President Rodrigo Duterte has yet to take a stance on making Covid-19 vaccination mandatory, his spokesman said on Monday.
In a virtual presser, Palace spokesman Harry Roque said the president had yet to decide because the country’s Covid-19 vaccine stock remained low.
“Wala pa pong posisyon ang ating presidente tungkol dito. Ang tingin po natin ay dumadami na po o tumataas na ang vaccine confidence kaya nga po ang problema natin hindi sapat ang bakuna doon sa mga gustong magpabakuna,” he said.
“Pero sa ngayon naman po, mukhang hindi naman kinakailangang mandatory iyan, dahil hinihintay pa natin iyong bulto ng ating mga bakuna. So tama lang naman na habang wala pa iyong mga karamihan ng bakuna natin ay hindi pa nagnanais na magpabakuna ang lahat,” he added.
Roque said requiring the public to get inoculated was part of the state’s exercise of police power.
The Philippines has received 3,525,600 doses of Covid-19 vaccines so far.
Of the total, 3 million were CoronaVac vaccines from Chinese firm Sinovac.
The rest were AstraZeneca donations from the Covax facility. John Ezekiel J. Hirro