MANILA, Philippines—The Philippines is buying from China 3 million more sets of personal protective equipment (PPE) against coronavirus, which could give the Philippine military a daunting task—bringing these home.
The PPE sets would be for health workers on the frontline of the fight against COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
On Sunday (April 26) Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, who is also the chairman of National Task Force COVID-19, revealed that the Procurement Service (PS) of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) is buying the 3 million PPE sets from China.
The purchase is a new transaction after the Philippine government also bought 1 million PPE sets, also from China, at a cost of P1.8 billion. The entire cargo of PPE sets, however, could not be brought home yet because of limited logistics capacity of the military.
If 1 million PPE sets would cost the same, the new purchase would mean that the Philippine government is spending some P6 billion more for the new PPE transaction.
Each PPE set consists of an N95 mask, goggles, coveralls, head cover, shoe cover, surgical mask, gloves and surgical gown made in China, where the pandemic started.
The Philippine Air Force and Philippine Navy are currently involved in main efforts to get the shipment from China.
He said two C-130s, the military’s air workhorse, have been hauling the P1.8 billion in PPE sets thrice a week. “In fact, PS-DBM is procuring 3 million more because the use of PPEs is really fast,” Lorenzana told reporters.
PPE are mainly disposable items.
“Hopefully, we will have enough transport to bring them in,” he said.
Philippine Navy logistics vessel BRP Bacolod City (LS-550) arrived in Xiamen, China on Saturday (April 25) to get 23,385 boxes (around 250,000 PPE sets according to estimates) of PPE. Those are part of the 1 million in PPE that was bought for P1.8 billion.
BRP Bacolod City was expected to return to the Philippines with the PPE cargo in early May.
A Philippine Air Force C-130 cargo plane can carry a maximum of 15,000 PPE sets per flight, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III earlier said. Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific had also helped bring home the PPE sets.
It’s not clear how may PPE sets from the 1 million purchased by the government have been already brought home since the trips to China started in early April.
Bringing home an additional 3 million PPE sets from China would be a new herculean challenge for the military.
“We will use a combination of planes and ships. We will use our military. Civilian cargo planes are just backup,” Lorenzana told INQUIRER.net
But he also raised concern that military assets, like planes, would be overburdened.
“Diyan kami takot baka maaberya ang mga eroplano natin. In that case, we will have to lease civilian cargo planes,” he said.
(That’s what we fear, our planes having trouble. In that case, we will have to lease civilian cargo planes.)
He said, however, that C-130s have a limit of maximum flying hours before these go on regular maintenance and inspection.
The military currently has two C-130s that are full mission capable.
“Both C-130s have plenty of hours left,” Lorenzana said.
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