Despite his declaration of willingness to be vaccinated even at Plaza Miranda, the chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP) was not included in the list of police personnel who were inoculated with the China-made vaccine during Monday's, March 1, nationwide roll-out.
PNP chief Gen. Debold Sinas said the reason is the instruction of the Department of Health to prioritize medical frontliners in the police organization since they are the ones directly dealing with patients of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
"The instruction of the DOH is very specific, we will first prioritize the health workers," said Sinas on Monday's roll-out of the vaccination at the PNP Headquarters at Camp Crame.
So instead of Sinas, the most senior PNP official who was vaccinated was Brig. Gen. Luisito Magnaye, the director of the PNP Health Service.
"He (Magnaye" was vaccinated together with his command group (at the PNP Health Service) to give credence to the government's (vaccination roll-out)," said Sinas.
At least 100 policemen were vaccinated at Camp Crame in Quezon City. They were part of the 800 PNP personnel who were chosen to be vaccinated based on the doses allocation of the government for the PNP.
Top government officials have been called out to take the lead in the vaccination program but most of them declined, citing several reasons. In the case of Sinovac, some officials said they are not qualified since the age bracket recommended for Sinovac is from 18-59.
Sinas said those included in the list are those assigned at the PNP hospitals, quarantine facilities and the four molecular laboratories of the PNP, two of them are located at Camp Crame and the other two are in Cebu City and Davao City.
Sinas said they already have the list of the PNP personnel who would be vaccinated and the instruction is to vaccinate 200 personnel per day until all the vaccine allocation for the PNP is completed.
"We made a schedule so that there will be no overcrowding," said Sinas.