The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee is ready to open its own probe into the reported wastage of 44 million doses of COVID-19 shots and to look into the documents pertaining to the purchase of these vaccines, Senator Francis Tolentino said on Sunday, December 4.
Tolentino said also said he supports the bid of the Commission on Audit (COA) to also conduct its own investigation into the government’s procurement of the COVID-19 vaccines.
“Una pabor ako na mag imbistiga, mag-audit ang Commission on Audit (COA). Pangalawa, kung tatanungin niyo ako kung ang blue ribbon ay handang mag open ng investigation dito, handa po kami (First, I am in favor of the Commission on Audit (COA) doing an investigation and an audit of the funds. Second, if you ask me if the Blue Ribbon committee is ready to investigate this, we are ready),” Tolentino said in an interview on Radio DZBB.
Tolentino, who chairs the said panel, pointed out that the public has the right to know if the funds were utilized properly or not.
The senator said the Department of Health (DOH) has an obligation to explain why 44 million doses went to waste.
“Sinasabi ng DOH na sangayon daw sa standard ng WHO (World Health Organization) e allowed ang 10 percent na wastage (The DOH says that according to the WHO standard, 10 percent wastage is allowed),” Tolentino noted.
“Pero pag cinompute po natin itong 44 million na wastage e pumapatak na 17 percent ito (But when we compute this 44 million wastage, it drops to 17 percent),” he pointed out.
“So mas mataas don sa treshold kaya siguro dapat maipaliwanag ito nang maigi kung anong nangyari at hindi nila sinasama yung - ayaw nila isama yung binili ng pribadong sektor (So it's higher than the threshold so maybe it should be explained thoroughly what happened and they don't include the - they don't want to include what was bought by the private sector),” he also said.
Earlier, Commission on Audit (COA) chairman Gamaliel Cordoba disclosed that The World Bank (WB) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) are already asking for a special audit on the loans they have granted to the Philippine government for the purchase of the vaccines.
The COA, during Senate plenary discussions on the agency’s proposed 2023 national budget, admitted to lacking an audit report on the government’s vaccine procurement program due to the non-disclosure agreement (NDAs) between the state and the manufacturers of the vaccines.
But Tolentino stressed the NDAs is not enough reason not to conduct an audit as the validity of such agreements only lasts for 1 to 2 years.
“Yung siguro yung NDA okay lang po iyon kung ang paguusapan ay trade secrets kasi may mga patent po iyan. Wala tayong question doon. Hindi naman natin kokopyahin yung patent nila, yung proseso nila. Subalit yung presyo e hindi po iyon trade secret yung presyo. Yung presyo po e galing po sa kaba ng bayan yung pinangbayad doon (Maybe the NDA is okay if we are talking about trade secrets because they have patents. We have no question there. We will not copy their patent, their process. But the price is not a trade secret, the price is. The price that was paid there came from the nation’s coffers),” he pointed out.
“Yung presyo po ay katungkulan naman ng estado sa Pilipinas na malaman po iyon at malaman din ng ating mga kababayan kung magkano ba talaga ang nagastos dahil yung sinasabi ngayon na natapon ay 44 million diba ho? (As for the price, it is the duty of the state in the Philippines to know that and also for our countrymen to know how much was actually spent because what is being said now is 44 million, right)?” Tolentino noted.
“Karapatan din po ng Kongreso malaman kung papano nagamit para po sa pag p-prepare ng budget o sa mga susunod - may power over the purse po kami e kaya alam dapat namin kung papano nagastos yung pera ng mamamayan (Congress also has the right to know how it was used to prepare the budget or the next ones - we have the power over the purse, so we should know how the people's money was spent),” he reiterated.