Sen. Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara (File photo from INQUIRER.net)
MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara on Saturday said he saw nothing wrong with the proposed 2022 funding for the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines amid the concern of senators that this may possibly lead to an oversupply.
Instead, the government should draft a plan to address the high rate of vaccine hesitancy in the country, mainly among senior citizens, Angara said.
“It would be better to have excess funding, rather than have a shortage,” he said, even as the Senate blue ribbon remained in the middle of an investigation of the alleged misuse of P67.3 billion of the funds for the government’s pandemic response.
“Our problem at the moment is vaccine hesitancy. We have a long way to go, and based on our experience in the past 21 months that we were in a pandemic, the road toward the finish line is not a sprint along a straight path, but a marathon on a twisty road,” he added.
Angara made the statement in a radio interview after Sen. Panfilo Lacson questioned the P80.34 billion as excessive funding for the purchase of vaccines for 2022.
“Why are we procuring so many doses of vaccines? Based on our calculation, it seems that we are procuring more than we need for the 68.2 million adult Filipinos,” he said during the start of deliberations of the P5.024-trillion proposed 2022 budget.
According to Angara, the government is eyeing to purchase 197.34 million doses worth P80.34 billion in 2021, and is targeting to inoculate 70 percent of the population by yearend.
He expressed optimism that the government can meet this target with about 1.5 million jabs administered daily.
Angara said the Senate committee on finance had to make some adjustments to the General Appropriations Bill because the country’s economic team put fund allocations based on projections without considering the emergence of the Delta variant.
“We cannot blame them, we thought the situation was improving, so the government was in effect blindsided. They thought 2022 would be a year without COVID-19,” he said.