Citing that the economic losses to every day under the “new normal” amount to at least P85 billion, House Ways and Means panel Chair Albay 2nd District Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda has proposed that President Duterte be given much leeway or specific powers to implement the COVID-19 response and recovery interventions, and expedite the vaccine procurement, importation, and rollout.
Under his House Bill No. 8285 or the proposed "Bayanihan sa Bakuna Act", the House leader wanted to eliminate all the roadblocks to vaccine procurement, distribution, and administration to ensure the immediate importation and rollout of the coronavirus vaccines.
“I have authored Bayanihan sa Bakuna Act to cut all the red tape and eliminate any further delay in getting the public vaccinated. The vaccines are available. We have the money. We know the costs of delaying the vaccine. So, we must not tolerate any further delay in getting our people vaccinated,” Salceda said in a statement.
“All channels – political, diplomatic, commercial – should be used to procure and roll them out expeditiously and without undue delay,” he stressed.
In his bill’s explanatory note, Salceda said the costs of each day of not having the vaccine are staggering.
According to the co-chairperson of the Economic Cluster of the Defeat COVID-19 Ad hoc panel, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) estimates that every week of enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) or modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) in the National Capital Region (NCR) and its adjacent regions alone shaves off 0.28 percentage points from the gross domestic product (GDP) growth.
“This is equivalent to around 2.1 billion pesos in lost wages a day. The amount during GCQ is lower at around 700 million pesos a day, but is nonetheless a major blow to household incomes, particularly during this period of economic hardship, where involuntary hunger has reached unmatched heights in the country’s recent history,” Salceda said.
He said the country can no longer absorb the economic losses of any further restriction in economic activity.
"This has to end. And there is no better way to end this pandemic than with the quick rollout of the vaccine,” Salceda said.
He said under his measure, the President is authorized to exercise the following powers to expedite the procurement and administration of the COVID_19 vaccine and related supplies:
-Exempt vaccine procurement from circuitous procurement laws;
-Set forth a mandatory vaccination program for health care workers;
-Assume health care workers’ medical bills due to COVID-19, including side effects of the vaccine;
-Engage the Philippine Red Cross in rolling out the vaccine;
-Liberalize the grant of tax incentives for importation of the COVID-19 vaccine;
-Create savings from unutilized appropriations, and directs them towards vaccine procurement;
-Allocate funds held by GOCCs and national government agencies towards COVID-19 procurement;
-Accelerate private sector requests for authorization to import COVID-19 vaccines; and
-Facilitate LGU requests to import COVID-19 vaccines, provided that these requests do not compete with the government’s efforts to procure such vaccines.
Salceda said his measure also seeks to waive the Phase IV requirement for vaccine approval, under certain conditions.
It also authorizes the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve vaccines that have already been tested on Filipinos abroad, he said.
"Thousands of nurses in the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and the Middle East, are Filipinos. Actually, given that many of these areas manufactured vaccines, our nurses were first in the line for the vaccine there. So, there is no reason to disapprove vaccines that were proven effective for our fellow Filipinos, since the allergy profile should be the same,” he said.
Under the bill, the FDA and other relevant agencies are mandated "to expedite authorizations for vaccines for which trials have been conducted successfully on Filipinos without serious adverse effects, as certified by counterparts in other countries.”
The measure also empowers the Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to explore diplomatic channels to accelerate vaccine procurement.
The bill also seeks to identify the sources of funding for vaccine procurement, even as it calls for the creation of a congressional oversight committee to ensure that the Executive faithfully and expeditiously implements the proposed Act.
“The vaccines are available. Let’s waste no time, especially when lives, jobs, and our economic future are on the line,” Salceda said.