Health Chief Duque Asserts No Corruption Amid Pfizer Deal
PFIZER VACCINE DEAL – Health Chief Francisco Duque III asserts that no corruption was present during the Pfizer vaccine deal.
Recently, Duque had been the subject of major scrutiny yet again for allegedly botching the Pfizer vaccine deal. According to Senator Panfilo Lacson, the Philippines could’ve procured Pfizer’s vaccine as early as January 2021.
However, he said that because of Duque didn’t pass the requirements, the deal went to Singapore instead. However, Duque defended himself saying that Pfizer made no promises to the Philippines.
Following this, several senators such as Kiko Pangilinan warned Duque of criminal raps if anomalies in the deal can be proven. As such, Duque responded to the criticisms and said that there was no corruption surrounding the controversial Pfizer deal.
According to an article from CNN, Duque stated:
Unang-una, hindi pwede magkaroon ng corruption dito because the President really abhors corruption. He will be the one to jail you himself if you are corrupt. He has already yanked out several of his Cabinet members.
Furthermore, the Health Chief, despite Pangilinan’s jests of “Kickvacs” instead of vaccines, said no such thing was present.
Still, with the missed documents, the Philippines may still procure the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine by the 2nd quarter of 2021 at the earliest.
However, with the entire world struggling to grab a hold of the vaccine, the Philippines needs to wait and see what opportunities come its way. Due to this, the government instead set their eyes on China’s Sinovac and Russia’s Sputnik V.
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