Palace urged to come up with '100-day summer offensive' vs COVID-19

As the country enters its first year on lockdown, Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto on Monday urged Malacañang to come up with a "100-day summer offensive" against COVID-19.

In a statement, Recto said the public can be assured of victory in the war against COVID-19 not with a show of weapons but "vaccines in the arms of people."

"Malacañang should use the anniversary to unveil a 100-day plan for a summer offensive from April to June, with clear targets in terms of the number of people vaccinated, the number of vaccines that will arrive, and where they will be sent," Recto said.

"We need a battle plan that will not only unify the nation, but will lift our spirits and assign us the role we have to play. This is the clear tunnel vision we need," he added.

Recto said the plan he is proposing will serve as the government's "to-do list" from now until President Rodrigo Duterte's last State of the Nation Address in July.

"So when he mounts the rostrum on that day, the first thing he does is wave the DOH’s daily COVID tally showing new cases down to a couple of hundreds, and a report that tens of millions have been vaccinated," he said.

"When the fighting targets are clearly communicated to the people who see a leadership that inspires by example, the war will be won," he added.

The Philippines began its COVID-19 vaccination program on March 1 after the arrival of 600,000 doses of Sinovac vaccines, which was immediately followed by 487,000 doses of vaccines from AstraZeneca.

On March 7, another batch of 38,400 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines arrived in the country.

Vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. on Sunday said 90% of the vaccines that have been delivered to the Philippines so far have deployed.

He added that the current pacing of the vaccinations will improve once the national COVID-19 vaccination program is in full-scale.

“It is not logical to compute performance evaluation from the start of the mini roll out. We will be able to get our benchmark vaccination rate when we start our massive community roll out by May and June,” he said.—AOL, GMA News