THE Senate Blue Ribbon committee will start its initial investigation into the COVID-19 vaccine procurement contracts worth billions of pesos on December 14. Leading the probe team is Sen. Francis Tolentino, committee chairman, who has called on officials of the Department of Health (DOH) to attend the first hearing.
According to reports, present and former officials of the DOH have refused to give details of the contracts supposedly because of existing non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) with foreign vaccine manufacturers.
Senator Tolentino said Filipinos have the right to know where and how the millions of vaccine doses were used as he expressed support for calls to audit the vaccines’ procurement and distribution.
‘Lacson, Franklin Drilon and their colleagues in the past Congress said they have never seen a copy of any non-disclosure agreement signed by the government with vaccine
manufacturers, even during an executive session of the Senate.’
The need to clear up issues, doubts and numbers involving the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines from several foreign pharmaceutical firms is felt by Tolentino’s committee because of the people’s inherent right to know. There is also the concomitant pressure from the sources of funds used by the Duterte administration in buying these vaccines — the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) which lately have been asking for a special audit on the loans they had granted the Philippines. This latest development was disclosed by Commission on Audit (COA) chairman, Gamaliel Cordoba, to senators.
Cordoba said former Health Secretary Francisco Duque III had written to the state auditors that the DOH could not provide the documents due to the NDAs with suppliers.
Tolentino will be assisted in the probe by three committee vice chairmen — Senators Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, Christopher ‘’Bong’’ Go and Alan Peter S. Cayetano. Ex-officio officials Senate President pro tempore Loren Legarda, majority leader Joel Villanueva, and minority leader Aquilino Pimentel III are also expected to actively participate in the hearings.
One monitoring mind in this issue is former senator Panfilo Lacson, who said a couple of weeks ago that the NDA between the government and pharmaceutical companies on the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines “could very well be a cover-up for the unconscionable misuse of public funds.” Lacson was reacting to reports that until now, there is no detailed audit yet on how much money was spent by the previous administration for COVID-19 vaccines.
Lacson, Franklin Drilon and their colleagues in the past Congress said they have never seen a copy of any non-disclosure agreement signed by the government with vaccine manufacturers, even during an executive session of the Senate.
This is a testimony to the ability of our officials, then and now, to safeguard state secrets and honor commitments made with the pharmaceutical business community, which has shown it can flex its influence and political muscle to pressure even governments to hunker down.
Against this backdrop, it is compelling to monitor how Senator Tolentino will conduct this Blue Ribbon probe.
