Villar group orders COVID-19 vaccines for employees, public donation

The Villar Group, through its home furnishing business AllHome, signed a deal with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to procure COVID-19 vaccines for its employees and donations to the public.

In a statement on Friday, the Villar Group said it had signed an agreement with the national government, local government units, private sector donors and AstraZeneca to secure additional doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as the country prepares for its immunization program this year.

“The Villar Group believes in protecting employees and their families. This vaccine will save not only lives but jobs and businesses as well” Chairman Manuel B. Villar Jr. said.

“The vaccine will not only provide protection from the virus, but it will help boost consumer confidence to go out again. It is by helping each other during this time that we can start our journey to economic recovery,” he added.

Meanwhile, Camille Villar, AllHome vice chairman, said in support of the nation’s fight against the pandemic, the company will continue to find more ways of extending help to more Filipinos amid the health crisis.

“[T]hrough advocating for safe shopping in-store and providing contactless shopping options to consumers, donating learning tools to aid in DepEd’s distance-learning program, and most recently, the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines for AllHome employees and the public,” she said.

AllHome said the donation was made possible through Go Negosyo’s “A Dose of Hope Program.”

Earlier, Senator Cynthia Villar said the private companies in the country who had acquired COVID-19 vaccines through the tripartite agreement with the government and manufacturers should be given a free hand in choosing who among its employees would be inoculated first.

The senator gave this remark after hearing from Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion that after the private sector procures the vaccines, these will all go to the Department of Health.

In response, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. explained that such is the procedure, because it is the DOH that will facilitate the actual inoculation.

He added that the prioritization among essential and frontline workers to be vaccinated is being imposed according to the guidelines of the World Health Organization.

But Villar continued to emphasize that all employees of private firms must be given the chance to be vaccinated if their company bought supplies.

The Philippines had allocated P73.2 billion for the procurement of the vaccines, with P40 billion coming from multilateral agencies, P20 billion from domestic sources, and P13.2 billion from bilateral agreements.

Meanwhile, the private sector has committed to procuring as much as six million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from British pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca, half of which will be donated to the Philippine government. — DVM, GMA News