Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Tuesday urged the government to prioritize the procurement and use of vaccines that have high levels of efficacy now that the country has more access to different brands of vaccines.

Drilon lamented that Filipinos are being short-changed when it comes to getting the most effective COVID-19 vaccines with the government’s preference for Chinese-made vaccine Sinovac.

“Kapag buhay ng Pilipino ang nakasalalay, hindi pwede ang ‘pwede na.’ (If the lives of Filipinos are at stake, we can’t afford to be nonchalant about it). We need to buy the most effective vaccines,” Drilon said in a statement.

“When it comes to the life of millions of Filipinos and the future of the country, there should be no price tag. We can buy the most expensive vaccines with high efficacy. We should not short-change our taxpayers. But we are a fool to buy more expensive vaccines with doubtful efficacy,” the minority leader added.

He said the Pfizer vaccine has shown an efficacy rate of 95 percent compared to Sinovac, but Pfizer’s price is quite lower than the China-made jabs which has been established to be less effective than other brands.

“That is basic logic: why choose a vaccine that is less effective yet more expensive over a vaccine that is more effective but less expensive?” Drilon pointed out.

He said it’s about time that vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez, Jr. should open his eyes and set aside his personal preference or that of the administration for Sinovac and objectively listen to health experts.

“I have not heard of any doctor or any member of the medical profession that recommends Sinovac over Pfizer, Moderna or AstraZeneca,” Drilon said.

“Bring me one, Secretary Galvez, aside form Health Secretary Francisco Duque III,” he said.

The senator pointed out that other nations, such as Indonesia, that used Sinovac as its main vaccine especially for its health care sector, still caught the coronavirus despite being inoculated with it.

“That is very alarming because as it appears now, Sinovac is the vaccine of choice by the government. We want to prevent the situation that is happening now in Indonesia. We are not promoting any brand,”

“What we are saying is, Filipinos deserve the best vaccine, especially frontline doctors and nurses who are exposed to the virus,” he pointed out.

Now that the country has access to more and better vaccines, Drilon said the government should make it a policy to prioritize the purchase and distribution of vaccines with high levels of efficacy as reports about Sinovac “do not augur well for a country that has high vaccine hesitancy.”