Vaccinating adolescents aged 12 to 17 and acquiring Covid-19 booster shots for both adults and adolescents will cost the government an additional P75 billion, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez said.
Dominguez told reporters on Thursday that they are expecting to vaccinate about 15 million adolescents after some countries have announced that they would also be vaccinating teenagers apart from adults.
Previously, the Philippine government was targeting to vaccinate a total of 70 million adults by year-end.
“With the announcement that some countries will inoculate teenagers and the expectation that we eventually will follow suit, we are anticipating an additional expenditure of about P20 billion to vaccinate the approximately 15 million kids aged 12 to 17,” Dominguez said.
“As we are also anticipating acquiring booster shots for next year for about 85 million teenagers and adults we will be needing another P55 billion,” he added.
Sought to clarify whether they are eyeing to vaccinate 15 million adolescents this year, Dominguez said: “To be conservative, I assume that it will commence this year but the final decision will be with the health authorities.”
As of Wednesday, only more than half a million Filipinos or 0.74 percent of the original 70-million target by the government have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
To fund these additional vaccination expenses while maintaining an “acceptable” fiscal deficit, Dominguez said the country would most likely “need to reallocate funds.”
For this year, the government expects the budget deficit to reach a new record-high of P1.78 trillion, or 8.9 percent of GDP, even higher than P1.37 trillion or 7.6 percent deficit-to-GDP ratio it recorded last year.
President Duterte on Wednesday signed Administrative Order (AO) 41 ordering agencies under the Executive branch to identify “savings” from their released appropriations under the 2020 national budget.
Savings refers to portions or balances of any released appropriations which have not been obligated as a result of completion, final discontinuance or abandonment of a program, activity, or project for which the appropriation is authorized; or implementation of measures resulting in improved systems and efficiencies and thus enabled an agency to meet and deliver the required or planned targets, programs and services approved therein at a lesser cost, according to Section 67 of the General Provisions under the 2020 General Appropriations Act (GAA).
However, Dominguez said they might still have to determine how much savings would be gathered following this move.
Asked where the government is eyeing to use the savings, Budget Secretary Wendel E. Avisado told the BusinessMirror the economic managers still need to discuss possible sources of funds and their respective usage.
“The economic team will still have to discuss the possible sources of funds and their usage then we will inform the legislature at the proper time,” Avisado said.
Under the AO, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) will determine and recommend to the President the amounts that can be declared as savings under the national budget based on the submission of reports submitted by the agencies.
Apart from this, DBM was also ordered to determine and recommend to the President actual deficiencies in any existing item of appropriation under the same GAA that need to be augmented, including if necessary, items of appropriation for the provision of emergency subsidies to low-income households and disadvantaged or displaced workers affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.