COVID-19

Cebu province not in a hurry to purchase COVID-19 vaccines

Lorraine Ecarma

This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

Cebu province not in a hurry to purchase COVID-19 vaccines

VACCINE. The COVID-19 vaccine

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Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia says the provincial government would rather spend on infrastructure projects, financial assistance to small businesses, and food security

While a number of local government units (LGUs) across the country are setting aside big chunks of their budgets to procure COVID-19 vaccines, Cebu, one of the most populous provinces, would rather wait it out.

Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia said in a press conference on Thursday, January 14, that that securing supplies of the vaccines was “not a race,” and it would “premature” to allocate funds for these.

Garcia said she would wait for the coverage of the national government’s vaccine rollout, and assess only after that where the provincial government should step in.

“National government has already appropriated so much and targeted 70% of the population. So let’s just step back and assess,” she said. It is still unclear how many doses of the vaccine will be allocated to Cebu province.

Garcia said Cebu province would only set aside a budget for vaccine procurement if the need arises for LGUs to shoulder the doses for the remaining 30% of their populations.

Kung kinahanglan gyud katong 30% LGU na ang mo-fill-in, anha pa ta mo-estimate og budget oy,” she said. (If LGUs really need to fill in the 30%, that’s when we’ll estimate the budget.)

Garcia said the provincial government would rather spend on “other needs” of the people like infrastructure projects, financial assistance to small businesses, and food security. 

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Garcia said LGUs didn’t have the authority to enter deals with vaccine manufacturers on their own, citing the protocol to enter into tripartite agreements with the supplier and the national government. 

Because of this, she said, it would be “useless to talk about setting aside hundreds of millions right now when you really cannot do anything about it.”

Other LGUs were aware of, and followed the requirement for a tripartite agreement, and had set aside budgets for their vaccine procurement. Almost all the LGUs that have inked deals with vaccine manufacturers, in fact, directly contacted the companies first before pulling in the national government in their negotiations.

Neighboring cities – like Iloilo, Bacolod, and Ormoc – have signed tripartite deals for the Astra Zeneca vaccine.

Cebu City, which is independent from the province, has set aside P400 million for vaccines, and plans to budget P100 million more to procure vaccines from manufacturers that include Pfizer and Moderna. – Rappler.com

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