The Philippines Set to Purchase Chinese Vaccines

The Philippines is finalizing negotiations with the Chinese company Sinovac Biotech to purchase 25 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine, leading to a backlash among Filipinos skeptical of the country’s warm ties with Beijing.

Carlito Galvez, the Philippines vaccine chief, said on December 13 the country aimed to have the initial Sinovac order delivered by March.

“We have already conveyed to them our needs, 25 million for 2021,” Galvez said at a news conference. Philippine officials met with Sinovac representatives the week before, he said.

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said at the time the Chinese vaccines would become available before those from Western providers. Developed countries have gobbled up the lion’s share of vaccine orders, leaving developing nations out in the cold.

But opposition senators are casting doubt on the government’s claims that it was limited in choosing who to rely on for its vaccines.

Senator Panfilo Lacson accused the country’s health department of bungling a deal to acquire 10 million COVID-19 vaccine doses from Pfizer, while fellow Senator Grace Poe warned the department could face criminal charges over the scuttled deal.

“I think it’s really tragic, and to an extent criminal on [the health department’s] part for having missed the chance of acquiring 10 million vaccines,” Poe told CNN Philippines’ The Source.

Francisco Duque, the country’s embattled health secretary, allegedly failed to sign a disclosure agreement on time after months of negotiations started by Philippine Ambassador to the U.S. Jose Manuel Romualdez and Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr.

Duque denied the allegations and claimed the papers his office had received only represented the early steps of negotiations with Pfizer.

Senator Francis Pangilinan raised the possibility that health officials may have been waiting to receive kickbacks for the purchase deal – a common practice among corrupt public officials in the Philippines. Duque insisted neither he nor other health officials had attempted to receive commissions from the deal.

Romualdez also said the U.S. biopharmaceutical firms Moderna and Arcturus had agreed to supply the Philippines with between 4 and 25 million doses of their respective COVID-19 vaccines by the second half of 2021.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Moderna’s vaccine for emergency use. Arcturus has said it expects to begin distributing its vaccine in the first quarter of 2021 after encouraging results in phase one and two of its clinical trials.

Duterte’s office has insisted Beijing will not use the vaccine to pressure the Philippines on issues such as its claims on Philippine waters in the South China Sea. “I think the possibility of using the vaccine as pressure as far as the Philippines is concerned is almost nil,” Roque said.

The spokesperson also told Filipinos to count on Duterte’s “personal friendship” with Chinese leader XI Jinping to ensure Beijing will not attempt to pressure the Philippines.

Filipinos have many reasons to be skeptical. Beijing has frequently sent vessels into the West Philippine Sea, as the Philippines calls the South China Sea, and Duterte has been criticized for taking a passive stance toward the Chinese government’s territorial incursions.

The government also has a history of bad faith negotiations allegedly designed to favor Chinese bidders on infrastructure projects, such as a series of controversial dams and the Sangley Point International Airport.

The Philippines said in November that it intends to vaccinate 60 to 70 million people over the next few years, falling short of an earlier promise made by Duterte to inoculate the entire population.