Presidential Adviser on Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion highlighted the importance of boosting the confidence of the public on coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines, saying the shots that the Philippines is trying hard to procure will be useless if the people will refuse to take the jab.
The Go Negosyo founder made the statement as he joined the Joint Meeting of the House Committee on Trade and Industry and House Committee on Health on Wednesday where he presented the private sector's vaccine plan.
According to Concepcion, the private sector, local government units (LGUs), and the national government will do everything together with great speed to vaccinate a great number of the population by the end of the year.
However, he said the government should work on convincing the people to take the vaccine.
"What we have to do is bring back the confidence of the people on all of these vaccines coming in. If our people refuse to take these vaccines, all of these efforts become useless," he said.
"Access to the vaccines is one great thing, but building confidence and proper execution is the next thing we have to work on," he added.
Concepcion believed that there is great hope in the government's vaccination plan and that the fourth quarter of the year can be the start of something bright.
"This is our working framework right now, it is through providing access to vaccines, building confidence, and executing fast that we can win this war against COVID-19," he said.
Meanwhile, Concepcion said they will appeal to the Department of Health (DOH) and the National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (NITAG) to give the private sector flexibility when it comes to their vaccination plan.
"If you look at the industries that we presented who purchased the vaccines, there are so many industries who have different positions and we listed them all," he told lawmakers on Wednesday.
"Since they all belong to that particular company, under the same sector, we should just allow them to inoculate all those in that list of A4, so that is what we are going to request to NITAG, that is important," he added.
Some lawmakers agreed with Concepcion and highlighted the need for easing the restrictions for the subcategories of the A4 priority list and the need for being proactive in terms of who to vaccinate when the bulk of the vaccine supply comes.
"Nagko-cause po ng delays yung pag-convince doon sa mga nasa priority lists natin (Convincing the people in the priority list to take the vaccine is causing delays)," Quezon City 4th District Rep. Angelina Tan said.
"Tingin ko ang hirap (I think it's difficult) on the part of the implementers at this time kasi restricted sila, they always have to follow yung binibigay (because they are restricted. They always have to follow the list)...it will cause delay,” she added.
Deputy Speaker Wes Gatchalian agreed in giving the private sector flexibility as he pointed out that the private sector has been helping ease the government's burden in inoculating the people in the said group.
"The private sector has gone over and beyond corporate social responsibility when they donated half of their vaccine procurement to the government," he said.
"In return, the guidelines that the private sector must follow in the conduct of the vaccination program should be clear and allow them the leeway and flexibility to inoculate their employees after the priorities set by the law," he added.
In response, Concepcion thanked lawmakers for agreeing to the proposals of the private sector.
Early this month, the Inter-agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, which he co-chairs, updated the A4 Priority Group of the government's vaccination plan to include more workers from different industries including the media, food, beverage, pharmaceutical, and transportation, among others.