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Pangilinan: Intimidation won't solve vaccine hesitancy among Filipinos
By HANA BORDEY,GMA NewsSenator Francis Pangilinan on Tuesday said the government will not address the problem of vaccine hesitancy among Filipinos through intimidation.
“Hindi solusyon ‘yung pananakot, ‘yung pag-aaresto… Ang solusyon ay information dissemination, effective vaccine rollout, i-address ‘yung supply [problems],” Pangilinan said in a virtual interview with reporters.
(Intimidating and arresting individuals are not the solution. The solution is information dissemination, effective vaccine rollout, and addressing the supply problems.)
“Well, ang administrasyon, kung lahat ay dinadaan sa pananakot, ‘di ba, at pagkulong at pag-aresto, eh di sana maganda na ang kalagayan natin ngayon. So hindi ‘yan solusyon,” he further pointed out
(If this administration can address everything through threats and arrests, then our situation should have been better by now.)
The lawmaker added that the government must also focus its attention to other “science-based” COVID-19 responses such as isolation, testing, and tracing to address the pandemic.
Senator Nancy Binay, in a television interview Tuesday morning, said the government must address the problem
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The senators issued these statements after President Rodrigo Duterte warned the public that he will order the arrest of individuals who refuse to get vaccinated.
Duterte said he felt “exasperated” hearing reports of some persons not heeding the government call to get the shots of protection against COVID-19.
The Department of Health on Monday said more than two million Filipinos have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
A total of 8,407,342 doses have been administered as of June 20, the DOH said.
Of this number, 6,253,400 shots were for the first dose while 2,153,942 were for the second dose.
The government’s target is to inoculate 58 million people in COVID-19 hotspots by November. —KBK, GMA News