VP dares Duterte to take first virus shot in public

MANILA: Vice President Leni Robredo on Sunday challenged President Rodrigo “Rody” Duterte to take the first inoculation shot in public to boost the people’s confidence on the vaccines aimed at stopping the scourge of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Robredo aired the challenge in reaction to an announcement from Harry Roque, the presidential spokesman, that Duterte had opted to be inoculated “in private” once a vaccine is available in the Philippines to contain the spread of the virus.

Roque quoted Duterte as saying that he would take a private route and not make public such move, similar to that taken by England’s Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh when they were vaccinated. But Robredo said if Duterte was not willing to go public, she was volunteering to do so and take the vaccination in full view of the people as she said in her regular Sunday radio programme in Filipino: “If he doesn’t do it. I’m willing to go first.”

She said that leaders in other countries were shown being inoculated in public as exemplified by newly-installed US President Joe Biden, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsieng Loong and Indonesian President Joko Widodo to boost their peoples’ confidence on the vaccines.

“In many countries,” Robredo said, “their heads of state have gone first. If people are not scared, there’s no need to make public their inoculation. But this should be done in public as a symbol there’s nothing to fear.” “To me, people also need to be informed on the status of the different vaccines,” she stressed without elaborating. But she was apparently referring to the controversy over the alleged government preference for the Chinese drug maker Sinovac and its product called Coroavax.

Questions have been raised during the Senate hearings on the COVID vaccines available to the Philippines, particularly Sinovac which has been alleged to be more expensive than other vaccines as well as its reported low efficacy rate of only 50 per cent.

A recent nationwide survey by the private pollster Pulse Asia said that close to 50 per cent of the 108 million Filipinos have admited they would reject vaccination mainly due to major concerns like safety.

Earlier, Robredo and other feminists also questioned Duterte’s statement that women are not fit for the presidency as he revealed that he had discouraged his daughter Sara, who succeeded him as the mayor of their hometown of Davao City in Mindanao, from running for president.

Duterte said Sara was being encouraged to seek the presidency ater she topped a recent survey that she was the preferred choice among several candidates to run for president and succeed him when his fixed six-year term is to end in June 2022 as mandated by the Constitution.