BACOLOD City – Western Visayas, especially the cities of Iloilo and Bacolod, should also be made priority recipients of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines, according to Mayor Evelio Leonardia.
Citing the surge in COVID-19 cases in the cities, Leonardia, as national president of the League of Cities of the Philippines (LCP), wrote a letter to National Task Force (NTF) against COVID-19 chief implementer Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. appealing for the inclusion.
Calapan City’s Mayor Arnan Panaligan, LCP secretary-general who co-wrote the letter of request, also appealed for his city’s inclusion.
Leonardia and Calapan urged for the distribution of new vaccine shipments outside the priority areas of the National Capital Region Plus, Cebu and Davao.
“We deem that the pre-emptive action of distributing vaccines to a broader number of cities will prevent a potential new wave of case surges throughout the Philippines,” the mayors said.
The LCP officials also acknowledged the national government’s task of considering the “delicate balance” between distributing vaccines to current hotspots and allocating to emerging hotspots that may become critical areas.
“We will bank on the expertise of the IATF (Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases), NTF, and NITAG (National Immunization Technical Advisory Group) to make evidence-based decisions in identifying the priority areas in addition to the initial list,” they said.
The LCP recently lauded the IATF for reclassifying local chief executives as part of the priority A1 group in the national vaccination program.
In the same letter, Leonardia and Panaligan assured Galvez that city mayors would reciprocate the trust and confidence of the national government with more “proactive and efficient programs” in their respective localities./PN
