Members of the Presidential Security Group (PSG) would not, at their own peril, inoculate themselves with an untested COVID-19 vaccine, much less an unauthorized and illegal one, without the approval or explicit order from Malacanang, opposition Senator Leila de Lima said on Wednesday.
‘’They cannot brush this anomaly out by calling this a non-issue. Because anything about this pandemic is a public concern,’’ De Lima said.
‘’If (President) Duterte and his pro-China spin doctors don’t find anything wrong with this illegal inoculation, why are they outdoing each other to sweep this anomaly under the rug?’’ she asked.
‘’Why is (President) Duterte willing to bring down the whole of government by threatening a constitutional crisis with Congress in ordering the PSG to defy the latter’s summons to an inquiry?’’ she added.
De Lima said the Senate should take on President Duterte’s challenge to show him that the Constitution, not him, is their boss.
"The Senate should show the public that they cannot be ordered around by Duterte or be treated like lapdogs to do his bidding," she added.
‘’Isa lang naman ang Senator-caregiver at dakilang presidential alalay, and not the rest of the Senators who remain or ought to remain independent of Malacañang,’’ she added. (There is only one Senator-caregiver who is acting like a presidential aide)
She did not name this ‘’senator-caregiver.’’
De Lima insisted that PSG officials should face the inquiry.
‘’The Filipino people did not pay for your four (4) years of PMA training just to be the cowardly servants of a man who cannot even face up to his own decision to put his own presidential guards in peril by ordering them to inject themselves with an illegal drug,’’ she said.
‘’Then on top of this is the illegal inoculation of Chinese POGO (Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator) workers. This is Duterte’s icing on his cake of insults that he has served the Filipinos on New Year. Our country has been porous to anything China-sourced since 2016, most of them illegal, like the tax-evading POGOs,’’ she added.