Nearly 100 Philippine firms will receive their first batch of 1.3 million COVID-19 shots from Britain's Oxford-AstraZeneca next month, an adviser of President Rodrigo Duterte said on Tuesday.

The companies are among the first batch that entered a tripartite deal with the government for the AstraZeneca jabs, Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Secretary Joey Concepcion said in a public briefing.

Private firms and local governments helped the national government to lock in a total of 17 million AstraZeneca shots, which the Philippine drug regulator earlier cleared for emergency use.

Concepcion said he would back a proposed law to make COVID-19 vaccines mandatory if the turnout will languish around 60 percent.

“The only solution to our pandemic problem and our economic problem is the vaccine,” he said.

“Every citizen has to do their civic duty to take the vaccine,” he added.

The Philippines has taken delivery of 4.040 million COVID-19 shots, of which at least 1.9 million have been administered as of May 2.

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