Galvez ‘closes’ issue on vaccination of Quezon lawmaker

Vaccine czar Sec. Carlito Galvez Jr. File photo from the Senate PRIB

MANILA, Philippines — After looking into the incident, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. on Thursday “closed” the issue on a Quezon lawmaker’s vaccination since she was apparently included in the list of vaccine recipients.

Quezon Rep. Angelina “Helen” Tan, a doctor by profession, earlier said she was vaccinated at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center as part of her eldest son’s allocation for their family as a surgeon at the hospital.

Galvez said they would mount a probe on her vaccination since there is no policy yet for the inoculation of health workers’ dependents.

“Based po sa aming nalaman po ay sa Veterans Memorial Medical Center po sila naka-lista at kasama po sya sa list ng mga babakunahan dahil isa rin po syang doctor at para magkaroon ng confidence ang ibang mga health workers na magpabakuna,” Galvez told INQUIRER.net in a text message.

(Based on what we have known, she was listed at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center and she is among those who would be vaccinated because she is a doctor and also [she made this] to boost the confidence of other health workers to get themselves inoculated.)

Tan herself already made it clear that she was vaccinated as a frontliner and not as a lawmaker.

“I believe this issue had been resolved since our good congresswoman had already clarified what really happened and I have high respect [for] Cong. Helen Tan since she provided a lot of support and assistance in giving confidence to our people that the vaccine that we are now administering is safe and effective,” Galvez said.

“Let us now close this issue since she had a very good intention to increase the public uptake and confidence on Sinovac,” he added.

JPV