DOH submits vaccine procurement documents to COA

MANILA — The Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday submitted documents on its COVID-19 vaccine procurement deals to the Commission on Audit (COA). 

The DOH submitted the documents upon the request of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee that earlier scrutinized non-disclosure agreements, which supposedly prevented auditors from looking into the vaccine procurement. 

DOH officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said the submitted documents included supply agreements which would ease the audit of multi-billion-peso loans for the vaccines. 

“Handa pong harapin ng Kagawaran ng Kalusugan ang anumang katanungan ukol sa ating vaccine procurement sapagkat kampante tayo na lahat ng mga prosesong isinagawa ng ating pamahalaaan sa pagbili ng mga bakuna upang maprotektahan ang ating mga kababayan ay nakaayon sa batas,” Vergeire said in a statement.

(The Department of Health is ready to face any question about our vaccine procurement because we are confident that all the process that our government undertook in procuring vaccines to protect our compatriots were in accordance with the law.)

 

DOH officer-in-Charge Maria Rosario Vergeire submits documents on vaccine procurement deals to the Commission on Audit in the DOH Compound.

Raphael Bosano, ABS-CBN News

DOH officer-in-Charge Maria Rosario Vergeire submits documents on vaccine procurement deals to the Commission on Audit in the DOH Compound.

Raphael Bosano, ABS-CBN News

The COA recently said that the DOH had requested a special audit because it was required by the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, which provided loans for the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines. 

The DOH is confident of the results that the special audit will yield, Vergeire said. 

“The first time we procured these vaccines, confident tayo dahil alam natin (we’re confident because we know) we bought these vaccines to protect Filipino people,” she told reporters.

 

Former Health Secretary Francisco Duque on Wednesday denied preventing a COA audit on the procurement of coronavirus jabs. He said he even wrote last year to then-COA chair Michael Aguinaldo for the agency to conduct a “special audit”.

 

Former National Task Force against COVID-19 Chief Implementer Carlito Galvez Jr. added that all transactions were “above board.”

Galvez explained the contract with manufacturers only prevents the disclosure of the deals to the public, but not with the COA. 

“We never said that COA cannot look into it,” Galvez said. 

— Report from Raphael Bosano, ABS-CBN News