Lacson flags confusing, weird figures on gov’t-procured COVID jabs

MANILA, Philippines — Senator Panfilo Lacson on Wednesday raised concern over the conflicting figures on the government-procured COVID-19 jabs earlier submitted to his office, pointing out that one of the submissions indicated a P3-billion increase in the cost of the vaccines despite a lower number of doses.

“May I add to the confusion?” Lacson said during the plenary debates on the 2022 budget of the Department of Health (DOH) when Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon was asking about the number of COVID-19 vaccines so far procured by the government.

Lacson noted that his office earlier received two submissions with regard to the government’s procurement of jabs.

“One [document] is as of Sept. 5, 2021. The other one is as of Nov. 7, 2021. As of Sept. 5, yung [the] government-procured vaccines were already at 121,132,930 doses at P62.632 billion,” he noted.

But based on the second submission, the number of doses went down to 121,130,000, according to Lacson.

“Pero ang weird dito, the cost increased. From P62.632 billion [in the September submission] naging [it became] P66.107 billion,” he pointed out.

Slide presented by Sen. Panfilo Lacson during the plenary debates on the proposed 2022 budget of the Department of Health on Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021. Senate screengrab

“I’m…concerned with the P3.475-billion difference. That should be a concern,” Lacson added.

“What could be the reason for the decline in the government-procured vaccines, pero nag-increase yung presyo [but the price increased]? Just to add to the confusion,” he also said.

Drilon then remarked in jest: “Thank you for that confusion Sen. Lacson.”

Senator Pia Cayetano, who was sponsoring the DOH budget, noted that the Department of Finance (DOF) prepared the said documents and not the health department.

Still, the DOH officials present in the session hall tried to make sense of the conflicting figures flagged by Lacson.

“Please note that in terms of the number of doses, it’s almost the same: 121,132,930 versus 121,130,000. So the difference there is, I think, quite minimal,” Cayetano observed.

“It’s the difference in the price, the total amount, that is a big difference,” he added.

Citing the explanation of the DOH, Cayetano told her colleagues that perhaps the P2.7-billion “pipeline reserve” for the vaccine procurement was not included in the September submission.

“If you add that [P2.7 billion], that gives you a closer amount between the September and November documentation,” Cayetano said.

The government set aside P66 billion for the procurement of 121 million doses this year, senators were earlier told during the deliberations.

“There is a pipeline reserve of 2.7B that is P66.1 billion, that P2.7 billion was not included in the September document,” Cayetano went on.

“That is the most logical explanation that the group here can come up with,” she added.

Further, Cayetano noted that in the two submissions, the contract cost had a difference of some P250 million.

“P54.4 billion in the November document and in September, it’s P54.2 billion. So there is a difference of P250 million plus, as we said,  that is P2.7 billion that was not included,” she explained.

“So that’s 2.7 billion plus P250 million so that’s about P3 billion,” she added.

Nevertheless, Cayetano suggested that the DOF submit a response to the Senate on the conflicting figures between the September and November submissions made to Lacson’s office.

“We are asking the person directly involved in the documentation to give us a response,” Cayetano said.

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