Probinsyano Ako Party-list Rep. Bonito Singson has stepped up calls for the Department of Health (DOH) to investigate the alleged vaccine price trickery or "bakuna budol" controversy.

Singson, chairman of the House Committee on Public Accounts and a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, is the main signatory to House Resolution (HR) No.2492, which urges the Department of Health (DOH) to study and evaluate the efficacy of PCV10 and PCV13.

The PCV10 and the PCV13 are two variants of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs). The World Health Organization (WHO) had earlier declared that PCV10 and PCV13 are at parity or as effective as the other.

However, since 2014, the Philippines’ childhood immunization program has been using the more expensive PCV13, which is incidentally the only pneumonia vaccine available locally.

“If there is a monopoly in the pneumonia vaccine that is tricking the government into buying the more expensive PCVs, this defeats the purpose of providing more pneumonia protection to our children,” Singson said.

"The government might be unnecessarily spending on these more costly PCVs when there are more cost-effective yet equally effective ones available," noted the House leader.

Filed in the House of Representatives last Feb. 14, HR No.2492 specifically urges the DOH to "study, consider, examine, and evaluate the effectivity of the PCVs pre-qualified, licensed, and recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO)".

Singson had mentioned in a recent Kapihan ng Samahang Plaridel forum that the House will summon big pharmaceutical companies to probe deeper into the so-called bakuna budol.

“It is usually the people who are marginalized that are at risk for getting pneumonia. Procurement issues with the vaccine are roadblocks to our goal of universal healthcare and so we need to get to the root of this issue,” he said.

“The Congress is acting on this issue because proving the existence of a monopoly shows that the government is losing billions of pesos while possibly depriving more children to be vaccinated against child pneumonia," he added.

In July 2020, the DOH’s Health Technology Assessment Council (HTAC) highlighted that PCV10 is more affordable than PCV13. “A lower-priced vaccine would be more favorable to ensure higher vaccine coverage on a per-dose basis.”

More importantly, it also found that the effectiveness of the more affordable PCV10 in reducing pneumonia is equal to that of PCV 13.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has cited child pneumonia as one of the leading causes of morbidity, taking the life of a child every 39 seconds.