Mayor flip-flops on COVID vax blame

By Joseph B.A. Marzan

In just four days, Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas gave contradicting statements against the Duterte administration on the purported excessive supply of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines.

On Monday, Treñas told Bombo Radyo Iloilo that the previous government was to blame for the oversupply of COVID vaccines in the country, including in Iloilo City.

The mayor made the statement even as he mentioned that the city government was in the process of terminating its contract with AstraZeneca for the Vaxzevria (formerly Covishield and AZD-1222) due to vaccines that remained unused or were delayed in delivery.

The purchase was based on a tripartite agreement between the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company, for an undisclosed amount, with the Iloilo City government and the national Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF).

“The [General Services Office] is waiting for assurance from the national government to replace all expired vaccines,” said Treñas.

“It really was in excess because what happened in [the Duterte] administration was that they didn’t tell us how much they bought. We can’t blame anybody but the national government because that was a tripartite agreement,” he remarked.

“The people who signed [the tripartite agreement] were [COVID vaccine czar Carlito] Galvez, [then-Health Secretary Francisco] Duque Jr., [Treñas], and the company. Who would we blame? There were two of them in the national government who signed, that means that if they knew that there were a lot of vaccines, they shouldn’t have signed,” the mayor added.

But in speaking to journalists on Thursday, Treñas changed his tone, slightly but significantly, by saying that the IATF was not to be blamed.

This, while noting that the national government was unaware of the number of donated vaccines it would receive from other countries and international bodies.

“We cannot blame the IATF. It was signed at a time when we were not sure how many vaccines we will get, and we did not even know that there will be [vaccine] donations coming from the international community. That is why we were able to get Moderna [and] Pfizer vaccines,” he said.

“When the first-world countries already used up all their quantities of vaccines, and they had excess because they had also more than enough, they started donating to us, and we started getting more than enough, so we cannot blame the IATF and the local government, because at the time, we tried to get as many as we can. We couldn’t really ensure how many vaccines we could buy, and at the time, people were dying. So, the IATF, together with the local government, entered into a tripartite agreement to make sure that vaccines will be available,” he added.

In a text message to Daily Guardian on Monday, Treñas doubled down on his latest statement, saying that the local government and the IATF were only responding to the COVID situation.

“We did not blame anyone, but we all tried to look for vaccines wherever we can – I think not only in the Philippines but other countries as well had the same situation. The [tripartite] agreement was signed by all of us,” he said.

Treñas himself raised the termination of the AstraZeneca agreement more than a year ago on March 7, 2022, when he determined that the city’s order had a surplus of 600,000 doses.

The city also donated doses to Iloilo province (30,000 doses) and 2,000 doses each to local government units under the Metro Iloilo-Guimaras Economic Development Council (MIGEDC) Guimaras and to the municipal governments of Cabatuan, Leganes, Oton, Pavia, San Miguel, and Santa Barbara.