Health Secretary Francisco Duque denied that he was the cause of delay for the purchasing of COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer.
Duque said that the confidential disclosure agreement has to go through study to make sure there is no onerous provision for the government.
“There’s no such thing that I did not act quick enough,” he said.
“As a physician, my overriding principle in practice of medicine is to err on the side of caution,” he told ABS-CBN News.
Duque also said that Pfizer did not promise 10 million doses of vaccine in January.
Some officials claimed that Duque dropped the ball in securing the vaccine.
“In July, we passed the ball to him. Instead of aiming at the hoop, he scratched his balls so he dropped the ball even as time was running out. Then, Singapore grabbed and shot the ball. Now, they have the vaccines and we don’t,” Senator Ping Lacson said in a tweet.
“It was all indicative numbers. There was no definitive supply,” he said.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr., in a tweet Tuesday, had said “somebody dropped the ball” in the race to get the first batch of vaccines from Pfizer.
