Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto on Wednesday underscored the importance of COVID-19 vaccinations in addressing unemployment in the country.
(Senate of the Philippines / FILE PHOTO / MANILA BULLETIN)
"The contagion of unemployment is a brutal side effect of this virus. Mass inoculation is the cure to mass unemployment," Recto said on March 10, after the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that unemployment rate in soared to 10.3 percent in 2020 due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
"The latest jobs report states the obvious: Joblessness is a result of jablessness," he pointed out.
The Senate leader, who was a former socioeconomic planning secretary, said that efforts to open up the economy "remains a rhetoric if not accompanied by the opening up of more vaccination sites." Any financial assistance to displaced workers will only be a "temporary pain killer…but will not cure the cause." "Our recovery is through the tip of the needle," he said.
Recto said the government should ramp up its vaccination program before the rainy season starts, before typhoons, floods, calamities disrupt its roll out.
"Nature has a way of disturbing the best-laid plans of men. A nation weakened by the pandemic cannot withstand another calamity. The coming months should be the summer of our liberation from COVID," he said.
The Philippines started inoculations of frontline health workers and other members or priority sectors last March 1.