President Duterte increases reward to P50M to person who will discover vaccine
President Rodrigo Duterte, in an online press briefing today with the Inter-Agency Task Force, said that the reward to any Filipino who can develop a vaccine against Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) will be increased to Fifty Million Pesos (Php 50,000,000.00).
Earlier this week, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said that President Rodrigo Duterte is offering a reward of Ten Million Pesos for this awaited vaccine discovery.
However, the president, seeing the urgency for discovering a vaccine for the dreaded disease and the efforts of Filipino scientists, said that he is raising the reward from Php 10,000,000.00 to Php 50,000,000.00 to the group or any Filipino who makes the discovery.
Substantial Grant to UP and PGH
Aside from the reward, the president has previously said that a “substantial grant” will be given to the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) and the University of the Philippines (UP) which will be used for the discovery of the needed vaccine.