The national fishers’ group Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (PAMALAKAYA) is planning to launch an education drive among fishermen about the necessity of COVID-19 vaccines.
This, as the group appealed for free and massive COVID-19 vaccination.
In a statement, PAMALAKAYA said it will carry out its own education drive using the available scientific information on the necessity of the vaccines in fishing communities.
This is given the public’s fear of vaccines brought about by the Dengvaxia scare a few years back.
On Tuesday, the group also slammed the Duterte government’s lack of a comprehensive vaccine plan, by allotting a measly P2.5 billion for COVID-19 vaccine on the approved 2021 budget, or a mere 2.7 percent of the total P72 billion required budget to vaccinate at least 60 percent of the population for free.
“With consideration to the efficacy and safety of the vaccines being developed by established pharmaceutical companies, we demand that a significant segment of the working population be inoculated as a long-term solution to the pandemic,” PAMALAKAYA National Chairperson Fernando Hicap said in a statement.
“It is now the national government’s crucial and urgent responsibility to ensure that a large number of the population is immunized from the virus disease to let the affected workers get back to the wheels of production and go on with lives,” he added.