THE feeling of entitlement must have caused the heads of some local officials to swell, which to me doesn’t look good especially with just six months away from the prescribed dates for the filing of candidacy for both the national and local elective posts.
Look at the case of five mayors who went as far as publicizing their inoculation against the dreaded virus from Wuhan, China.
Mayor Alfred Romualdez of Tacloban City; Mayor Dibu Tuan of T’boli town in South Cotabato; Mayor Sulpicio Villalobos of Sto. Niño, South Cotabato; Mayor Noel Rosal of Legazpi City, Albay; Mayor Abraham Ibba of Bataraza, Palawan; Mayor Elanito Peña of Minglanilla, Cebu; and Mayor Victoriano Torres of Alicia, Mayor Virgilio Mendez of San Miguel, and Mayor Arturo Piollo II of Lila, all in Bohol must have gone on a zoom meeting to synthesize their alibis.
All claimed they did it to quell public apprehension.
Aside from the mayors, there are lots of barangay chairmen who also took the shots ahead of the local healthcare workers, who by the way are listed as A-1 priority in the National Deployment and Vaccination Plan.
These handsomely-paid, feeling-entitled individuals were able to jump ahead of the priority sectors using their government positions.
Luckily, there are local vaccinators who have the courage to defy them. In a news report, local vaccinators in Taytay, Rizal stood their ground and rejected a bid of a village chief who insisted on being injected with the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
I wonder if these nincompoops are aware that their acts may compromise 44 million doses of donations which have yet been delivered to the country. Under the terms of agreement entered into between the World Health Organization and its beneficiaries, the donated jabs should be strictly administered to the priority sectors and failure to comply would translate to the cancellation of what remains of the allocated donations.
It was on March 21 when local vaccinators administering vaccine roll out in Taytay spoiled an attempt of a sitting barangay chairman trying to bump-off priority sectors in the national vaccination against COVID19, citing memorandum circulars imposing the need for local vaccinators to strictly observe the list of priority sectors for inoculation.
After being declined, Barangay San Juan [Taytay, Rizal] chairman Rasel Valera, in his capacity as village chief and member of the Barangay Health Emergency Response Team, wrote a letter addressed to the municipal health office, complaining that he was “denied life-saving vaccine” by local health personnel administering the inoculation.
Upon receiving the letter, Taytay municipal health office chief Dr. Jeffrey Roxas said they were bound to adhere to stipulations provided for under the National Deployment and Vaccination Plan, which specifically stated that healthcare workers are the first to be vaccinated amid limited supplies.
Roxas said: “We are strictly adhering (to) what has been stipulated in the National Task Force Against COVID-19 which says frontline workers in health facilities both national and local, private and public, health professionals and non-professionals like students, nursing aides, community health workers and janitors in charge of sanitizing hospitals and vaccination centers should be the first to receive the vaccine shots.”
Valera didn’t give up and went on to write a second letter seeking for an explanation as to why other BHERT members were vaccinated and again insisted to be given a jab of the European dose.
His persistence went one level up as he claimed that nowhere National Deployment and Vaccination Plan says elected officials are restricted from taking the vaccine shots along with the other members of Cluster A-1.
I am no expert in the tussle so I decided to call DILG Undersecretary for Barangay Affairs Martin Diño so I could be enlightened.
According to Usec. Diño, elected officials who form part of the Barangay Health Emergency Response Team are not qualified to take the first shots.
Diño said that the Liga ng mga Barangay has nevertheless filed a petition asking the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, seeking reconsideration.
“The best thing that barangay chairman should do is either to wait for the decision of the IATF or adhere to what has been provided in the National Deployment and Vaccination Plan,” says Dino.
Thank you, Usec Diño. I hope these feeling entitled elected local officials stop ranting.