Over a dozen resource persons to attend Senate hearing on vaccines

MANILA, Philippines — Over a dozen resource persons have been summoned by the Senate constituting the committee of the whole tomorrow to find out about the government’s plans on the procurement and national roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines, Senate President Vicente Sotto III said.

Sotto, who will preside over the Senate hearing, said senators would like to know why the government has yet to get any vaccine, as well as their plans on the procurement, storage, distribution and disposal of COVID-19 vaccines.

“The main question is: Why don’t we have vaccines yet? If there is something coming, what are the plans? These are the topics of the committee of the whole,” Sotto said over radio dwIZ.

“The list was over two dozen, but we limited it to the main concern first. For example, the storage, (and) distributions. I think it is trimmed down to 18,” he added.

Sotto, however, did not provide the names of those who were invited by the Senate to the hearing tomorrow. He earlier said that officials of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) will be asked to detail the plans of the government about the vaccines.

Senate Pro Tempore Ralph Recto and Sen. Francis Pangilinan filed a resolution calling for an inquiry, and the Senate adopted the measure.

Sotto said there is a need to look into the matter to promote transparency on how the government will manage the COVID-19 vaccines being funded with P72 billion of taxpayers’ money.

The Senate President also clarified the issue of the inoculation of some Cabinet officials and members of the Presidential Security Group (PSG) late last year will not be taken up.

“Sen. Panfilo Lacson is right, why do you want to talk about the PSG while the issue is why we don’t have a vaccine yet. That should be the question,” Sotto noted.

Sotto urged those asking about PSG inoculation to also ask about some private corporations, as their employees have already been immunized.

He said the Senate has a plan similar to what was suggested by Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri.

“The Senate has a plan like that. Sen. Migz (Zubiri) mentioned, why don’t we take care of our employees,” Sotto added.

“At the moment, that’s what happens because we still don’t have vaccines. So, I won’t be surprised that (Foreign Affairs) Sec. Teorodo Locsin Jr. and Amb. (Jose Manuel) Romualdez are bent on why someone is delaying. As they earlier said, somebody dropped the ball,” Sotto added.

He also hopes that the hearing would give Filipinos some confidence to be vaccinated, as a survey indicated that only 25 percent of Filipinos are willing to be inoculated with the COVID-19 vaccine.

“And also for our kababayans to be reassured, because a survey indicated that many Filipinos doubt, many people do not want (to be vaccinated) because of the nervousness in Dengvaxia as well as anti-flu and others. We need to give the public good information to believe in it,” he said.

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said he would ask about the so-called distribution and access to vaccines which, he said, remain unclear as of this time.

“For me, because the vaccine is coming to us, the distribution is not clear to me. The so-called access is also not clear to me,” Gatchalian said in over dwIZ.