Amid calls to lift the country's state of public health emergency status in relation to Covid-19, Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion also asked on Monday, June 6, the government to now share its responsibilities to address the pandemic with the private sector and the citizens.
For Concepcion, among responsibilities that must be shared is passing the vaccination costs to those who can afford it to allow the government to focus more on the marginalized sector.
"We can see that the government cannot afford to buy vaccines and drugs for the entire country anymore," he explained.
While the country's Covid-19 situation continues to improve, Concepcion shared the government's observation that the administration of vaccines and their booster shots have slowed down.
So, he asked: "Since an increasing number of people do not want to take the vaccine then why should the government spend more on them?"
Concepcion then proposed that part of the cost of buying vaccines in the future should be shouldered by the private sector and by individuals who can afford the vaccines.
"This is what happens with flu vaccines, for example, and it has been shown that people are willing to pay for them," he said.
The presidential adviser also believed there is no reason for pharmaceutical companies to be denied a Certificate of Product Registration (CPR) for vaccines and drugs that have been in use during the pandemic.
"This should be approved quickly as we have used them already," he said.
"For us to move away from Emergency Use Authorizations to Certificate of Product Registration (CPR), we have to lift the public health emergency status. With a CPR, the vaccine companies can sell directly to consumers and remove the burden from the government," he added.