BY MATÉ ESPINA
IT WAS a sea of green as supporters of Davao City mayor Sara Duterte Carpio converged at the New Government Center over the weekend for a caravan manifesting their support for the presidential daughter to run for president in the next election.
The scene posted in social media made me blanch, not because I don’t like Inday Sara (well, I actually don’t) but because the gathering was a potential COVID spreader party.
All were wearing green shirts and had it not been for the massive tarpaulin with Sara’s picture, you would think it was a convention of Grab Food delivery service with hundreds of motorcycle riding men garbed in that green grab color.
Cars, some of which were top-of-the-line luxury vehicles were adorned with Sara posters and green balloons. Major streets here have Sara banners as well.
With this hype that started late last week, it seems unbelievable now that she remains a reluctant wannabe as she stated just a couple of weeks ago.
In an interview that came out in Feb. 22, Sara said she is not interested in running for next year’s presidential post but she may in the future. Her focus now is to help curb the pandemic.
She said that there are many speculations because she has not come out with reasons why she does not want to run and she even urged the public to report individuals or groups that have been posting billboards and streamers about her, especially if posting the same were made without paying the local government units the corresponding fees.
“I would like to remind everyone that there is a regulation in putting billboards and tarpaulins. You need to pay the government. Those who do not adhere to the regulations, we will take it all down and return it to their owners,” she said in an earlier interview.
The supporters here call themselves the Inday Sara for President Movement, Negros and I am not sure whether they paid the city government the corresponding fees to put up all those green signs around town.
The Sara posters came out a week after the launch here of the Negros for Leni movement led by former Negros Occidental Gov. Lito Coscolluela and several multi-sectoral groups.
Gov. Bong Lacson on the other hand said he has no part in any of the movements launched here and will wait for the filing of candidacies before he announces his choice.
Gov. Bong added that he has no issue if supporters will hang posters for as long as it is not within government property, particularly along the perimeter fence of the Capitol Lagoon which is right smack in the city center.
There are no banners on the fences but on posts around the lagoon are festooned with it. Perhaps that can be answered by the city government when they post announcements of how much did the organizers pay to hang those on lampposts and road signs.
Several mayors here are allegedly for Carpio but so far, only Himamaylan City Mayor Raymond Tongson came out openly that he is supporting the Davao mayor.
Meanwhile, support for vaccination slightly increased as 24 additional health workers got themselves inoculated with Sinovac vaccines. Of course the roll out is quite slow and so far, the number is not even five percent of intended beneficiaries of the vaccines sent by DOH here.
Some multi-national companies here that made a direct purchase of vaccines are hard-pressed in coming up with their list of employees to be vaccinated as acceptability rate remains low. And this time, it’s not because of the brand but because of the idea of vaccination itself.
The fact that the roll out was faster than most vaccines which take about 5 to 10 years add to the apprehension of its long term effects. However, it is understandable for COVID-19 vaccines to be released immediately after at least three clinical trials to abate the spread of the virus that has claimed millions of lives already.
With the new strains identified as the UK variant, the South African variant and the Brazil variants, the need for mass vaccination must be addressed especially as we already have the first two variants in our country which are said to be far more contagious.
After a respite, COVID-19 cases are on the rise again in Metro Manila which makes it more imperative to hasten vaccination for herd immunity.
Right now, there are only 6,300 doses of Sinovac vaccines here which will cater to 3,150 hospital workers. Although only two hospitals – Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital and the Riverside Medical Center were the supposed recipients of these vaccines as they are the priority health facilities here, the Emergency Operation Center are now looking at five other hospitals that may receive the vaccines.
That is because there may be few takers on this first set of vaccines as these are Sinovac rather than AstraZeneca vaccines that were initially asked of them when the survey was conducted.
But as Dr. Hector Gayares, among the first to be inoculated said, “It’s better to have 50-percent protection than nothing at all,” adding that, “The best vaccine is the one available at hand.”/PN
