CROSSCURRENTS

Where are the vaccines?

By: Antonio T. Carpio - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:07 AM April 01, 2021

President Duterte railed in September 2020 against Western vaccine

manufacturers for requiring vaccine buyers to make advance payments
from 30 to 50 percent of the purchase price. The President stated that
Philippine law prohibits making advance payments for products still to
be produced. However, only an administrative rule, which the President
can change any time, prohibits advance payments beyond 15 percent.
Existing law expressly allows advance payment without limitation
subject to the approval of the President in cases of emergencies or
calamities. In fact, several days before the President raised the alleged
legal prohibition, the Office of the President authorized the Department
of Health to purchase personal protection equipment and other medical
paraphernalia with advance payment of up to 50 percent.

The President also declared last March 22, 2021, that it is “illegal” for the
government to grant vaccine manufacturers immunity from suit if the
vaccines cause death or side effects on those vaccinated. The President
further fumed at a proposal to create a government fund to indemnify
those who die or suffer side effects from the vaccination, saying that
vaccine manufacturers should shoulder such indemnification. The
President forgot that he had earlier certified as urgent and necessary the
enactment by Congress of a bill granting such immunity from suit to
vaccine makers unless there is willful misconduct or gross negligence on
the part of vaccine manufacturers. He had also certified the creation of a
government-financed indemnity fund. In fact, 23 days before the
President ranted against the grant of immunity and the creation of an
indemnity fund, he had signed into law the COVID-19 Vaccination
Program Act of 2021 precisely granting such immunity and creating a
P500-million indemnity fund.
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Vaccine manufacturers are, of course, now wary of selling vaccines to the

Philippines even with the passage of a law granting them immunity from
suit and creating an indemnity fund. Foreigners know only too well that
the Duterte administration had torn apart, without any due process, the
signed concession contracts of Manila Water and Maynilad Water. The
Duterte administration is now forcing the water concessionaires to accept
government-dictated concession contracts. Yes, there is law but the
Duterte administration does not respect the law. The vaccine
manufacturers might require the Duterte administration to expressly
retract what the President had stated. It would do well for the President
to make the retraction on his own before he is forced to do so. In South
America, Pfizer still refuses to sell vaccines to Brazil and Argentina over a
dispute on immunity from suit.

Up to now the Philippine government has not purchased any vaccine

from Western manufacturers. As the President expressly admitted last
March 24, 2021: “Bakunang nabili? Wala. Wala tayong bakunang nabili.
Wala pa.” Finance Secretary Sonny Dominguez explained that to procure
vaccines, the government has obtained loans from the World Bank, Asian
Development Bank, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
Dominguez said that these loans “are being processed for signing this
March 2021 with an indicative aggregate loan amount of US$1.2 billion.”
As of end of March 2021, these loan agreements had not yet been signed
and thus there are still no funds to buy the Western vaccines.

The significance of the absence of funds is found in Sections 40 and 43,

Book VI, of the Administrative Code of 1987: “xxx no expenditures or
obligations chargeable against any authorized allotment shall be
incurred or authorized in any department xxx without first securing the
certification of its Chief Accountant xxx as to the availability of funds xxx.
Every payment made in violation of said provisions shall be illegal xxx.
Any official or employee of the Government knowingly incurring any
obligation or authorizing any expenditure in violation of the provision
herein xxx shall be dismissed from the service xxx.” In short, unless
funds are actually available, the law prohibits the signing of any
government contract to procure vaccines.

This late the national government has not signed a single contract to
purchase a single dose of Western vaccine. Is this deliberate or merely
incompetence? We just received a shipment of “procured” Chinese
vaccines. The Duterte administration must have found available funds
from the existing General Appropriations Act to sign the Sinovac contract.
Where there is a will, there is a way.

acarpio@inquirer.com.ph

https://opinion.inquirer.net/138990/where-are-the-vaccines