Philippines to seal $900-M loan deals for COVID-19 booster shots —Dominguez

The Philippine government is expected to secure, by the end of the year, around $900 million worth of loans to fund the purchase of COVID-19 booster shots, which are under unprogrammed appropriations in the proposed P5.024-trillion national budget for 2022, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said Tuesday.

“In the national government’s 2022 National Expenditure Program, there is an allocation of P45.3 billion (around $900 million) for the procurement of COVID-19 vaccine booster shots under unprogrammed appropriations,” Dominguez said in a statement.

Dominguez said that the National Task Force Against COVID-19, the Department of Health, and the Department of Finance “have initially identified multilateral and bilateral financial institutions as possible sources of funding for this allocation.”

“In fact, exploratory discussions with the Asian Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the World Bank have been initiated to help determine possible funding sources for additional vaccine requirements in 2022,” the Finance chief said.

“We expect to execute loan agreements towards the end of the year,” he added.

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) defines unprogrammed appropriations as those items which will be funded “when revenue collection exceeds targets and when additional grants of foreign funds are generated.”

The DBM earlier revealed that the P45-billion budgetary requirement for buying COVID-19 vaccine booster shots is not yet funded under the proposed 2022 budget, pending solid findings that they are essential. 

Health experts are currently divided on the necessity of booster shots to counter waning efficacy of COVID-19 vaccine doses over time. The Department of Health said that there is no complete evidence yet on the need for boosters, while the US has authorized Pfizer-BioNTech boosters for senior citizens and vulnerable sectors.

Possible funding sources

The DOF earlier said the government has secured $1.2 billion or about P58.4 billion in loans from multilateral lenders to procure COVID-19 vaccines for at least 70 million Filipinos or 100% of the country’s adult population.

The financing secured for COVID-19 vaccines procurement are comprised of the following:

• $500 million for the Philippines’ COVID-19 Emergency Response Project—Additional Financing (PCERP-AF) from the World Bank
• $400 million Second Health System Enhancement to Address and Limit COVID-19 (HEAL 2) under the Asia Pacific Vaccine Facility of the Asian Development Bank
• $300 million HEAL 2 loan from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

Despite placing the booster shots under unprogrammed appropriations, DBM officer-in-charge Undersecretary Tina Rose Canda said the amount for the whole immunization or the vaccination requirements for the two shots, or even one shot vaccine protocol, is included in the national budget. 

“In fact, we can inoculate 80 million people this year given our current budget,” Canda said during a House budget hearing in August.

“Rest assured that sufficient funds are in the budget of the DOH for the procurement of the vaccines,” she added. — BM, GMA News