PASAY CITY (10 November 2021) — National Task Force Against COVID-19 Chief implementer and vaccine czar Secretary Carlito G. Galvez, Jr. thanked the Senate’s Committee on Finance for backing up the proposal to use Php 45 billion in unprogrammed appropriations for the procurement of COVID-19 booster shots next year.

During the Senate’s plenary session on Wednesday for the 2022 General Appropriations Bill (GAB) for 2022, Senate Finance Committee Chair Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara emphasized that the procurement of life-saving COVID-19 vaccines remains a top priority under the law.

“To allay fears that placing it in the unprogrammed appropriation would place uncertainty as to its release, there are provisions in the budget which ensure that even the funds in the unprogrammed [appropriations] will be released,” Angara said.

“And there is also a special provision which states that funds for vaccines shall be given utmost priority,” he added.

In the current Senate version of the 2022 GAB sponsored by Angara, Php 61 billion has been allocated for vaccine procurement, including the Php 45 billion in unprogrammed funds and Php 16.245B in programmed appropriations under the Department of Health.

Galvez lauded Angara for prioritizing the procurement of these life-saving vaccines, as well as supporting the national government’s overall pandemic response and mitigation efforts.

“I commend and extend our deepest gratitude to Senator Angara for supporting the proposal to utilize unprogrammed funds for vaccine procurement. This will certainly provide a major boost to our national immunization program,” he said.

“As we have emphasized even before the rollout of our vaccine program, vaccinating our people against COVID-19 will be the key in preventing the spread of the disease, bringing down our active cases, breathing life into our nation’s economy and ensuring the safety of our children and our future,” Galvez added.

Angara likewise thanked Galvez for providing recommendations on how to further enhance the country’s pandemic response interventions.

The vaccine czar earlier confirmed that the government’s economic and diplomatic teams had already started negotiating with different multilateral partners who can provide funds to finance the procurement of booster shots for next year.

During the senate hearing, Galvez reported that the government had already started procuring some 20 million doses of booster shots using savings from 2021 funds.

Galvez also promised that he will bring up the issues raised by senators concerning the education, tourism and health sectors in the next meeting of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID).

For this year, the Philippines has secured 197 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, including those procured by the government, donated through the COVAX facility and by bilateral partners, and purchased by the private sector and local government units.

These vaccine doses have a total contract cost of Php 80.34 billion.

As of November 10, the Philippines has received a total of 118,112,370 COVID-19 vaccine doses from various manufacturers.

Targeted distribution of vaccines

With the steady arrival of bigger vaccine doses, Galvez said the government will continue to channel its deployment to regions and provinces with low vaccination outputs.

Part of this strategy is focusing the nation’s vaccine supplies to major economic hubs in order to further accelerate the recovery of the nation’s economy.

“We continue to recalibrate our vaccine distribution strategy to ensure that no one will be left behind. It is our hope that all regions in the country will be able to scale up their vaccination throughput so we can hit our target of administering 1.5 million jabs daily,” Galvez said.

Aside from taking into account an area’s vaccination throughput, the government also considers the locality’s infection rate, testing capacity, and other factors to determine their supply allocations.

100% of target population in NCR with first dose

Among the regions in the Philippines, Metro Manila has received the biggest deliveries of COVID-19 jabs with over 20.23 million vaccine doses deployed to LGUs as of November 8.

These deliveries are directly proportional to the current vaccination output of the region, which has already inoculated 102.86% of its target population with at least one dose as of November 9.

Meanwhile, more than 8.8 million individuals, or 90.75% of the target population in NCR are now fully vaccinated.

Galvez remains confident that LGUs in the NCR will be able to fully vaccinate their respective target populations, including children 12 to 17 years of age by the end of the year.

“We laud the efforts of our Metro Manila mayors in achieving this milestone. This proves that we remain on track with our vaccination targets. Truly, nothing is impossible if we all work together. A better Christmas is now at hand. I thank the President for his trust and confidence in our plan. It really works with the cases in all areas that are continuously declining and our economy is now rebounding to 7.1% growth in the last Q3 despite six weeks lockdown. Our next goal is to start and sustain the opening up of our classes to protect our children’s future and development. We need to vaccinate our students and teachers before the end of this year.” Galvez added.

The national government aims to inoculate at least 54 million Filipinos by the end of this month, and fully vaccinate them before the end of December. ###