DILG to issue show cause orders to mayors receiving vaccines ahead of place in priority list

The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) is currently working to verify reports of several mayors supposedly receiving COVID-19 vaccine shots ahead of their place on the priority list. 

DILG Undersecretary Epimaco Densing III they will send show cause orders (SCOs) against mayors found to have jumped the line.

“Wait na lang when we have issued the SCOs to several mayors…Once na ma-sign ko, I’ll inform you. Verifying lang the reports before we send the SCOs,” he told GMA News Online in a message.

[“Just wait when we have issued the SCOs to several mayors…Once I have signed it, I’ll inform you. Just verifying the reports before we send the SCOs.”]

“We are first verifying the allegations before any SCOs are issued. Verification is ongoing,” he added.

Densing made the statement when asked about the show cause order that his office has been supposedly preparing against Tacloban City Alfred Romualdez, who was  inoculated on Monday.

In a statement on Tuesday, the mayor’s office said that Romualdez was inoculated with the Sinovac vaccine to convince others to get the jab.

“We would like to state for the record that Mayor Romualdez volunteered to be publicly vaccinated with Sinovac vaccine in order to boost confidence in the vaccination program of the government,” it said.

“At the time the vaccination was done, health workers were hesitant to avail of Sinovac, opting instead to pass and wait for other Western made brands,” it added.

Based on the prioritization set by the national government, the vaccination rollout in the country will start with frontline health workers, indigent senior citizens, remaining senior citizens, remaining indigent population, and uniformed personnel.

On March 4, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said that the priority list was breached by some officials' receiving Sinovac jabs despite not being health workers: DILG Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya, Michael Salalima of the MMDA Public Safety Office and Disaster Risk Reduction and Management, and Quezon Representative and medical doctor Helen Tan.

“[We're  not perfect, there have been a few] breaches, but we have learned from these breaches,” Roque said back then.

The Philippines started its COVID-19 vaccination on March 1, the last to do so in Southeast Asia.

The country’s COVID-19 vaccine supply has been stuck at 1,125,600 doses since then. Of this number, 600,000 doses are from Sinovac which is donated by the Chinese government and 525,600 doses are AstraZeneca which was donated by the COVAX facility. — with Llanesca T. Panti/BM, GMA News