PH Red Cross to receive 1st batch of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine on June 26 — Gordon
“You know why we ordered? We ordered, we put out our own money because hindi dumadating yung mga vaccines [the vaccines are not arriving]. Nakitulong na kami [We decided to help],” the senator said.
“Our objective is to vaccinate as fast as we can and if people can afford to pay, we can recover our cost. We don’t charge extra, we just make sure we’re able to vaccinate a lot more people,” he added.
Gordon, however, clarified that the Red Cross is not “selling” the doses but instead charging for them to recover the cost the PRC paid for the jabs.
“Merong nangiintriga kaagad, bakit daw namin binebenta. ‘Di kami nagbebenta, cost recovery ang tawag diyan at sa batas [Some are sowing intrigue, they’re asking why are we selling. We are not selling. That’s called cost recovery and under the law] we are allowed to recoup our investment to help the country,” Gordon said.
He added that those who will avail of PRC’s offer of Moderna vaccine doses should donate for the vaccination of “one less fortunate person.”
“Tawag ko diyan [That’s what I call] vaccine samaritan,” he said.
The Philippines has so far received a total of 16.2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines.
The vaccine brands currently being used by the government in its inoculation drive are CoronaVac (Sinovac) , AstraZeneca, Sputnik V and Pfizer-BioNTech, some of which were donated by the World Health Organization-led COVAX facility.