Palace unaware of who “dropped the ball” on Pfizer vaccine deal

December 16, 2020

A Palace official said on Wednesday that he was not aware who supposedly "dropped the ball" on the plan to purchase 10 million doses of Pfizer vaccines against coronavirus disease.

This was after Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. in his tweet said the Philippines was able to secure millions of vaccine doses from Pfizer, but plans were foiled because "someone dropped the ball."

"Don't know who supposedly 'dropped the ball'," said Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque in a Viber message to reporters when asked about Locsin's tweet.

He said that even National Task Force Against COVID-19 Chief Implementer Carlito Galvez Jr., who is also the vaccine czar, was not aware of the matter.

"Galvez is vaccine czar and he doesn't know either. What matter is we're full speed ahead on acquiring the vaccine from all sources," Roque added.

The Philippines is also eyeing to purchase COVID-19 vaccines from China, Russia, and United Kingdom, among others. Celerina Monte/DMS