Locsin fumes over ‘broken promise’ of Moderna jabs for DFA; Roque refuses to comment
By Sydney Antoinette Alipao
PHOTO: SATM News |
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque Jr. parted himself from the furious Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. last Tuesday after claiming that his department and the diplomatic corps missed out on a promised 30,000 doses of US-made Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.
“Hindi ko na po pinakikialaman iyan. Bahala na po kung iyan ay nangyari o hindi, hindi ko na po alam iyan,” said Roque.
According to Roque, he does not have anything to do with the lost COVID-19 vaccines, “Sila na po ang tanungin ninyo."
Locsin, on Sunday, expressed his dismay about the thousands of missing vaccines on Twitter and said that he was "embarrassed."
"I was promised 30,000 Moderna for my people and the diplomatic corps. My people who are frontliners. I don’t know where the f**k that went, but words cannot express my embarrassment and anger. No one endangers my people. No one," Locsin wrote in his tweet.
Last December 2020, Locsin also expressed his anger on Twitter about mishandled vaccines when 10 million doses of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines, which were scheduled to arrive on January 2021, did not arrive because somebody committed a mistake.
He mentioned this after a series of tweets lauding the country’s purchase of 25 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from Chinese firm Sinovac.
"That said my thanks just the same to US Sec of State Mike Pompeo we — Babe Romualdez and I — got 10 million doses of Pfizer financed by World Bank and ADB to be shipped thru FEDEX to Clark in January," Locsin said.
"But somebody dropped the ball. I have steel ball bearings. I just need a slingshot," he added.
Report source: GMA News