FOR presidential spokesperson Harry Roque, the President has the police power to make COVID-19 vaccination a must.
However, Roque said that there is no need for President Rodrigo Duterte to do that, citing two reasons – one is that there isn’t enough vaccine at the moment and that they’re seeing an increased vaccine confidence following the culmination of the vaccination roll-out last month.
In a press briefing, Roque admitted though that Duterte has yet to come up with a position on the House proposal to make COVID-19 vaccination mandatory.
In his House Bill No. 9252, Dasmariñas Representative Elpidio Barzaga Jr. is proposing to make mandatory the inoculation of individuals against COVID-19 except those with medical conditions as determined by the Department of Health (DOH) or a licensed medical doctor.
“The President does not have a position on this yet because we are seeing increased vaccine confidence but we don’t have enough COVID-19 vaccine supply yet. Gayunpaman, bilang abogado, kabahagi po ito ng police power ng estado na i-require ang bakuna kung talagang kinakailangan. It is not out of the question. Pero sa ngayon, hindi pa kinakailangang mandatory,” the Palace spokesperson averred.
He, however, didn’t dismiss the possibility of the President considering such an idea, adding that the decision on making COVID-19 vaccination a must could be better made once the country has enough vaccine supply.
As of this posting, the Philippines has only been able to secure 3,525,600 doses of COVID-19 vaccines, which is only good for less than two percent of the country’s 110 million population.