DOT rebuts ‘misleading’ claims on mega-vaxx facility
PUBLIC land for a public purpose. The Department of Tourism (DOT) said the Nayong Pilipino Foundation property in Parañaque “will not be used for any income-generating purpose,” and cited Presidential Decree No. 1445 (Government Auditing Code of the Philippines), which provides, “government funds or property shall be spent or used solely for public purposes.”
In a news statement on Wednesday, the DOT underlined, “The vaccination of thousands of Filipinos everyday is definitely for a public purpose; it is not a commercial venture.” The agency took to task former Nayong Pilipino Foundation executive director Lucille Karen E. Malilong-isberto on her alleged false claims and misrepresentations of the plan to use a portion of NPF’S property as the site of a mega-vaccination facility.
Meanwhile, in a letter to Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat dated May 6, 2021, Executive Secretary Salvador C. Medialdea said, “On behalf of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, I wish to inform you that the resignation [of Lucille Karen E. Malilong-isberto] has been accepted, effective 06 May 2021.”
The Office of the President released the letter on May 12, 2021. A Duterte appointee, NPF former executive director Malilong-isberto resigned as member of the foundation’s board of trustees on May 5 due to her opposition to government’s plan to establish a mega-vaxx facility on NPF property.
The DOT said that under the draft memorandum of agreement (MOA) between NPF and the Department of Health (DOH), the latter will oversee the administration of vaccines at the said site, in coordination with ICTSI Foundation, which is spending for the facility’s construction.
The DOT also dispelled the allegation of Malilong-isberto that the mega-vaxx plan was presented based on a non-clear Youtube video. The agency said they received a letter dated April 8, 2021 from NTF Secretary Galvez asking NPF to consider the proposal.
“On the same date, the NPF Board of Trustees, including Atty. Isberto, met and approved the request for the use of the said property,” said the DOT.
In two meetings between the NPF technical team and the team of architects hired by ICTSI to construct the temporary mega-vaxx facility, “[It] was the NPF who identified the area in the Parañaque property, where the facility is to be constructed.
The site that was offered by NPF, and accepted by the private sector architects, is the area where there would [be] minimal impact to the environment. Atty. Isberto was present in a meeting last April 17.”
The agency said the NPF was always updated on the designs of Architect Felipe Palafox Jr., who made sure “to build the temporary vaccination facility around existing grasslands and trees.” The minutes of the meetings between NPF officials and Palafox’s team would show the latter took the foundation’s design advice, said DOT.
The DOT said the mega-vaxx facility would not have been approved by the Inter-agency Task for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases “if there was no consensus among the 26 agencies of the government, headed by their respective Secretaries,” which comprise the task force.
The approval was contained in IATF Resolution 109 dated April 10, 2021, signed by the chairman, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III. As such, the DOT added, it was wrong to say the DOH did not support the proposal, as alleged by Malilong-isberto. The DOH even set up a technical working group under the National Vaccination Operations Center which met on April 15, April 19, April 26, April 28, and May 5. The former NPF Executive Director attended those meetings, in which DOH “has commended the DOT for this initiative.”
The DOT emphasized that its only role “was to facilitate the use of the NPF property because it is the mother agency of the NPF.”
Government is pinning its hopes on a mass vaccination program to contain the spread of the Covid-19, and allow the economy to reopen quicker. The gross domestic product contracted by 4.2 percent in the first quarter of 2021, the fifth quarter of decline since Covid-19.