"Our government is not exactly the epitome of competence."
Three lessons from the pandemic of 2020: One, our government is not exactly the epitome of competence; it is incompetent. Two, if Rodrigo Duterte does not deliver vaccines by the second quarter of 2021 and Filipinos see that the United States, Europe, and other places like Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam and even perhaps Japan have gone back to normal having inoculated more than half of their citizens, there will be mass unrest. Three, to carry us through the balance of the 21st century, we need innovation.
The government should have had supplies of the now legendary Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine by next month, January 2021, with an assurance of 20 million doses, good for ten million people. But Health Secretary Francisco Duque III “dropped the ball,” according to Foreign Secretary Teodoro “Teddyboy” Locsin, the Harvard-trained lawyer no-BS-talking senior cabinet member of Duterte. “Drop the ball” is slang for making mistakes or mishandling things stupidly. One who drops the ball is incompetent.
Locsin and Philippine Ambassador to the US Babe Romualdez negotiated for the 20 million doses as early as July 2020. Pfizer wanted some papers signed, such as what they call a CDA—confidential disclosure agreement or NDA, non-disclosure agreement. It means do not share the information with other parties or to the public yet. Malacañang sat on the papers for two months before forwarding them to Health Secretary Francisco Duque who exercised his own prerogative, that is, also sit on them, for at least another month. Irritated, Pfizer instead diverted the vaccine to Singapore which has started inoculating everybody on the island who wants it.
At this writing, the US has vaccinated no less than two million Americans, with the Pfizer vaccine, thanks to the Trump administration having the foresight to pre-order vaccines at twice the size of their population even while the vaccines were still underdevelopment. Trump is not legendary for his competence yet he got vaccines for his people and raised money for it. If we were half as incompetent as Trump, we should have had at least 350,000 Filipinos jabbed with the vaccine by now, because the Philippine population (110 million) is one-third that of America (330 million).
Contracting experimental vaccines is no different from a big food company contract-growing chickens and paying in advance even before it could see the eggs. In Duque’s view, he had to see the eyes of the grown chickens first before placing an order. He ends up with eggs on his face.
Under the Anti-Red Tape Law, it should take no more than seven to 20 days for government people to act on papers as sensitive or complex as the Pfizer vaccine order.
If you listen to retired General Carlito Galvez Jr., 58, our two-month-old vaccine czar, the earliest we could get vaccines in great volume is the second quarter of 2021. That will be very late.
In buying vaccines, Galvez is using the same strategy he used in waging the Battle of Marawi—burn or bomb every building. In vaccine procurement, his style is buy from every supplier, never mind if the vaccines are 50, 60, 70, 90, 95 or 100 percent effective. Never mind if the vaccines cost zero or $100 or more per dose. Basta vaccine, get it. After all, people are getting impatient, and angry. Duterte, his commander-in-chief, has hinted Galvez will meet military style justice if he fails in his job.
Assuming the anti-COVID vaccines are available, how fast can the Philippines roll them out? Based on past experience, not very fast.
According to World Bank data, in 2019, the Philippines was able to vaccinate only 12 percent (one of every 8) of target kids for DPT3 and only two percent (one of every 50) for measles. Bangladesh, a much poorer country, did 100 percent rollout with DPT3 and 90 percent with measles.
The Philippine rate for vaccination is 1.2 million doses a year. Using those benchmarks, to vaccinate 70 million Filipinos against COVID, will it take 60 years?
No wonder, the men of the Presidential Security Group were impatient. They had themselves inoculated with the Chinese vaccine, along with some cabinet members. The PSG described their getting ahead of the priority line “an act of courage.” Indeed.
Now, on innovation. We need brain power to do that. Innovation means digital, the internet of things. That means science, math and reading English technical manuals. In 2018, out of 77 countries ranked for their students’ scores in math, science, and reading, the Philippines ranked 76th. We beat only one country, the Dominican Republic.
China scored with highest, 578.7 points; Singapore, second, 556.3. The Philippine score? 350—228.7 points or 39.5 percent lower than China’s. This means for every 100 questions China got right, Filipinos got only 60.5. At least, we are not half as stupid as the Chinese—only 40 percent.
Having the intelligence of 60 percent of that of the Chinese, Filipinos are now ordering most of their vaccines from—China.
Happy New Year. We will have more jokes to come.
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