Senate minority leader Franklin Drilon isn’t happy with how the government is handling the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines for the country.

Drilon said that there was mismanagement in the procurement process and the delay in vaccine arrival should not only be blamed in the absence of a procurement law.

“Just like the way the Covid-19 pandemic was handled, there’s a mismanagement in the handling of the supply agreements. Of course, certain aspects cannot be blamed on the government, for example, the demand for an indemnity agreement as a result of the Dengvaxia cases,” Drilon said.

The Philippines has signed an indemnification agreement with World Health Organization’s COVAX facility with Pfizer and AstraZeneca. The agreement states that the government will shoulder the expenses should the vaccine show adverse effects to its recipients.

“This indemnity agreements are not the cause of these delays because if it is then we should have been informed as early as July and the fact that it was only foisted on us last week is an indication that the supply agreement is not the cause of the delay,” Drilon pointed out.

“We know that they said indemnification agreements have been signed, and that was without the law, so totally, it is the mismanagement of this entire process that caused the delay in our procurement,” he added.

About 117,000 doses of Pfizer vaccines were set to arrive last week but faced delays according to vaccine czar Carlito Galvez.

Drilon also said that the  possible reason for the delay in the delivery of vaccines is the government’s refusal to initially make an advance payment.

“These are commercial transactions and with the supply very tight, we have to fall in line. This is just the reality in this situation. The manufacturers are commercial establishments. They have their own interest to protect and requiring an advance payment is not something we can complain about,” he said.

“These manufacturers have a hold on the market simply because of the limited manufacturing capacity so there you are, we have to queue and we are last in the queue because of our failure to make the advance payments early enough,” Drilon added. (TDT)

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