Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 7) — The government has so far secured funds amounting to $800 million (about ₱40 billion) from multilateral banks for the procurement of COVID-19 booster shots.
In a statement on Friday, the Department of Finance (DOF) said the following loan deals have been sealed:
— $250-million loan agreement with the Asian Development Bank
— $250-million accord with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
— $300-million loan from the World Bank
All three agreements were signed last month, Finance Undersecretary Bayani Agabin told President Rodrigo Duterte during a meeting on Tuesday.
Agabin said they are just waiting for the opinion of the Department of Justice for the effectivity of the financing agreements.
“We expect everything, we expect (these loans) to be effective around, towards the latter part of January. So that will give us funds to purchase our COVID booster shots,” he added.
Agabin also noted that the Bureau of Customs already cleared shipments of 210.44 million vaccine doses as of Dec. 30, 2021.
The deliveries, he said, are “more than enough” to vaccinate 100% of the country’s population of adults and children aged 12-17.
Earlier in December, the government opened the booster shots for all fully vaccinated adults.
Data from the National COVID-19 Vaccination Dashboard showed that as of Jan. 4, 65.63% of the target population are already fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
As for funds for regions hit by Typhoon Odette, Agabin said the DOF withdrew $80 million from the World Bank’s $500-million 4th Disaster Risk Management Development Program with a catastrophic Deferred Drawdown Option last Dec. 27.
“Within the week we will draw again $120 million from the same loan facility from the World Bank, that’s equivalent to ₱6 billion to fund the rehabilitation and recovery efforts in connection with Odette,” he added.
