Rody gets vaccinated:

President Duterte is inoculated with the Sinopharm COVID vaccine at Malacañang yesterday. The Chinamade jab was administered by Health Secretary Francisco Duque III. Sen. Bong Go, who posted the image on social media, said the President’s doctor allowed him to get vaccinated. Sinopharm’s application for emergency use authorization is still pending before the Food and Drug Administration after being filed in March.

President Duterte was vaccinated yesterday with Sinopharm from China as recommended by his private physician.

“I feel good and I’ve been expecting this shot, the vaccination a long time ago. So it was – it took a doctor, my private doctor, a long time to make a decision,” Duterte said during the vaccination done by Health Secretary Francisco Duque III and showed via Facebook live using the account of Sen. Bong Go.

The 76-year-old leader said his doctor, whom he did not name, has chosen the inoculation made by the state-owned Sinopharm as his vaccine, the same serum administered to members of the Presidential Security Group late last year that created controversy as the government has not issued any emergency use authorization for such injections at that time.

The minute-and-a-half Facebook video showed Duterte joking about something regarding a nurse and those around him laughing.

Sinopharm is one of three vaccines made in China that uses the traditional inactivated or weakened coronavirus as its base.

With a reported efficacy rate of about 79 percent, it has no emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration, but a compassionate special permit was issued to the Presidential Security Group hospital.

Duterte has been widely criticized for prioritizing Chinese-made serums that apparently led to the delays in the arrivals of vaccines made in the US and Europe.

He recently said that the country owes a debt of gratitude to China for the vaccines following calls for him to make a stand on Beijing’s repeated intrusions in the West Philippines Sea.