Malacañang said the government's pandemic task force will work on the policy about vaccinating foreign workers in the Philippines against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) once the country gets the bulk of COVID-19 vaccines it bought.
Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque made the statement following reports that some Chinese nationals in Pasay City have already received COVID-19 vaccines.
In PTV-4's "Laging Handa" public briefing, Roque said the Inter-agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases will work on a policy about vaccination foreign nationals in the country, noting how overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are being vaccinated in their host countries.
"Sa ngayon po, kinakailangan pang gumawa ng polisiya ang IATF sa pagbabakuna ng dayuhan. Siguro po darating 'yan dahil darating na rin yung bulto ng ating supply (For now, the IATF has to create a policy for vaccinating foreigners. Perhaps that will happen because the bulk of our vaccine supply will be arriving soon)," he said Friday.
"Pero ngayong kulang po ang supply, pina-prioritize po natin yung A1, A2, A3. Sa susunod na buwan nga po, kasama na rin ang A4 at A5 (But now that we don't have enough supplies, we are prioritizing those under Priority Groups A1, A2, and A3. We will start inoculating A4 and A5 groups next month)," he added.
The priority sectors in the government's vaccination program against COVID-19 are healthcare workers and their immediate family, local chief executives, and outbound OFWs (A1); senior citizens (A2); persons with comorbidities (A3); economic and government frontliners (A4); and the indigent population (A5).
The Department of Health (DOH) said on Thursday that it was looking into reports that several Chinese nationals have been vaccinated against COVID-19 in the Philippines.
The Pasay City local government earlier said that the Chinese nationals were either senior citizens or persons with comorbidities-- people who are part of the priority list in the country's COVID-19 vaccination program.
According to Roque, Malacañang was not aware of the situation but raised the possibility that those who received the vaccine were Filipino-Chinese.
"Wala po kaming nalalaman tungkol dito sa mga Chinese nationals na na-vaccinate. Posible naman po baka naman Filipino-Chinese 'yan (We know nothing about Chinese nationals being vaccinated. It's possible that they were Filipino-Chinese, though)," he said Friday.
The government rolled out its vaccination program against COVID-19 on March 1 this year. To date, the country has administered 4,495,375 doses of COVID-19 vaccines. A total of 1,029,061 individuals have been fully vaccinated.
On Friday, the IATF has approved the recommendation refining the list of people belonging to the A4 Priority Group.