The Department of Finance (DOF) wants the government to end the free rollout of Covid-19 vaccines once shots become commercially available in the country.
Finance Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno said the government should deputize the private sector for the procurement and administration of Covid-19 vaccines once the emergency use authorization status has been lifted.
“The country’s Covid-19 vaccine inoculation program must also normalize and should be handled by the private sector,” Diokno told reporters. “We’re under the new normal already.”
Currently, all Covid-19 vaccines are still under emergency use authorization, thus only the government can procure and administer vaccines.
“Right now, the status of Covid-19 vaccines is experimental drug that’s why the government needs to intervene, and this is the reason why we borrowed money from ADB and World Bank,” Diokno said.
But as Filipinos started learning to live with the coronavirus and movement restrictions have been lifted, Diokno believes that the government should wind down its Covid-19 vaccine inoculation program.
At the height of the pandemic, Diokno said “we cannot talk about economic growth until we’re out of that situation... we needed to address the Covid first.”
“I think in the future, it’s no longer experimental drug so it could be put in by the private sector,” Diokno.
The aggressive government borrowings to fund the procurement of Covid-19 vaccines resulted in the deterioration of its fiscal health.
The government’s running debt hit a new record high of P13.517 trillion as of September, equivalent to 63.7 percent of the country economy, or gross domestic product (GDP).
Based on the Bureau of the Treasury data, the latest quarterly debt-to-GDP figure was the highest since 65.7 percent in 2005.
The end-September debt ratio was above the 60 percent international threshold deemed by debt watchers as manageable among emerging markets like the Philippines.
An elevated debt-to-GDP level puts the country’s investment-grade status at risk.