Lacson, Pangilinan slam Roque: ‘Cockiness has no place in a pandemic’

MANILA, Philippines — “Cockiness has no place in a pandemic situation,” Sen. Panfilo Lacson said Tuesday following presidential spokesperson Harry Roque’s recent pronouncements that Filipinos should not be “picky” with the vaccine brand they would get from the government.

“Instead of building people’s confidence by starting with a higher efficacy vaccine and accomplish its intended purpose, to tell them they can’t be choosy is definitely not a smart information campaign to promote mass inoculation,” Lacson said in a tweet.

Cockiness has no place in a pandemic situation. Instead of building people’s confidence by starting with a higher efficacy vaccine and accomplish its intended purpose, to tell them they can’t be choosy is definitely not a smart information campaign to promote mass inoculation.

— PING LACSON (@iampinglacson) January 12, 2021

According to the senator, the government should launch its inoculation program with a vaccine with the highest efficacy rate to be able to raise public confidence.

“Aside from making the people feel that they are at the mercy of government authorities in the choice of vaccines to inoculate themselves with, it would be wise, even simple common sense, for the national government to kickstart its vaccination program with the highest efficacy vaccines in order to build the confidence of the Filipinos towards mass inoculation, especially because of their strong aversion to vaccination,” he said in another message.

In a press briefing on Monday, Roque said the Filipino public could not afford to be “picky” with the COVID-19 vaccines they would receive from the government, citing the large number of Filipinos who need to be vaccinated against the disease.

Roque also said that those on the priority list could opt out, but they would have to sign a waiver indicating that they passed up on the vaccine. So along with the rest of the public, they would just have to wait for other vaccines to become available.

‘Insensitive’

Sen. Francis Pangilinan also took exception to Roque’s statement, saying: “The remark is not only insensitive it doesn’t help any and in fact aggravates the already tenuous public mood against vaccination as a whole.”

“These words given by the spokesperon about the vaccine really add to the people’s loss of trust in vaccination,” he tweeted in Filipino.

Itong mga bitiw na salita ng spokesperson tungkol sa bakuna sa totoo lang ay nakakadagdag sa kawalan ng tiwala sa bakuna ng taumbayan. Hindi nakakatulong.

— Kiko Pangilinan (@kikopangilinan) January 12, 2021

RELATED STORY

Senators score Roque’s vaccine remark, say it could ‘aversion’ to vaccination

[atm]