MANILA, Philippines — Ahead of the rolling out of the government's national vaccination program, the national police in coordination with the health department is set to mobilize police teams tasked with monitoring potential black-market activities for counterfeit and unauthorized coronavirus vaccines that may have entered the country, its chief said Thursday.
"I have taken to task the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, Intelligence Group, and other National Operational Support Units to organize operating teams that will launch operations to prevent the entry, distribution, and sale of COVID-19 vaccines without proper authorization from the concerned government agencies," Police Gen. Debold Sinas, PNP chief, said in a statement sent to reporters.
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"As emphasized by the Department of Health, National Task Force, and Food and Drug Administration, no particular brand of COVID-19 vaccine is authorized to be marketed commercially in the Philippines. The PNP will strictly implement this official policy, and take appropriate police action in accordance with existing laws," he also said.
The chief of police did not share the same sentiments in December when members of the Presidential Security Group—composed of both police and military personnel—took illegal and smuggled vaccines that did not yet have the green light from the country's Food and Drug Administration.
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Uniformed personnel like the police and the military are listed as the fifth priority in the government plan to vaccinate Filipinos against COVID-19. In an interview aired over ANC's "Headstart" at the time, Food and Drug Administration Director-General Eric Domingo was quoted as saying: "Definitely somebody definitely did something wrong. With the FDA law, it says it is illegal to import, distribute, manufacture, use unregistered drugs."
At the time, Sinas was careful to point out that he had not heard of any cases of cops taking smuggled vaccines within the agency, though he remained relatively mum on the controversial vaccinations and the violations they constituted. "Of course I will be happy if we're considered for earlier vaccination because it helps us if we're considered for it," Sinas said then in mixed Filipino and English at a press briefing.
Government officials defended the move, saying it was done to protect the president from possible coronavirus transmission. Like most violations of health protocols, the issue has since gone unaddressed, with no less than presidential spokesperson Harry Roque tagging it as a closed issue and urging the public to "stop" discussions on it.
Whether the vaccination was meant to protect the president or not completely misses the point, as healthcare collectives have said that "24 million health workers and patients were bypassed, and especially leapfrogged by those not even listed yet were able to receive it illegally."
Total infections among the PNP's ranks have only continued to grow in the 330 days since they were put in charge to carry out the coronavirus-induced lockdown imposed throughout the country in a bid to prevent the spread of the virus.
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Earlier Tuesday, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III suggested that police and military personnel, who are fifth in the order of priority beneficiaries, could be inoculated with extra doses from this first batch of vaccines.
The Department of Health in its latest case update Wednesday afternoon reported that the national caseload had breached 541,560.