Presidential spokesman Harry Roque slammed Vice President Leni Robredo for “pushing” to be in an infomercial to boost vaccine confidence with President Rodrigo Duterte after her attacks on the administration’s inoculation program.
During the televised Cabinet meeting Wednesday, Roque claimed that the vice president volunteered to be in an advertisement with Duterte now that more Filipinos are getting vaccinated.
“Sa loob loob ko, pagkatapos tayo siraan nang siraan eh ngayong nagiging matagumpay ang ating vaccination eh makikisama ngayon,” he said.
[Translation: To my mind, after being criticized repeatedly, now that the vaccination program is a success, she’s willing to collaborate.]
But at the recent ASEAN race to herd immunity report, Philippines is still on the 9th spot out of 10 ASEAN Countries. This shows that the Administration is not successful in doing so.
“Ang sabi po ng bise president, nasi daw po niyang makasama kayo sa infomercial para sa vaccine confidence. Ang sabi ko po ehI’m sure pag-aaralan ninyo kung anong kontribusyon ang maibibigay ng partisipasyon ng ating bise presidente,” he added.
[Translation: The Vice President said she wants to be in an informercial for vaccine confidence with you. I said I’m sure that you will study the benefit of the vice-president’s participation.]
To recall, it was Senator Joel Villanueva who proposed that the country’s top officials be featured in an infomercial to help boost vaccine confidence among Filipinos. The proposal was supported by Health Secretary Francisco Duque III.
When asked about the matter, Robredo said she is willing to do so if this will indeed encourage more people to get their coronavirus shot.
However, Roque said last week that before this could happen, she should first clarify her stand on China-made vaccines. Robredo refuted this, saying she does not discriminate and only wanted to ensure that all brands go through the same evaluation.
The country has so far received over 8 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, most of which are China’s Sinovac vaccine. Of this, around 7.7 million doses were deployed in 3,850 vaccination sites across the country.
Since the immunization program started in March, a total of 4,495,375 doses have been administered, and 1,029,061 individuals have received two doses, according to latest government data.
/ART
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