Senator Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan underscored on Saturday, May 15, the role of the private sector and local government units (LGUs) in COVID-19 response, saying they should be given a bigger participation in the government's vaccination program.
The opposition lawmaker lamented anew the "inadequate and slow" implementation of the nationwide vaccination program. He said the government should tap LGUs and private sector to speed up its efforts.
"We have to speed it up. The private sector also wants the vaccination to step up, asking that they be allowed to go ahead with their own vaccinations," Pangilinan said in a statement.
"We saw this from day one. As early as January, we are already saying that unless the private sector takes a bigger role as well as the LGUs, we're never going to be able to roll it out effectively," he added.
Pangilinan dared the Interagency Task Force (IATF) on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases to enable LGUs by "giving up" some of its powers so that it could reach its goal of 70 million vaccinated Filipinos by year-end.
"Don't keep it to yourselves. To reach 70 million, you need an army on the ground. You cannot just rely on the DOH (Department of Health); its army of health personnel on the ground would be the private sector as well as the LGUs," he said.
While he said he is optimistic that the government would reach its goal of achieving herd immunity by end of 2021, the senator said "it would all depend on how it addresses the matter on a day-to-day basis."
"I hope he's able to achieve what they plan out to do, but looking at it from the ground, they need to do more to achieve their target," said Pangilinan, referring to vaccine chief Carlito Galvez Jr.'s plan to inoculate some 70 million Filipinos this year.
He said he also believes that Galvez is "doing a good job".
"Secretary Galvez is very competent. But if you're surrounded by turkeys, you can't fly like an eagle," he said, reiterating his appeal for a revamp of the IATF.
Galvez said the Philippines currently has over 7.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines.
As of May 11, over 2.5 million doses of vaccines have so far been administered to Filipinos. An average of 65,879 are being vaccinated daily as of May 1 to May 3, he said.
The vaccine czar said he eyes the "elimination" of the disease from the country by second quarter of the 2022.
On Friday, the private sector launched its "Ingat Angat, Bakuna Lahat" campaign which aims to boost public trust on vaccines.