NDF slams gov’t’s ‘no-vaccine-no-right’ policy

LEGAZPI CITY––The National Democratic Front (NDF) in Bicol has joined critics of the “no vaccine, no right” policy, tagging it as a repressive mandate that tramples on people’s rights amid the pandemic.

Ma. Roja Banua, NDF Bicol spokesperson, called on the public Monday, Jan. 17, to denounce and reject the “No Vaccine, No Work; No Ride and No Labas” rules that pitted the people’s rights against the medical solution.

Banua said oppressive restrictions were implemented in Bicol by dispatching hundreds of checkpoints at provincial boundaries to monitor and prevent the entry of people without vaccination cards.

She also assailed the directive of the Department of the Interior and Local Government to local government units to collect the names of unvaccinated individuals in their barangays and threatened them with arrest or fines.

“Whatever way (President) Duterte attempts to justify this latest directive, these suppressive policies do not answer the lack of free mass testing, the insufficient number of contact tracers, medicine and vaccine shots that should be enough to cover 110 million Filipinos, and lack of comprehensive information drives that would have deepened the people’s understanding of vaccines and the COVID-19 situation,” the statement said.

Banua said these repressive policies could never make up for the inexistence of a stable and adequate healthcare system in the country caused by decades of privatization and commercialization of services.

“These are the true reasons behind the ineptitude in combatting COVID-19,” she added.

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