Duterte to Pfizer-favoring Pinoys: What about other Filipinos?

President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday night criticized people whom he said only want the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine jab, casting selectiveness as disregarding other people's well-being.

"Kung gusto ninyo sigurado Pfizer, and you begin to be selective, hindi pwede 'yan," he said during his weekly Talk To The People briefing. "Kasi yung Pfizer, iisa lang sa mga dini-distribute natin."

Duterte added that all the vaccines are effective against the virus.

"If you begin to demand na exclusive yung Pfizer sa inyo, how about the others? Eh kung ubusin ninyo ang Pfizer para sa inyo lang, wala na iba, eh yung lahat na Pilipino na gusto ng Pfizer, hindi mabigyan," he said.

'Kailangan blind sa anong binibigay'

"I cannot administer exclusively Pfizer sa isang lugar to the exclusion of other Filipinos. Kaya hindi pwede ho yan. Kailangan talaga, i-mix 'yan at saka 'yung blind ang tao sa anong binibigay. Basta may bakuna, period. And the best bakuna is really the one that's available for you," he added.

"Uulitin ko: kung kayo lang ang may gusto tapos yung iba hindi mabibigyan, paano yung ibang Pilipino?" he also said.

"How about the other Filipinos from Visayas to Mindanao? E hindi natin mabigyan. Hindi pwede yang ganon. There must be equality in everything. Kung sana maraming Pfizer tapos hindi maibigay sa inyo, then you have every reason to complain. But if it is a limited number tapos gusto niyo sa inyo lang, hindi pwede yan."

Duterte said that having preferring one vaccine to the exclusion of other brands is "not feasible" in the current circumstances.

"Not feasible at all di ka makapili kasi kokonti lang 'yan," he said.

Duterte himself had expressed his own vaccine preference, saying he wanted a Chinese vaccine and not a US-made one. He was administered a Sinopharm shot earlier this month.

Sinovac a top choice

A Social Weather Stations (SWS) poll released this week showed that 63 percent of Filipinos preferred to receive vaccines manufactured in the US, which include the vaccines from biotech firm Moderna, Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals, and multinational Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.

However, when it came to individual brands, 39 percent of those surveyed said they preferred China's Sinovac vaccine, compared to 33 percent for the Pfizer-BioNTech shot.

The first shipment of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines arrived in the Philippines on May 10, consisting of only 193,050 doses.

At one vaccination site in Manila, 1,500 people queued for hours in the hopes of getting one of the 900 Pfizer shots available.

The seeming preference for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine among Filipinos has led the government to institute a rule that people lining up for the jab will only be informed of which brand they are getting at the site.

The Philippines has 1,193,976 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Wednesday, including 20,169 deaths. — BM, GMA News