Local governments eye calamity funds to buy vaccines

MANILA, Philippines — Local officials are asking the national government to allow them to use their disaster quick response funds to purchase COVID-19 vaccines for their constituents.

Quirino Gov. Dakila Cua, president of the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines, said he had appealed to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) to allow local governments to use their calamity funds to buy the vaccines.

“I think the DRRM fund is the easiest to use. Anyway it’s to address the situation of the health emergency,” Cua said at an online briefing.

Cua asked the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and the NDRRMC to issue a clarification on whether local governments were authorized to use their calamity funds for the purpose since not all of them have the capacity to buy vaccines using their own budgets.

While many cities could afford the vaccines, some provinces and municipalities were economically challenged, he said.

But if they were allowed to tap into their quick response funds, they would be able to provide COVID-19 vaccines for the people under their jurisdiction, he added.

Priority list

The Department of the Interior and Local Government earlier said local governments would be allowed to procure vaccines for their constituents who were not on the government’s priority list of people to be immunized against the coronavirus.

Those that had allocated funds in their budget for the vaccine procurement could purchase those approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Budget Secretary Wendel Avisado said on Monday that he would leave it to the NDRRMC to determine whether or not local governments could use their calamity funds to purchase COVID-19 vaccines.

Avisado said it was up to the NDRRMC to “clarify the extent of the use of the local government calamity funds since this [was] a policy issue involving the use of national disaster risk reduction management funds.”

“If it would include purchase of vaccines, then so be it,” he said.

—With a report from Ben O. de Vera