Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan during one of the Senate’s hybrid plenary sessions. Screen grab / Senate PRIB file photo
MANILA, Philippines — The national government’s solutions to the coronavirus pandemic should be based on science, and not imposing fear, Senator Francis Pangilinan said Tuesday.
Pangilinan made the remark after President Rodrigo Duterte warned the public that those who refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19 may be arrested.
“Ang administrasyon, kung [effective na] lahat ay dinadaan sa pananakot at pagkulong at pag-aresto, eh ‘di sana maganda na ang kalagayan natin ngayon. So hindi solusyon yung pananakot, pag-aresto,” Pangilinan said in an interview with reporters.
(All this administration do is issue threat, impose jail and arrest, if that would be effective, our situation should be better by now. So imposing fear and arrest are not the solution.)
“Ang solution ay science-based, interventions, contact tracing, testing, information dissemination, effective vaccine rollout,” he added.
(The solution should be science-based, interventions, contact tracing, testing, information dissemination, effective vaccine rollout.)
The government is banking on achieving herd immunity through COVID-19 vaccination so that the economy could rebound and the country regain normalcy.
But not all Filipinos have confidence in the COVID-19 vaccines.
Last November 2020, a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey showed that only 66 percent were willing to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
The percentage went down in a more recent SWS survey with only 32 percent of respondents saying they would be willing to be vaccinated.