Tacloban City Mayor Alfred Romualdez is now vaccinated against COVID-19. The hitch? He's not on the priority list to receive the vaccines yet.
The city government has released an explanation that Romualdez wants to set an example and ease the public's anxiety towards the vaccines due to the scare by Dengvaxia controversy two years ago.
TACLOBAN City Mayor Alfred Romualdez may now be immune against COVID-19, but he's not immune from possible legal action.
This, after reports indicated that he had himself vaccinated against the virus even though he is not under priority list at the moment to receive the COVID-19 vaccines.
The mayor, who received the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine today (March 23), is the first local executive to have himself vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO).
Jumping the queue
However, the mayor drew criticisms from among Tacloban's residents as he belonged to the A4 priority list (local government officials) in the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines.
The Duterte administration has made it clear that medical frontliners are the government's top priority in the national vaccination program.
Setting an example
The city government has released an explanation that Romualdez wants to "set an example" and ease the public's anxiety towards the vaccines due to the Dengvaxia scare two years ago.
According to Romualdez, only 50 percent of Taclobanons are ready to have themselves vaccinated.
"He did not bump off anyone in the order of priority to cause disadvantage to health workers since there was a resistance to inoculation with Sinovac," the city government explained in its statement.
Romualdez even took to Facebook to defend himself from the flak from netizens who accused him of using his position to receive the vaccine before medical frontliners.
"Because everyone was scared and everyone was waiting for me. So I did it to lead my people out of fear. And I'm glad they responded positively!,” he said.
“NEVER say that I did it to save myself before others. I did it to make the people see that it was okay to get the vaccine. I wanted our people to take it for protection, and so that the efforts of the national government will not be in vain," he added in his post. (JKA)
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