MANILA, Philippines — The House of Representatives and the Senate are expected to pass on Monday a bill expediting the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines and providing for compensation to people who experience adverse effects after getting the shot.
House Speaker Lord Allan Velasco and Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri said in separate statements that their chambers will pass on Monday their respective versions of the measure, which has been certified as urgent by President Rodrigo Duterte.
Duterte’s certification of the bills as urgent would allow Congress to pass the measure on second and third reading on the same day, bypassing a rule which requires three days in between readings.
The Duterte administration pushed for this measure as vaccine manufacturers, spooked by the country’s previous experience with the dengue vaccine Dengvaxia, wanted to be free from any liability should adverse effects occur after vaccination.
The House and Senate versions of the bill both provide for an indemnity fund which would be used to pay people in case of treatment or death due to adverse reactions after immunization.
The Senate provides P500 million sourced from the contingent fund from the national budget for this purpose, while the House’s version is silent on where funding for the indemnity fund would come from.
The Senate also goes beyond providing for an indemnity fund as it seeks to grant people involved in the COVID-19 vaccination program immunity from suit, unless a claim is brought about by willful misconduct.
A provision giving all Filipinos vaccine passports containing information on their inoculation is also absent from the House version of the measure.
Given the differing provisions of the measures, it is likely that members from both houses would have to reconcile these in a bicameral conference committee. It is also possible for one of the chambers to simply adopt the other house’s version.
The arrival of doses of Pfizer/BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccines from the World Health Organization-led COVAX facility was delayed due to the need for an indemnity program that provides that the government, and not the manufacturers, would be held liable for adverse effects due to the shots.
Senators on Wednesday said that if they had been informed of the need for an indemnity fund sooner, they would have addressed it. Galvez, for his part, has said that this requirement was only recently raised by the COVAX facility and other suppliers.
The Philippines is among the laggards in Southeast Asia in terms of coronavirus vaccinations, with the country yet to finalize a single supply agreement for the coveted shots and yet to receive a single dose.
This, despite the country having the second-worst outbreak of COVID-19 in the region, with over 555,500 cases and over 11,000 deaths. — with a report from Bella Perez-Rubio
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