Senator Risa Hontiveros on Tuesday, January 31 said the Department of Health (DOH) should now waive the existing non-disclosure agreements (NDA) on Covid-19 vaccines for the sake of transparency.
Hontiveros said the NDAs with private manufacturers have already “outlived their purpose.”
“At this point, COVID vaccine NDAs are useless and have outlived their purpose dahil tapos na ang isyu ng 'price competition.’ It is now simply a violation of the public’s right to know how our money was spent,” the senator said in a statement.
“NDAs should no longer stand in the way of accountability and transparency,” Hontiveros stressed.
Considering that around 44 million Covid-19 vaccines were wasted, she said it is "high time" the real cost is disclosed to the public, pointing there is already “too much unnecessary secrecy surrounding” this issue.
“Hindi naman dapat ituring na state secret ang presyo ng bakuna dahil pera ng bayan ang ginamit para ipambili nito (The price of the vaccine should not be considered a state secret because public money was used to buy it),” she said.
“Pinipilay lang ng mga NDA na ito ang mandato ng COA na usisain kung nakasulit ba tayo sa bilyun-bilyong pisong inilabas natin noong panahon ng pandemya (These NDAs only cripple the COA's mandate to investigate whether we got the most out of the billions of pesos we released during the pandemic),” she added.
While the DOH has already submitted initial documents so the Commission on Audit (COA) can begin its audit, Hontiveros said the submission only covered the loan agreements with Asian Development Bank (ADB), the World Bank, and those with limited permissions from select vaccine manufacturers like Pfizer and AstraZeneca.
“What about the agreements with other vaccine manufacturers, like Sinovac?” she pointed out.
Bulto bultong bakuna pa naman mula sa Sinovac ang binili ng nakaraang administrasyon para sa national vaccination program. Paano magsasagawa ng complete audit ang COA kung patuloy na magtatago ang mga kompanya sa likod ng NDA clause ng kontrata (The previous administration bought bulk vaccines from Sinovac for the national vaccination program. How will the COA conduct a complete audit if the companies continue to hide behind the NDA clause of the contract)?” she asked.
"If we allow this to happen now, it is precedent-setting. Baka sa susunod na pandemya mauulit na naman ito, at posibleng maabuso (Maybe in the next pandemic it will happen again, and possibly abused),” the lawmaker added.
At the same time, the senator said the non-compliance of foreign vaccine manufacturers with the Philippine government’s processes is “alarming.”
“I stand by my call to completely release all information with regards to the COVID-19 vaccine procurement to the public. I have been saying this for over a year. There is no reason for this to be done behind closed doors. We deserve to know how every centavo was spent,” she reiterated.