Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 12) — The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) on Wednesday said it is securing funding to keep the country’s digital vaccination certificate system running.
In a Palace briefing, DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy discussed issues relating to VaxCertPh after some users reportedly experienced technical issues with it.
According to Uy, the government’s contract with the third-party provider of the software used for the platform technically expired on Sept. 30. He said that before this, the Department of Health (DOH) was supposed to manage operations of the system which has so far been maintained by the DICT.
However, he said they were informed that DOH personnel are not yet ready to run it.
“So, ni-request nila [they requested] for DICT to continue running the system for them in the meantime until they have the capacity to absorb the system,” he said.
The official added that the DOH also said it doesn’t have the budget to renew the contract.
“Sabi nila wala, so now, pinasa ulit sa DICT. Eh hindi po naka-program sa budget namin ‘yung renewal [They said they have no budget, so they passed it again to DICT. But the renewal wasn’t part of the programmed funds in our budget] because we were expecting that by Sept. 30, we would turn it over already to DOH and they will assume the full operations and responsibility and the funding for that,” he said.
“It’s an unprogrammed expense that DICT has to assume in order to keep that running, so we’re still in that stage kaya medyo may kaunting challenge dyan [that’s why there’s a bit of challenge there]. But we’re fixing that,” he added.
The digital vaccination certificate issued via VaxCertPH includes the holder’s personal data, the brand and lot number of the vaccines, as well as the date and place of inoculation. It may be used to prove COVID-19 vaccination status for international and domestic travel.
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