Eleazar: Encouragement, right info drive needed to encourage more Pinoys to get COVID jabs
Workers should not be compelled to get coronavirus disease (COVID-19), rather, they should be enticed to get the jab on their own will through incentives and right information.
This was the stand of senatorial aspirant Gen. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar amid moves and suggestions to compel workers to get inoculated through various forms of threat and intimidation.
Eleazar, who is running for senator under Partido Reporma, said getting vaccinated against COVID-19 should not be forced but instead encouraged.
"While there is a need for everybody to be vaccinated, we cannot compel anybody to do so. That is also their right," said Eleazar.
"What we need now is how to encourage them to voluntarily submit themselves to vaccination instead of compelling them to do so," he added, citing some strategies by some groups and local government units that include inclusion in raffles for various items.
Eleazar cited the case in the PNP wherein only 51 percent of the 222,000 personnel had signified interest to be vaccinated in February this year. He was then the head of the PNP's Administrative Support for COVID-19 task Force.
But through aggressive information drive, Eleazar said the number of those who wanted to be vaccinated ballooned to more than 60 percent in just a few weeks. Before his retirement, almost 99 percent of PNP personnel are either fully-vaccinated to got their first dose.
Eleazar said government offices should come up with their own ways on how they will give incentives to their workers, just like what some local government units did wherein they gave sacks of rice or grocery items while some conduct raffle.
President Rodrigo Duterte was urged by the House Makabayan Bloc to repeal the IATF Resolution 148-B, which requires workers who are tasked to report for work to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
The lawmakers noted that aside from being illegal, mandatory vaccination is unethical especially if discrimination against the unvaccinated ensues.
The Civil Service Commission is already in the process of finalizing the policy for unvaccinated workers.