‘No US conditions for vaccine, Pemberton’

MANILA, Philippines — There are no strings attached in the government’s efforts to secure COVID vaccines being developed by companies in the United States, the Department of Health (DOH) said yesterday.

At a press conference, DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that in their discussions with US pharmaceutical companies, no conditions were given to the Philippines in exchange for the COVID vaccines.

“All of the vaccines will have to go through our regulatory process. We have not received any condition based on the discussion that we had with different manufacturers from US,” she said.

Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Manuel Romualdez also clarified yesterday that there was no pressure from Washington for the release of convicted US Marine Lance Corporal Joseph Scott Pemberton.

“There was no pressure or any indication that the United States was pushing. They obviously just want to protect their soldiers, which they do all over the world,” Romualdez said in an interview with ANC.

The US, he said, was caught by surprise when President Duterte granted Pemberton absolute pardon.

“As a matter of fact they were caught by surprise…even US Ambassador (Sung) Kim was surprised by the President’s decision to pardon Pemberton,” he said.

Pemberton was convicted of killing Filipina transgender Jennifer Laude in Olongapo City in 2014.

He was sentenced in December 2015 to six to 10 years in prison for homicide.

Last week, the Olongapo regional trial court ordered the release of Pemberton due to good behavior.

Romualdez said as a former prosecutor, the President knew how long the process of release could take.

“So he was just being fair, that it’s going to be given anyway. He just wanted to cut to the chase and simply went ahead and it is a prerogative of the President,” Romualdez said.

“This is not abnormal at all that a president or a head of state can actually pardon a citizen of another country especially if they feel that it’s the right thing to do,” he said.

Earlier, presidential spokesman Harry Roque had expressed belief that President Duterte granted Pemberton absolute pardon so the Philippines could be given priority in the vaccines being developed in the US.

Roque was unusually quiet yesterday after Foreign Affairs Sec. Teodoro Locsin Jr. virtually slammed him for saying that President Duterte’s grant of pardon to Pemberton could be an exchange for the country’s access to US-made COVID vaccines.

Roque did not respond to queries by The STAR when pressed for his reaction to Locsin’s statement, which was seen by many as a public rebuke by a fellow Cabinet member.

Roque was instead “busy” telling the public through his social media account that he has tested negative for COVID-19.

He added that his security aide also tested negative after he got a positive result last weekend, which prompted Roque to undergo self-isolation.

Vergeire reiterated that as a policy, all vaccines that would be used in the Philippines would be subjected to a regulatory process to ensure their safety and effectiveness in combatting COVID-19.

Among the vaccine manufacturers in the US that DOH is having negotiations with are Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna.

Local clinical trials

The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) said that the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) has approved the zoning guidelines they have crafted for the coronavirus candidate vaccine clinical trials to be conducted soon.

Science Secretary Fortunato dela Peña said that in the guidelines, the DOST has identified the eight zones where the clinical trials would enlist volunteer participants.

Of the eight zones, Dela Peña said that six are in Metro Manila, one in Cavite and one in Cebu City.

He said that Cavite was designated as a clinical trial zone due to the De La Salle Medical and Health Sciences Institute Medical school.

In Cebu City, Dela Peña said the Don Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center and the Chong Hua Hospital would be tapped for the clinical trials.

He explained that the zoning guidelines for COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials were crafted with the help of their vaccine expert Dr. Nina Gloriani, the Department of Health Epidemiology Bureau and the assistance of the IATF sub-technical working group for international collaborations for COVID-19 vaccine development.

The said guidelines, he said, were prepared to avoid site competition, especially in the World Health Organization Solidarity Vaccine Trials and those of the privately funded independent vaccine trials.

While awaiting the WHO’s release of the protocol and the list of vaccines that will be included in the Solidarity Trial, the vaccine teams regularly attend the WHO virtual weekly meetings to further discuss the laboratory procedures, epidemiological data collection, sites preparedness dashboards of the said trial, among others, the DOST chief explained. - Sheila Crisostomo, Christina Mendez, Rainier Allan Ronda