Students group backs optional COVID-19 vaccination for learners, staff

The League of Filipino Students on Thursday supported not requiring learners and staff to get vaccinated against COVID-19 amid the return of limited face-to-face classes in colleges and universities.

LFS spokesperson James Carwyn Candila pointed out that inoculation should not be an urgent mandate as the resumption of face-to-face classes was already an emergency.

"The League of Filipino Students agrees with the essential point that vaccination should not be a mandatory requirement,” Candila told GMA News Online.

“With the urgency of students resuming face-to-face classes and the sluggish vaccination programs around the country, it is important that we must be able to return to our physical classes in the earliest possible time,” he added.

On Thursday, Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Chairperson Prospero De Vera said participants of limited face-to-face classes were not required to get vaccinated.

“I did not push for mandatory vaccinations. In fact, [for] the limited face-to-face [classes] in medicine and health allied sciences there is no mandatory vaccination required,”

“I did not say there will be mandatory [vaccination]. It is the schools that were saying that it is best that they [get] vaccinated because... you cannot have social distancing in sports, that did not come from me,” he added.

For Candila, the CHED should by now have funds and programs to assist the resumption of face-to-face classes in higher education institutions.

He pointed out that schools have been supposedly leading the opening of in-person classes.

“Kailangan ng pondo at programa para sa resumption of classes, pero mas nauna pa ang mga unibersidad," said Candida.

(The resumption of classes needs funding and program, but universities are getting ahead)

— DVM, GMA News