VaxCertPH software expired in September; DICT says it's fixing issue

The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) on Wednesday said it is currently fixing issues as the software for the digital vaccine certificate system VaxCertPH expired last September 30.

At a press briefing, DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy said that they were already coordinating with the Department of Health (DOH) prior to the expiration of the software provider’s contract.

“Yung vaccination certificate ang ano po natin doon we are coordinating with the DOH dahil the software we are using, which is contracted with the provider, with third party provider technically nag-expire po ng September 30,” he said.

“Prior to that time, we were in talks with DOH na ang dapat po kasi after DICT maintained it, we trained people in DOH to do it upang maturnover na namin yung buong sistema sa DOH at sila na magpalakad non,” he said.

However, Uy said they were recently informed by DOH officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire that the personnel of the DOH are not yet ready to accept and run the system.

Uy said the Health department also requested that the DICT must continue running the system for them “until they have the capacity to absorb the system.”

“Then we asked them, okay, so we will continue running it but we need to renew yung kontrata dahil September 30 nagexpire yon at tinanong namin ang DOH kung may budget ba kayo so we can continue with the contract,” the DICT secretary said.

“Sabi nila wala, so now pinasa ulit sa DICT, eh hindi ho nakaprogram yan sa budget namin yung renewal because we were expecting that by September 30 we will turn it over already to the DOH and they will assume the full operation, responsibility and the funding for that,” he added.

The DICT secretary said that currently they are in the process of renewing and fixing the budget issues to run the system.

“Now, we are in the process of renewing that and medyo humagilap po kami ng pondo because it is unprogrammed expense that DICT has to assume in order to keep that running. So we are still on that stage. Kaya may konting challenge lang but we are fixing that,” he added.

GMA News Online sought comment from the DOH on the matter but it has yet to respond as of this posting.

Meanwhile, several individuals earlier complained about missing records or errors in their personal data as they applied online to get a vaccination certificate through the VaxCertPH.

They said they could not proceed in securing a certificate as their records were not found in the database of the DICT.

The application for the vaccine certificate can be accessed at https://vaxcert.doh.gov.ph/.—LDF, GMA News