MANUFACTURERS on Wednesday sought Senate intervention to work out the inclusion of their workers in the priority list for the government’s vaccination program, saying Covid-19 infections at the worksite are stalling the recovery of badly battered businesses.
While the business owners would have wanted to shoulder their workers’ vaccination, the cost of shuttle services alone, as well as installation of required health protocols in work places are “already killing us,” according to an official of the Confederation of Wearable Exporters of the Philippines (Conwep).
Maritess Agoncillo, Conwep executive director, told Sen. Imee Marcos and Koko Pimentel, chairmen of the Economic Affairs and of the Trade and Commerce committees, respectively, that the “immediate reclassification” of factory workers for inclusion in subsector priority A4 is of urgency to them, as “infections are happening each week” in many work sites and there is a huge cost both for labor and management from this.
Senator Marcos acknowledged that, indeed, “many employers are protesting” the non-inclusion of manufacturing, especially exports manufacturing, in the vaccine priority list.
Pimentel to call hearings
For his part, Sen. Koko Pimentel said he would call a hearing right away as soon as pending resolutions for an inquiry into the government procurement of urgent Covid-related supplies are referred to his Committee on Trade and Industry. The resolutions were earlier referred to the Committee on Health of Sen. Bong Go.
Marcos, as head of Economic Affairs, had called Wednesday’s joint hearing in relation to another resolution seeking to obtain updates on the government’s response in helping hard-hit industries amid the pandemic, where enforced and extended lockdowns shuttered businesses and displaced millions of workers.
Conwep and its allied Coalition of Philippine Manufacturers of Personal Protective Equipment (CPMP)—representing mostly re-purposed factories that responded to government’s call to ramp up PPE production at the height of the pandemic in 2020—lamented that of the P4.8-billion procurement package bidded out in the first series of biddings by the Department of Health and the Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC), their group got only 14 percent of contracts. The rest went to foreign suppliers. The groups said some shipments of “substandard” imported PPEs entered the country, mostly from China. See related story: “PPE makers to govt: ‘Buy local’ when getting Covid items.”
Marcos recalled that the local coalitions lost out in bulk of the biddings because of two apparent tweaks in the bidding requirements:
First, the insertion of the phrase “or its equivalent” in the required “Level 4” PPEs sought to be bought by the government. The Level 4 PPEs are “medical grade” ones and had in the past been made mostly in the US, but the local manufacturers are capable of making them.
Second, the bidders were required to deliver 1 million units in 15 days, which worked against local bidders because they were not yet stockpiling before the bidding was done. Apparently, some “parties have been stockpiling” and were thus ready to meet the very tight deadline, senators noted.
Moreover, according to CPMP, their bids, though “very competitive,” suffered as rivals’ bids “dove deeply.”
Sen. Nancy Binay wondered aloud why DOH would include the “or its equivalent” for the “Level 4” requirement when it had “no capacity to test” whether the goods offered were, indeed, medical grade.
The “introduction of the “or its equivalent” phrase in the bid requirements allowed for undue “discretion” for officials, Senator Pimentel lamented.
Ventilators, oxygen machines
Meanwhile, Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto wants to know if the DOH was finally able to buy enough ventilators, ICU units and high-flow oxygen machines for Covid patients.
“One year and one million cases after the country’s first recorded Covid-19 case, a count on the number of ICU beds, ventilators and critical care equipment in government hospitals is in order,” Recto reminded.
“In any war, we should always look at the logistics,” the senator said. “For the frontlines to keep on fighting, the supply lines must keep on running,” he added.
The senator suggested that as the nation grapples with another surge that saw Covid cases breach the one million-mark recently, the Senate should begin its “mandatory review” of DOH spending “to find out if funds meant “for ventilators, ICU equipment were indeed utilized.”
Recto raised the need for a Senate inquiry in the wake of reports that “the DOH bungled” the acquisition of 200 ICU beds offered by an Austrian company late last year that, he noted, the DOH has strongly denied.
He added, however, that the increase in the number of Covid-19 dedicated mechanical ventilators in private and public hospitals from 1,446 units in May 2020 to 2,601 units this month “does not seem to be commensurate with the need.”
“Another thing, we don’t know how many are for government hospitals. I got information that most of the allocation was for private hospitals,” Recto said. “The data should be unbundled so we will know the inventory in government hospitals. Here is where the poor people flock, so we should know if there are enough ICU units, ventilators, high-flow oxygen therapy machines,” he added.
Recalling the latest daily report by the DOH, he noted it also showed a nationwide total of 2,521 ICU units allocated for Covid-19 patients. “Again, this is a mix of government and private. But the important question is, is this enough?” Recto said. “When public hospitals start posting ‘No admission for Covid patients’ signs, then we know the answer.”
Recto recalled that the DOH’s capital outlays (CO) budget, or funds for equipment and buildings, for 2019 and 2020 was P29 billion, adding that “for this year, P14.7 billion was appropriated by Congress, bringing the three-year CO total of the DOH to P43.7 billion.”
He noted, however, that allocations of the four Quezon City-based hospitals—which are classified as government corporations and whose annual operating budgets are not included in the Department of Health’s—were not included.
“This excludes the augmentations and realignments allowed by Bayanihan Act I and II,” Recto said. “For example, part of the DOH’s P35.51-billion share from Bayanihan II authorized expenses is the procurement of P3 billion worth of PPEs. Also included is P4.5 billion for the construction of temporary medical isolation facilities and field hospitals,” Recto said.
In its latest report, the DOH said there are 10,788 beds in wards for Covid-19 patients, from 1,751 in May 2020. The number of isolation beds also rose from 4,999 in May 2020 to 19,572 this month.
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