- MITCH M. LIPA
The municipality of Candoni, the smallest town in Negros Occidental, will have to rely on the provincial government for its COVID-19 vaccines supply due to lack of funds.
Dr. Annabelle Guardiario, municipal health officer, said Thursday, Feb. 11, that while big cities are allocating millions of pesos from their local funds to acquire vaccines, the local officials of Candoni are having problems of looking for available budget.
A coordination meeting was held on Feb. 10 participated by all municipal and city health officers in the province where the vaccination roll-out plan was discussed.
Candoni has a total population of 22,878 from nine barangays.
The town targets to vaccinate 200 residents, who are medical frontliners, for the first batch of vaccine it will receive.
Guardiario said she will submit the names of those who will be included for the first batch of vaccination.
She said that she will also wait for instructions from the PHO as to the set-up of the cold storage for vaccines and their transport protocols since small towns like Candoni do not have the logistics.
Other smaller LGUs like San Enrique and Don Salvador Benedicto said they hope to allocate only between P3 million and P4 million for vaccines and expressed hopes that the balance will be shouldered by the national and provincial governments.
Earlier, Valladolid Mayor Enrique Miravalles said the chief executives of towns with lesser income are hoping to get free COVID-19 vaccines for their constituents.
Miravalles, president of League of Municipalities of the Philippines-Negros Occidental, said the league will look into how much the national government can provide for third and fourth class municipalities since these local government units receive lower Internal Revenue Allotment share.
He noted that a fourth class municipality can set aside only up to P5 million for the purchase of vaccines.
The amount will cover only a small percentage of the total population in every town if the vaccine is pegged at the average of P2,500 per dose. – MML
