Brothers and sisters, those overseeing the government’s purchase of Covid-19 vaccines are still silent about their prices, particularly for the vaccines coming from China’s Sinovac Biotech. President Duterte himself said that the prices of these vaccines must remain a secret because we have so-called “confidentiality agreements” with pharmaceutical companies. They insist this is routine for the pharmaceutical industry.
Duterte insists that if we break this agreement by publicizing the prices of the vaccines, the shipment of the vaccines we need could get cancelled. This also wouldn’t be fair for other countries if they find out how much Sinovac’s vaccines cost. The government supposedly secured about 25 million doses of the CoronaVac supplied by Sinovac.
From the information Sen. Ping Lacson gathered, one dose of the CoronaVac only costs $5 or P240 in neighboring countries in Southeast Asia. But in the Philippines, each dose will cost around $38 or over P1,800. Instead of clarifying the issue, Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque and vaccine czar Carlito Galvez, Jr. only explained that each dose from Sinovac will only cost P650 to P700. But such price is still higher compared to those sold in other countries.
Why is it important for us to know the prices of the vaccines our government will purchase to save us from Covid-19?
First and foremost, the health of the people is at stake here. In the past week, over 500,000 people have tested positive for Covid-19, though the number of people who have recovered and healed is also high. While the number of people who died from the virus has reached around 10,000, this is far from the number of people who died in other countries because of the same virus. This is why it is quite important for the government to clarify its vaccination plans in order for our situation not to worsen. Wherever the vaccines we buy comes from, it is not only the prices we must find out. We must know its efficacy. The efficacy of Sinovac’s vaccine is far from Pfizer’s 95 percent, and Moderna’s 94.5 percent, even if their vaccines cost more than Sinovac’s.
Second, it is our right to know the prices of the vaccines we will buy because it is the country’s funds to be used in purchasing them. We will borrow billions of pesos to buy these vaccines, and this debt will be paid by the succeeding generations of Filipinos. According to the Department of Finance, the government plans to borrow P62.5 billion from multilateral banks like the World Bank and Asian Development Bank.
The welfare of all the people is the first priority in society. In the Catholic social teaching Gaudium et Spes, it is said that political groups and institutions exist for the common good. And it is against the common good if our leaders are not honest to their constituents; if there are things they are hiding or not essentially fully clarifying.
Brothers and sisters, in ensuring that there will be vaccines to arrive in our country, we trust that our leaders exhibit what is said in the book of Philippians 2:4, “not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”
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