The Philippines is the “best country” in the world to celebrate Christmas due to its consistently improving coronavirus disease (COVID-19) situation, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. declared on Monday, Dec. 13.

During a visit to a mega vaccination site in Bacoor City, Galvez made the bold remark as if a clap back to rankings which often place the country at the bottom of the list of nations in terms of pandemic response.

“Others were saying that the Philippines is the worst place to live in. But now, Secretary Joey Concepcion and I are stating that the Philippines right now is in the best position where it is the best country that we can celebrate Christmas,” Galvez said partly in Filipino.

Beginning in the fourth quarter of 2021, the country was tagged as the “worst place to live in” during the pandemic, according to the Bloomberg’s COVID-19 resilience ranking.

In the rankings, the country obtained a resilience score of 40.2 in September, 40.5 in October, and 43.1 in November as it found itself at the bottom of the list that measured the pandemic response of 53 countries.

The ranking measured the countries “where the virus is being handled most effectively with the least social and economic upheaval.”

But Galvez downplayed the result of the rankings as he said the vaccination coverage in the country has since improved, which led to the relaxation of pandemic restrictions and the return of economic activities in time for the Christmas season.

As of Sunday, around 37 million Filipinos have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19; 54.7 million have received their first dose; and 774,000 were given booster shots.

The daily cases have also gone down to around 300 to 400 from a peak of 20,000 in the middle of the year when the Delta variant entered the country.

Meanwhile, Galvez noted that other countries were experiencing a surge due to the Omicron variant.

Particularly in Bacoor City, Galvez praised the local government unit for its effective vaccination program which helped bring down the active cases there.

“We want to thank and congratulate the City of Bacoor because it has a very good COVID-19 situation now,” Galvez said in Filipino.

Thanks to its swift vaccination strategy, the number of active cases in Bacoor City was reduced to 19 from a peak of 3,500 in the early part of 2021, Galvez noted.

“It was such a difficult period for us. Bacoor somehow became the epicenter in Cavite,” Galvez said.

He recalled that the city government was faced by several issues such as the lack of testing and quarantine facilities to isolate infected patients in the early days of the pandemic.

“But now we have seen that Bacoor is one of the cities that persevered to widen the coverage of its vaccination program,” Galvez noted.

Galvez hopes that other LGUs will be able to sustain their gains in the vaccination program on the second wave of the “Bayanihan Bakunahan” National Vaccination Days on Dec. 15 to 17.

Around seven million Filipinos are targeted to be vaccinated in the three-day drive. This will help raise the number of fully vaccinated individuals to at least 54 million by the end of 2021 and enable the country to attain population protection.