Peace Process Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr, the Philippines’ COVID-19 vaccine czar, said no official has access to funds earmarked for the drugs – as he again defended the government’s handling of the matter.

The government’s main mode of procuring COVID-19 vaccines is through multilateral arrangements with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the World Bank, and other global financing agencies, Galvez said in a statement late Friday, December 18.

“Our fund managers such as the World Bank and the ADB have laid out very stringent regulatory requirements and processes [that] we need to follow such as World Health Organization accreditation of the vaccines and Stringent Regulatory Authorization of foreign countries like the US, UK, Canada, or Singapore,” said Galvez, who is also the chief implementer of the government’s action plan on the pandemic.

“We would also like to emphasize that no government official has access to the funds for vaccine procurement. All deals will be made through international procurement agreements and all payments for the vaccines will be managed by our multilateral partners with the Department of Finance (DOF) [in] the lead,” he added.

Galvez then described the process of procuring the vaccines:

The Department of Health leads the preparation of an “agency procurement request.” As vaccine czar, Galvez then negotiates directly with the vaccine-maker companies “to make sure we get the best deal possible in terms of cost, volume, time of delivery, and supply agreement.”

When the parties have agreed on a draft, it is submitted to the DOF, “which will scrutinize and ensure the provisions in the document are in accordance” with the regulatory requirements of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the multilateral agencies.

“Once cleared, the contract will be forwarded to our multilateral partners or fund managers for further review and validation to ensure the integrity of the contract,” said Galvez.

“Payments will only be done once all the regulatory requirements for Emergency Use Authorization from FDA and the originating country [of the vaccine] are secured,” he added.

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The government is negotiating with “10 to 20 companies” for the vaccines, of which 9 have been shortlisted and 7 are engaged in “intense negotiations,” Galvez said during a televised briefing on Saturday, December 19.

Australia, Canada, the United States, Russia, China, and India and among countries willing to provide COVID-19 vaccines to the Philippines, he added.

The plan, he said, is to procure 1 or 2 COVID-19 vaccine types from each of the countries the government is negotiating with. “We’re not putting our eggs in one basket. We need a portfolio of vaccines,” Galvez added.

The former military chief said “no bus was missed and no ball was dropped” in negotiations for a COVID-19 vaccine. It was in reference to allegations made by Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr and Senator Panfilo Lacson that someone in the government, out of negligence, cost the country 10 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine that would have arrived in January.

Lacson identified this official as Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, who denied the accusation. – Rappler.com