Journal of Public Health | pp.
1–2
Correspondence
Harnessing strategic policy on COVID-19 vaccination rollout
in the Philippines
The World Health Organization developed and disseminated
a vaccine introduction readiness assessment tool.1 This key
instrument guides all countries to be strategic in COVID-
19 vaccination rollout that includes decisive planning and
implementation, data and monitoring, supply and logistics,
and acceptance and demand.
In a recent correspondence, Cordero2 has succinctly
pointed out that, ‘every person deserves the right to choose
which brand of vaccine he or she will get for protection.’ The
author has rightfully reiterated that public officials should not
take away the fundamental right of human freedom in the
implementation of the government’s COVID-19 vaccination
program. In other words, the government’s key role is to be
proactive, transparent and efficient in COVID-19 vaccines
procurement and rollout to promote public trust to reach
herd immunity.
However, Philippines’ recent House Bill 9252 or ‘Manda-
tory COVID-19 Immunization Act of 2021’ alarmed the
public as it sought to require all Filipinos to receive the vaccine
for free at any government hospital or health center, except
for those persons unfit due to medical conditions.3 At the
moment, the said proposed bill is too premature to push
through due to uncertainties and vulnerabilities of COVID-
19 vaccination program in the Philippines. Indeed, freedom
to choose vaccine must be encouraged by the government
because most Filipinos mistrust China’s Sinovac.4
Thus, this paper addresses two salient points. First, it crit-
ically analyzes the urgent need to harness the Philippine
government’s strategic policy-making, decision-making and
centralization of delegation on the acceleration of COVID-
19 vaccination rollout. Second, it strongly urges the Philippine
government’s Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for Manage-
ment of Emerging Infectious Diseases and the National Task
Force (NTF) to provide a more concrete, detailed and long-
term strategic plan to the public by leveraging multilateral and
multi-faceted approach on its ‘focus and expand’ strategy5 on
COVID-19 vaccination program.
To expedite the procurement and administration of
COVID-19 vaccines, Philippine President Rodrigo Roa
© Crown copyright 2021.
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Duterte recently signed into law the ‘COVID-19 Vaccination
Program Act of 2021.’6 This law allocates = P500 million for the
COVID-19 National Vaccine Immunity Fund to compensate
vaccine recipients who will experience serious adverse effects
or die thereafter the vaccination. It guides strategic policy-
making, decisions and delegation of IATF and the NTF.
However, efficient implementation of COVID-19 vacci-
nation rollout still remains unclear. The government must
address a joint coordinated action plan and implementation
of strategic policy, reflect on critical loopholes and empower
more centralized multi-faceted delegation to qualified public
and private sectors to address lack of sufficient frontline
healthcare manpower, healthcare facilities and concrete
mobilization through multilateral vaccination rollout.
The Philippines shows a gradual progress but slow vac-
cination rollout. With the previous arrival of vaccine doses
from Sinovac-made ‘CoronaVac’ and Sputnik V, the country
received another more than 2 million doses from Oxford
AztraZeneca, on 8 May 2021 and 193, 050 doses from BioN-
Tech Pfizer on 10 May 2021. But, IATF and NTF against
COVID-19 ‘focus and expand’ strategy reveal inefficiency
of vaccination rollout of Oxford AztraZeneca vaccines that
will expire on 30 June 2021. Filipinos cannot afford to waste
these vaccines. The public urges the government to let private
sectors help in vaccine rollout.7 This implies leveraging strate-
gic preparedness on vaccination rollout as the Philippines
expects more 20 million vaccines to arrive on June 2020.
Therefore, the Philippines’ COVID-19 vaccination program
should harness a multilateral and multi-faceted strategic policy
to address the loopholes of accelerating vaccination rollout.
Acknowledgement
No Funding was received from this paper.
Conflict of interest
The author declares no conflict of interest in this paper.
1
2 JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

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