LACSON QUESTIONS OVERPROCUREMENT OF VACCINES

Presidential candidate, Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson, questioned on Wednesday a possible oversupply of COVID-19 vaccines for 2022, saying that the government seems to be procuring more than what Filipinos need.

"Why are we procuring so many doses of vaccines?" Lacson asked of Sen. Juan Edgardo "Sonny" Angara, chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, during the deliberation of the proposed P5-trillion 2022 national budget.

“117 million doses plus the 195 million na already secured. That would include 'yung donations, that’s a total of 313 million doses. Kung i-divide natin ng 2 doses, 150+ million Filipinos,” added Lacson.

According to the senator’s calculations, that is way more than what is needed for 68.2 million adult Filipinos, or even the total Philippine population projected at 111 million next year. 

"It seems that we might have an oversupply of procurement. We have to break down the figures for better understanding," said the chairman of Partido Reporma.

In the same hearing, Sen. Angara announced that the Bureau of Internal Revenue is investigating 45 government-contracted suppliers with questionable procurement of pandemic-related supplies. According to Lacson, this is the fruit of strict senate inquiries.

“Contrary to the President's earlier assertions, Senate inquiries definitely serve the purpose of making those abusing public funds accountable and liable for their misdeeds - not to mention the laws that may be crafted thereafter,” Lacson said in a statement.

He added that to prevent corruption and underutilization of the national budget, the government should devolve its procurement of supplies and implementation of projects to local government units, something that he plans to do when he becomes President.

“Time and again we have witnessed bad procurement by the DOH and other line agencies. I've nothing against procurement of drugs and medicines but if we're wasting money for the procurement of nearly expired or expiring drugs, what's the sense of spending a lot of money?" he said.