No funds for vaccination centers

By Fernan Angeles

WHOEVER drafted, deliberated and submitted the 2020 proposed national budget must have forgotten one of the most essential service aspects in the government’s COVID-19 action plan.

One of the President’s priority plans embarking on establishing vaccination centers at the police stations nationwide, does not have any allocation under the proposed 2021 national budget.

Interior Secretary Eduardo Año made the admission during the Senate hearing on the P244-billion budget for the Department of the Interior and Local Government and its attached agencies next year.

Asked how much was earmarked to at least prepare a storage system for the vaccines, Año said: “Sa ngayon po ay wala sapagkat ang binigay sa aming NEP ay this amount so we have to count on that amount only but if we are given the chance, we would like to prepare for that.”

Out of the P244 billion proposed budget of the DILG and its attached agencies, P190.5 billion will go to the Philippine National Police (PNP).

In August, Duterte ordered the PNP to clean up their precincts as he reiterated that the military and the police would take charge of the vaccination program against COVID-19.

“Hoy kayong mga police, makinig kayo sa akin ha. Linisan ninyo ‘yang presinto niyo and make it ready for the day, I pray that it would come. ‘Yun na lang mga police stations mas malapit tsaka marami,” Duterte said.

The Food and Drug Administration recently said having a COVID-19 vaccine commercially available in the Philippines in April 2021 would be the “best case scenario.”