The DILG would issue show cause orders against mayors receiving COVID-19 vaccines ahead of place in the priority list.
The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) would issue show cause orders against mayors receiving COVID-19 vaccines ahead of place in the priority list.
In a report on GMA News Online, the Department of the Interior and Local Government was currently working to verify reports of some mayors supposedly receiving COVID-19 vaccine doses ahead of their place on the vaccination priority list.
According to DILG Undersecretary Epimaco Densing III, they would send show cause orders (SCOs) against mayors found to have jumped the line.
“Wait na lang when we have issued the SCOs to several mayors…Once na ma-sign ko, I’ll inform you. Verifying lang the reports before we send the SCOs. We are first verifying the allegations before any SCOs are issued. Verification is ongoing,” Densing told GMA News Online in a message.
READ ALSO: Second Batch Of China-Donated Sinovac COVID-19 Vaccine Doses Arrive In PH
Densing’s statement came when asked about the show cause order that his office had been supposedly preparing against Tacloban City Alfred Romualdez, who was vaccinated last Monday.
On Tuesday, the mayor’s office said in a statement that Romualdez volunteered to be publicly vaccinated with the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine in order to convince others to get the jab and to boost confidence in the vaccination program of the national government, adding that health workers were hesitant to avail of China’s Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine at the time the vaccination was done, opting instead to pass and wait for other Western-made vaccine brands.
Based on the prioritization set by the national government, the inoculation rollout in the Philippines would start with frontline health workers, indigent senior citizens, remaining senior citizens, remaining indigent population, and uniformed personnel.
Last March 4, Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said that the priority list was breached by several officials’ receiving Sinovac jabs despite not being healthcare workers: Michael Salalima of the MMDA Public Safety Office and Disaster Risk Reduction and Management, DILG Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya, and Quezon Representative and medical doctor Helen Tan.
GMA News Online also reported that the Philippines started its COVID-19 vaccination program last March 1, the last country to do so in Southeast Asia.
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