https://e-sumbong.pnp.gov.ph).
Meanwhile, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the turnout for COVID-19 vaccination remained “high” even as the government ordered the non-disclosure of vaccine brands until arrival at inoculation sites—amid concerns the move would increase vaccine hesitancy.
In a public press briefing, Vergeire said: “In the past few days that there has been no announcement of brands, the number of people being vaccinated is high in the NCR Plus bubble. We can still see that there are still people going into the vaccination sites.”
The NCR Plus bubble, which includes Metro Manila, Laguna, Cavite, Rizal, and Bulacan, has some of the highest COVID-19 infection rates.
At the same time, Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje expressed confidence that the 2 million AstraZeneca vaccines would be used before they expire in June and July.
“We are happy to note that, of the 2 million AstraZeneca doses, we already used 500,000 one to two weeks after delivery,” Cabotaje, who also chairs the National COVID-19 Vaccination Operation Center, said in an interview on Dobol B TV.
Elsewhere, Dr. Anna Lisa Ong-Lim, an infectious disease expert, said the efficacy rates of vaccines were “very fluid” due to different factors at play when they were still being tested, and should not be the sole basis for brand preference, an infectious disease expert said on Saturday.
At the Laging Handa public briefing, Ong-Lim of the Department of Health-Technical Advisory Group acknowledged that brand preference was one factor for vaccine hesitancy among Filipinos, adding that the efficacy rates of vaccines could change.
Dr. Lulu Bravo of the University of the Philippines College of Medicine and Philippine General Hospital, however, stressed that all COVID-19 vaccine brands issued with emergency use authorization by the FDA such as AstraZeneca, Sinovac, Pfizer-BioNTech, Janssen, Moderna, Covaxin, and Sputnik V were all safe and effective.
Dr. Nina Gloriani, head of the Philippine Vaccine Expert Panel, also said all these authorized COVID-19 vaccines were effective, especially in real-world conditions, as she urged the public to get whatever brand is available.