MANILA, Philippines—The Judiciary has yet to prepare a timeline for when its COVID-19 vaccination drive would be completed, Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo said Friday.
Gesmundo said The judiciary already runs its own vaccination campaign, but they continue to encourage their employees and officials to get vaccinated in their respective local government units.
“We have already requested the judge, judges, and court employees of the different regions in the country to register online with [their respective] LGUs to receive their vaccine,” Gemundo told reporters in his first CJ Meets the Press.
“I’ve worked so hard not only in upgrading our classification for purposes of the priority list, Gesmundo said adding that Senior Associate Justice Estela Perlas-Bernabe also did her part to make sure that the judiciary gets a vaccine allocation from the national government.
Court officers and employees have now been classified as among the essential workers under the A4 category.
This week, there is a scheduled vaccination for 400 people only. The Judiciary has around 30,000 employees.
“I cannot really cite the projected completion of the vaccination…We have created a task force to supervise and ensure that the vaccination takes place in accordance with the schedule and on the number of the vaccines available for the judiciary,” Gesmundo told reporters in his first CJ Meets the Press.
Data from the Supreme Court’s COVID-19 Response Team showed that as of June 3, 2021, a total of 1,994 employees of the Supreme Court, Court of Tax Appeals, the Sandiganbayan, Court of Tax Appeals, and the trial courts have been afflicted with COVID-19 since the pandemic began last year. Of the 1,994 cases, 1,846 have recovered, 33 deaths, and 115 active cases.
The data said that of the 1,584 court workers who underwent quarantine after they were infected, 213 were hospitalized, 33 were quarantined in COVID-19 facilities while 972 underwent home quarantine or isolation.
Court Administrator Jose Midas Marquez said they already had two to three vaccination drives at the Supreme Court.
Next week, he said they are expecting 500 more doses to arrive.
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