The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) said that it is currently “fixing” the issues related to the VaxCertPH --- the country’s vaccine certificate system that is being managed by the DICT and the Department of Health (DOH).
DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy, during the Office of the Press Secretary press conference on Wednesday, Oct. 12, said that they are “coordinating” with the DOH amid reports related to the issuance of vaccination certificates through VaxCertPH.
Uy explained that DICT was already “in talks” with the DOH about the scheduled turnover of the project.
Originally, Uy said that after the DICT has maintained the project, the DOH was supposed to take over its operations and maintenance. “We trained people in DOH to do it para so can turnover the entire system to them and they will be the one to manage it,” he explained in a mix of English and Filipino.
However, Uy said that the DICT was informed by DOH headed by Officer-in-Charge Rosario Vergeire that the personnel of the Health Department “were not yet ready to accept and to run the system.”
Uy said that DOH requested the DICT to “continue running the system” for them until they have the “capacity to absorb the system.”
Meanwhile, Uy noted another challenge in keeping the VaxCertPH running. “The software that we’re using was contracted with a third-party provider technically expired on Sept. 30,” he said.
“If we will continue running it, we need to renew the contract because it already expired and we asked DOH if they have budget so we can continue with the contract and they said there’s none,” Uy explained.
Without funds to renew the expired software contract as well as challenges in the readiness of DOH to take over the project, Uy said that DICT has to manage its operations in the meantime.
“It was given back to DICT but it was not programmed in our budget because we are expecting that by Sept. 30, we will turn it over to DOH and they will assume full operations, responsibility and the funding for that,” Uy explained.
Given this, Uy said that DICT is currently in process of renewing the contract after looking for funds. “It’s an unprogrammed expense that DICT has to assume in order to keep that running and we’re still in that stage...there are challenges but we’re fixing that,” he added.
Netizens have been pointing out several issues in using VaXCertPH such as a lack of updated data that includes their booster shots.
VaxCertPH, as per DICT, is a free, self-service portal that can be accessed through https://vaxcert.doh.gov.ph where individuals may get a copy of their vaccination certificate.”