Villanueva wants Duterte-Robredo tandem featured in COVID-19 vaccine infomercial

Senator Joel Villanueva on Thursday suggested the production of an infomercial featuring President Rodrigo Duterte and Vice President Leni Robredo to encourage the Filipinos to get COVID-19 vaccines.

“Ang isang mungkahi po natin, maglabas ng isang joint public service announcement ang Pangulo at ang Bise Pangulo. This is the kind of ad that will be effective in convincing a large part of our population that vaccines are safe,” Villanueva said in a statement.

(Our suggestion is for the government to come up with a joint public service announcement featuring the President and the Vice President.)

“Ito po ang tambalang nakikita nating mabisa na pangontra sa mga fake news. Both are vaccine recipients, and are living proof that vaccines do no harm,” he added.

(We see this tandem as an antidote for fake news. Both are vaccine recipients, and are living proof that vaccines do no harm.)

The lawmaker came up with the suggestion after the Department of Health announced that COVID-19 vaccine recipients will be informed of the vaccine brand right before their inoculation to avoid the overcrowding at the vaccination sites.

“Vaccine agnosticism will not work without vaccine advocacy. We have to educate  before we inoculate. Sadly much still needs to be done in this area. There is only one vaccine against fake news and that is truth told in a convincing manner,” he said.

“But the biggest problem actually is not brand rejection among the people, but vaccine hesitancy in general. Informed choice cannot be substituted with a ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ policy,” he added

The DOH’s latest decision came after reports of overcrowding at vaccination sites in some local government units earlier this week to avail of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

Both Duterte and Robredo were already inoculated with COVID-19 vaccines.

Duterte has availed of Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine under a compassionate special permit.

Meanwhile, Robredo just got her first dose of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine last Wednesday.

So far, the Philippines has approved the emergency use authorization on the following COVID-19 brands: Pfizer-BioNTech, Astrazeneca, Sinovac, Janssen, Moderna, Covaxin, and Sputnik V.—AOL, GMA News