Duterte recalls 'traumatic' circumcision experience
President Duterte remembered his circumcision experience during his late-night public address on Monday, Feb. 21, which he described as "traumatic."
"Ako, ma-remember ko, ang una kong bakuna tapos yung pag-tuli ko (I remembered my first vaccine and my circumcision), those were traumatic experiences," Duterte said during his "Talk to the People" program.
The President recalled that he underwent the procedure in his third grade unplanned and without the consent of his parents.
"Grade 3 lang ako noon, sumali lang ako sa linya. Sinabi sa akin na 'huwag kasi magagalit ang tatay pati ang nanay mo' (I was in Grade 3 then and I just joined the line for the procedure. I was told not to do it as it will make my parents angry),"
“Kinabukasan nakita na yung dugo sa banig ko. Doon na nagwala ang nanay ko. Pero yung trauma ko doon, yung sa paghampas (The next day, they just saw the blood on my mat. That's when my mother got mad. But my trauma was really the beating),” he added.
Duterte's throwback story came up after he emphasized the importance of the community's participation to make the pediatric vaccination "livelier and in festive mood" and "less traumatic" for children.
"The cooperation of the community in making the environment or the moment memorable to the child," Duterte noted.
"Naaaliw sila, nawawala ang takot, at wala masyadong traumatic experience (They are comforted, least frightened, and would not experience too much trauma)," he said.
In his report during the briefing, vaccine czar and chief implementer of the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19 Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. said the government has successfully rolled out the pediatric vaccination program for children aged 5 to 11 across different regions in the country.
According to Galvez, a total of 437,939 children already received their first dose during mini rollouts in a span of two weeks.
Galvez also shared that they are "on track" with the inoculation of the 12 to 17 age group as 9,426,750 received their first dose, and 8,295,474 got the second shot which represents 65 percent of the targeted adolescent population,