SINCE the pandemic began, I have listened to Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary Ma. Rosario Vergeire on every bit of information she puts out there regarding COVID-19. She is not only very eloquent but she also effectively delivers any message that the DOH would want to impart to the public.

She is a very credible source of information, not to mention, such a refreshing change from all the traditional figures we see on TV, as she is stripped of any political color and controversy. However, if it is true that she had stated that the national government is not lacking on vaccines and that all that the local government units have to do is make a request, she may have been fed the wrong information.

Fellow reporter Carolyn Bonquin pasted on a Viber Group that Vergeire had stated this, in part: “Hindi po kulang ang bakuna, we provided our local government with appropriate allocation para sa current nila na binibigyan. Pag kulang pwede manghingi sa amin. Sa tingin ko kaya mabagal ang pagpapatawag for the schedule, marami po kasi, pag pinag-usapan ang senior citizen, nine million ‘yan sa buong bansa. Halimbawa sa city of Manila, baka libo- libo ang senior citizen na naka master list at bago maitawag ng schedule. Ang kailangan gawin ngayon, let us expand our vaccination site, we are encouraging our local government na baka pwede madagdagan ang vaccination sites para bumilis ang pagpapatawag sa mamamayan na bakunahan.”

It is rather unfair and simply erroneous to cite Manila as having problems in moving swiftly in its mass vaccination more so, to tell its local government to address the problem by putting up more vaccination sites.

In fact if I were Vergeire, I will simply cite what is being done in Manila by Mayor Isko Moreno and Vice Mayor Honey Lacuna in order to paint a clearer picture of the message she is trying to get across.

In the first place, in the case of the Manila local government, Mayor Kois and Vice Mayor Honey, along with Manila Health Department (MHD) chief Dr. Arnold Pangan, really make sure that whenever vaccines land in the city, they are deployed all at once. The number of vaccination sites depends on the number of vaccines that the city government receives from the national government as its share of allocation.

Of late, Manila opened a total of 20 vaccination sites spread all over the city, I guess the most numerous among all other cities and municipalities. Right now, these sites are there for ready use, along with the health personnel involved on direct supervision of Vice Mayor Honey and Pangan however, the vaccines are lacking.

Dr. Ed Santos of MHD said the last delivery of vaccines totalling only 2,000 was April 15.

In the case of Manila, Mayor Kois said it has been five days since the mass inoculation program came to a halt, as they await for the city’s much-needed vaccine replenishment. Mayor Kois was clear that he does not have a say as to how many vaccines should go to Manila nor does he have the right to request.

I truly believe so. Knowing Mayor Kois, if he had been given the go signal to request as needed, all Manilans would have been vaccinated by now, considering the aggressiveness and speed by which vaccinations are being done in the city since March when the first batch of doses arrived.

If he ordered city engineer Armand Andres to carry out the construction of a 336-bed COVID Field Hospital round-the-clock in anticipation of a possible new round of surge in COVID cases, I know with certainty that Mayor Kois will never, ever pass up on the opportunity to request endlessly just to get all Manila residents vaccinated and even if it meant operating the vaccination sites 24/7. That is, again, if indeed he is given the go signal to request for vaccines as needed.

Not only is the good mayor bent on establishing herd immunity in the city. He and Vice Mayor Honey, since last year, have also been campaigning real hard for everyone to get jabbed and for them to pre-register to avail of the free vaccine. As of now, the total number of those who have pre-registered has already breached 300,000 while the number of individuals vaccinated belonging to the national government-set priority sectors (medical/health frontliners, senior citizens and persons with comorbidities) is 74,245 as of April 20.

Moreno has also taken the lead among other cities and municipalities in vaccinating those who are bedridden, wheelchair-bound or physically-challenged in various other ways, via ‘home service,’ with no less than Vice Mayor and Dr. Honey herself giving the jab.

The Moreno-Lacuna tandem has indeed proven to one and all, that the mass vaccination program can be carried out in the most systematic, orderly and most expeditious way possible, all with proper planning and implementation and most of all, a good working relationship between the mayor and vice mayor.

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Jokjok (from Wilfredo de Luna of Occidental Mindoro)—-PEDRO: Ano English ng, “baka maswerte ako?”/JUAN: Beef Lucky Me!/PEDRO: Ano naman sa English ang “maswerte ako Inay?/JUAN: Lucky Me Mami!/PEDRO: Eh ‘yung “maswerte akong lalake?”/JUAN: Eh di ‘Lucky Me with Egg’!

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