People flock to Marikina Sports Complex in Marikina City on Wednesday, June 23, to receive anti-covid vaccine, as the local government aims to inoculate 13,000 people on a single day.-INQUIRER/GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE
MANILA, Philippines—In a late night address on June 21, President Rodrigo Duterte made this remark: “Don’t get me wrong. There is a crisis being faced in this country. There is a national emergency. You choose—get a vaccine or make me send you to jail?”
Duterte’s warning of jail time for people who would refuse vaccines drew immediate reactions from critics and allies alike. Critics said sending people to jail for that reason was unconstitutional. The President’s chief legal counsel, Salvador Panelo, said jail time for those refusing vaccines is not entirely baseless.
Just hours after the President made the remark, however, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque was on air, explaining that the threat was just borne by Duterte’s desire to highlight the importance of getting vaccinated and should not be taken at face value.
It was not the first time, though, that Duterte made a remark so outrageous that required Palace officials to quickly step in and try to clear the air.
Making such a remark during the pandemic, however, could have “lasting impacts, especially on Filipinos struggling because of the health crisis,” according to experts.
“They will lose trust and the worth of what he’s saying will diminish that’s why people who will hear him will no longer believe him,” said Dr. Regi Pamugas in an interview with INQUIRER.net.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, some of Duterte’s remarks, several groups said, “worsened” the health crisis.
Pamugas, vice chair of Health Action for Human Rights, said Duterte’s remarks and the clarification that followed from his spokesperson led to confusion. “The local government unit and local doctors say something to their constituents then suddenly the President will speak of varying rules,” he said.
As the President has a penchant for uttering directives that would later be clarified or dismissed by Malacanang officials, Pamugas said Duterte’s remarks have a huge impact on the health crisis. With contradicting directives, Pamugas said, Filipinos are left perplexed and COVID cases were likely to increase.
“People’s trust will be lost and they will no longer see him with value since they already know that what he will say will be fixed, clarified, or changed by his spokesperson and other agencies,” Pamugas said.
“It’s like they have no one directive, that’s why people get confused. If Duterte’s remarks change from time to time and people won’t be able to keep abreast of it, there is a possibility that the COVID-19 situation in a community will worsen,” he said.
As of Sunday, June 27, COVID-19 cases in the country reached 1,397,992 after the Department of Health (DOH) reported 6,096 additional cases. The agency said that 52,270 are still “active cases” while 1,321,050 have already recovered as 6,912 new recoveries were reported. The total number of COVID-19 deaths, meanwhile, now reached 24,372 with 128 new deaths.
While Duterte’s ratings, according to PUBLiCUS Asia’s latest poll, remains “high”, for the first quarter of 2021, his approval rating during that period was 65 percent, lower than total approval of 70 percent in December 2020. His trust rating, according to the poll, was 55 percent in the same period which is lower than 62 percent in December 2020.
The poll, conducted March 20 to 29, covered nine modules, including economy and economic prospects, vaccination and mood on health protocols and other national issues.
“Of course, people will be outraged,” said Pamugas.
“They are already struggling because of the lack of programs and then they are still the ones blamed by the government,” he said.
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“We cannot feel the outrage yet, but I know that it’s already rising,” the doctor added, referring to several instances of people-blaming by the government in cases of COVID surge.
Diversion
For health systems specialist Dr. Albert Domingo, the President’s flip-flops and contentious remarks divert people’s focus that could have been dedicated to asking the government to improve response to the health crisis.
“The effect is diversion, but as to whether it is done with malice or intent, I don’t know,” said Domingo.
“But definitely, that is what is happening right now,” he said.
“Instead of us focusing on accountability for matters that can result in better protection—vaccination, contact tracing, isolation, what’s happening is that we are all taken into talks,” he said, citing one of the government’s latest flip-flop on the use of face shields.
A week before Duterte’s statement on jailing people for refusing vaccines, Secretary Carlito Galvez, chief implementor of the government’s vaccination program, apologized to local governments in the Visayas and Mindanao for a shortage in vaccine supply.
Reacting to the President’s threat, Domingo said “it is really an unusual way of doing things”, noting that the DOH Health Protection Bureau was quoted as saying that “people have autonomy at the end of the day.”
“The threat of arrest doesn’t make sense,” Domingo said.
“Will a threat of arrest actually increase confidence and safety of the vaccine, I don’t think so. Will a threat of arrest decrease complacency, I don’t think so,” he said.
“The convenience, I also don’t think they will be affected by a threat because those who are hesitant because of inconvenience, to begin with, they already want to be vaccinated,” he said.
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In Bantay Bakuna’s release, as of June 20, only 1.95 percent or 2,153,942 Filipinos are fully vaccinated since the government started its vaccination program on March 1. The government aims to inoculate 70 percent of the population to achieve herd immunity by the end of 2021.
It said that based on a 7-day average, the country’s vaccination rate is 208,809 per day while what was needed is 762,265 vaccination per day to achieve the government’s target.
“If this kind of track of the country’s vaccination program continues, it will take 1.9 years before we can finally achieve the target vaccinated population,” said the civil society group monitoring the Philippines’ vaccination rollout.
Simplistic, not holistic response to crisis
The Coalition for People’s Right to Health, in a statement, condemned the “persistent use of fear” and the government’s failure to “take into account its own failings.”
“Without addressing the glaring unavailability of vaccines, the inaccessibility of vaccination sites for the working and marginalized, and the lack of community-centered information on immunization, blaming the people once again violates their right to health, among other civil liberties,” said the group.
Dr. Josh San Pedro, the group’s co-convenor, said that the government’s view of the pandemic is “very simplistic.”
“The government has a simplistic and not holistic view of the COVID-19 pandemic,” San Pedro said.
He said it appeared that the government views response to the pandemic as an “individual responsibility when, in fact, there’s a larger responsibility of the state to provide for the right to health.”
Since the start of the COVID-19 catastrophe in 2020, the President has made outrageous remarks that blamed Filipinos for the surge in infections.
In 2020 and also recently, he also directed the police to arrest people for improperly wearing face masks.
In the midst of calls for mass testing in April 2020, Malacañang also defended Duterte’s statement directing government forces to shoot and kill unruly violators of the enhanced community quarantine once they become a threat to law enforcers’ lives.