Vaccinated workers key to economic revival, says former Speaker Belmonte

MANILA, Philippines — Former Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. on Saturday called on government to prioritize the mass vaccination of workers, saying protecting their health is key to reviving the economy ravaged by the pandemic.

“The paramount concern this Labor Day is for our leaders to ensure existing jobs are preserved and new employment is created,” Belmonte said in a Labor Day message, saying the COVID-19 crisis had put some 2 million Filipinos out of work, half of them in the National Capital Region Plus bubble.

To reopen the economy, Belmonte said, workers must be protected from infection through “the mass vaccination … of all private and public sector employees and workers.”

“We believe that prioritizing all workers for mass vaccination is the formula to speed up efforts to defeat the current surge and simultaneously revive the economy,” the former House leader and Quezon City mayor said.

He noted that other Asian countries like South Korea and Indonesia had prioritized the vaccination of workers, resulting in the “decline in daily infections and an upsurge in economic activities.”

“The logic is simple: It is the worker in the office, factory, mall or plantation, and in all of the thousands of micro, small and medium enterprises, who are truly the most exposed daily to possible COVID infection. And yet all these workers are the ones we rely on to run the economy, man the machines, and physically manufacture vital goods and provide needed services,” he added.

He cited data from the Department of Health showing the majority of those who got COVID-19 in the country were of working age and that their immediate family members were also infected.

“It is crystal clear that our survival as a nation will now hinge on simultaneously keeping the COVID infection under control and opening up the economy. Mass vaccination of all workers and employees now is the key policy that the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases must prioritize and dedicate resources to. This will address the problem of growing numbers of the hungry and bring up the economy from the steep decline it has experienced,” Belmonte said.