Health Secretary Francisco Duque III on Tuesday urged Congress to pass a law making vaccination against COVID-19 mandatory.
Duque made the statement as the number of Filipinos getting vaccinated against COVID-19 declined and as millions of vaccine doses are set to expire in the next few months.
Duque, during the weekly “Talk to the People” of President Rodrigo Duterte, said the government had already exhausted all means to inoculate Filipinos.
“The government is already doing everything, Mr. President. I can’t imagine what else we haven’t done yet,” Duque said.
He said the DOH would welcome it if Congress could “muster the political will” to make vaccination and booster shots mandatory, as it is in other countries.
Duque admitted that such a move would be “very controversial” but expressed hope that the public would understand the country’s COVID-19 situation.
He said the government bought vaccines to protect the public, but it cannot compel people to get vaccinated.
In January, the Department of Transportation implemented a “no vaccination, no ride” in public transport in Metro Manila, but the Public Attorney’s Office said the policy was unconstitutional and discriminatory.
Duque asked candidates in the May 9 elections to include in their platforms the importance of getting COVID-19 jabs.
Also on Wednesday, presidential adviser for entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion said business groups supported his proposal to replace vaccination cards with a booster card as a requirement starting in June.
In other developments:
• The Palace reported that a total of 3,760,983 doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been wasted. At a Palace briefing, acting presidential spokesperson Martin Andanar presented the data coming from the Department of Health, saying that this was only 1.54 percent of the country’s total COVID-19 vaccine doses.
• Duque said the Technical Working Group (TWG) and experts are set to discuss whether a booster dose should be added as a requirement for an individual to be considered as fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Their conclusions would then be presented to the next meeting of the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.
• Education Secretary Leonor Briones said schools holding limited in-person classes should not be used simultaneously as COVID-19 vaccination sites. She said as more schools across the country have resumed physical classes, this was a precaution against the continued spread of COVID-19. She said vaccination sites should be separate from places where the classes are being held to minimize the risk of exposure to the coronavirus.