61 cities eye purchasing COVID-19 vaccines for constituents — LCP

At least 61 cities plan to buy COVID-19 vaccines for their residents, a government official said Monday.

At the Laging Handa briefing, League of Cities of the Philippines (LCP) president Evelio Leonardia said the initiative already had a financing commitment of more than P10 billion.

“We feel that this is our chance to be contributory to the national effort to vaccinate all our people and that is why we feel that this is a matter of teamwork,” said Leonardia, the mayor of Bacolod City which has allocated P300 million for the procurement of the AstraZeneca vaccine doses. 

Last week, President Rodrigo Duterte approved the proposal for local government units (LGUs) to enter into tripartite agreements with the national government and vaccine manufacturers.

Vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. said the agreements would enable the national government to put necessary resources for other LGUs which did not have sufficient financial resources to purchase vaccines on their own.

“There are about 8 of these different products and we are supposed to talk to each one of them and we should be able to relay all this information to the city mayors so that they can be properly guided,” Leonardia said.

There are 146 cities in the Philippines, according to the Department of the Interior and Local Government. —LDF, GMA News