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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider Senior lawmakers support, slam DOTr's 'no vax, no ride' policy

Senior lawmakers support, slam DOTr's 'no vax, no ride' policy

Published Jan 12, 2022 05:04 pm

Two senior congressmen aired on Wednesday, Jan. 12 contradicting views to the controversial “no vax, no ride” policy of the Department of Transportation (DOTr).

Asst. Minority Leader and ACT Teachers Partylist Rep. France Castro chided DOTR for barring unvaccinated individuals from taking public transport, saying that the policy is “simply absurd, unconstitutional, anti-poor and discriminatory.”

On the other hand, Samar Rep. Edgar Mary Sarmiento said the current surge of the highly-transmissible COVID-19 has made the DOTr order a reasonable policy of government.

“As chair of the House Transportation Committee, I understand where the DoTr is coming from. As much as we want perfect compliance to the minimum health standards set by the government including the capacity requirement for our public transport, it is almost impossible to enforce this,” said Sarmiento in a statement.

Sarmiento urged citizens to comply with the DOTr policy in the meantime that the pandemic situation continue to get worse, adding that the department should lift the prohibitions as soon as the public health situation stabilizes.

The “no vax, no ride’ policy was initiated by DOTr a few days after President Rodrigo Duterte asked barangay officials and the police to arrest unvaccinated individuals who will go out of their residences without justifiable reason.

Castro said that instead of enforcing the “no vax, no ride” directive, DOTr should pursue a program that would provide citizens free rides to vaccination sites and help government educate people to convince them to get the COVID-19 jabs.

Castro reminded the DOTr that under Republic Act 11525 or the COVID 19 Vaccination Program, vaccination cards are not to be considered as “additional mandatory requirement for educational, employoment d and other similar government transaction purposes.”

“Pinaparusahan lamang nito ang mamamayan sa kapalpakan ng administrasyong Duterte sa pagtugon sa pandemya at sa pagbabakuna ng kaniyang mamamayan. (This punishes citizens for the Duterte administration failures to respond to the epidemic and vaccinate them),” Castro said.

"The Department of Transportation should focus on providing adequate public transportation for the people, not deny access to half of the population of the country," the teachers partylist representative said.

Related Tags

ACT Teachers Partylist no vax DOTr no ride Rep.France Castro Rep. Edgar Mary Samirento
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