Written by Patricia Anne Jaymalin
Published May 1, 2022
Facing a possible waste of 27 million COVID-19 vaccines, the Duterte administration launched a campaign to encourage more Filipinos to be vaccinated.
In a prerecorded public address last April 5, President Rodrigo Duterte said the government might have to go "house-to-house" to administer the vaccines.
Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Francisco Duque III said that he hoped Congress would have the "political will" to make vaccination mandatory. He also urged presidential candidates for the upcoming 2022 elections to use their rallies to persuade people to get vaccinated.
"I hope we won't wait for another surge before we get vaccinated," Duque said.
Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship and Founder of Go Negosyo Joey Concepcion last March 24 raised the alarm about expiring vaccines.
Concepcion said the national government and the private sector had purchased 27 million COVID-19 vaccines which had an expiry of July this year. Concepcion voiced his concern about the potential waste of a ₱13 billion fund for COVID-19 vaccines if they expire without being deployed.
Concepcion backed the plea stressing how Filipinos have become comfortable with the de-escalation of alert levels, disregarding the storm of declining immunity and new COVID-19 variants in the second half of the year.
"Unless we finish all the vaccines in stock and booster everybody that needs it, we risk going back to square one by year-end," Concepcion warned.
Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon accused the DOH and the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) of mismanaging the COVID-19 public response. He said it took the government until the last possible minute to come up with several uncoordinated schemes to restart the stalled vaccination drive.
"More than two years into the pandemic, the IATF still manages to mismanage the government's response to the pandemic. It is unconscionable that the vaccines that were purchased through loans could end up in the garbage,” said Drilon. “It is criminal neglect if they let that happen."
It is very sad all this money will go to waste if all the vaccines aren't used before they expire, but that also shouldn't override the people's choice whether they should get vaccinated or not. Fear over wasting funds isn't a valid reason to take away the people's choice and force vaccinations, especially over a rushed / experimental vaccine.