Pangilinan urges gov’t: Follow priority list for COVID-19 vaccination

MANILA, Philippines — Senator Francis Pangilinan on Sunday appealed to the government to respect its own priority list for COVID-19 vaccination to ensure continued supply of vaccines from the Covax Facility.

Pangilinan noted that under Republic Act No. 11525 or the Act establishing the COVID-19 vaccination program that health workers should be the first to receive the precious and limited jabs.

He noted the hierarchy on the priority list for those who need to get vaccinated under the law, which provides that the inoculation shots should first go to healthcare workers, senior citizens, people with comorbidities, frontline personnel including uniformed personnel and teachers, and indigent population.

“Di ba sa eroplano pag may emergency, pinauuna ang mga magulang sa pagsuot ng life vest at oxygen mask para mapangalagaan din niya ang kasamang anak? Ganun din dito. Inuuna muna ang pwedeng mag-alaga sa mga vulnerable, pagkatapos ang vulnerable,” he said in a statement.

(In an airplane emergency, aren’t parents told to put on their life vest and oxygen mask first to enable them to look after the children with them? This is the same thing here. Priority are those who can care for the vulnerable and then the vulnerable.)

“’Ika nga, ‘yung mga hindi nakasakay sa eroplano, hindi kasama. Usapin ito ng kalusugan kaya unahin ang makakasiguro ng kalusugan ng sambayanan at ng ekonomiya,” he added.

(Those who aren’t on the plane, so to speak, are not on the list. That’s why we need to prioritize those who will ensure the health of our people and the economy.)

Pangilinan issued the statement after Dr. Rabindra Abeyasinghe, representative of the World Health Organization to the Philippines, urged the government to respect the priority list for recipients of COVID-19 vaccines from the Covax Facility to ensure the continued rollout of the vaccines from the global sharing pool.

The senator also said that health workers should continuously have the choice if they will get the vaccine, and that they should be able to decide which brand of the vaccines they want to receive.

JE