President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday night said Vice President Leni Robredo has “muddled up everything” instead of helping in the drive to boost vaccine confidence in the country.
The tirade followed the call of the vice president to have CoronaVac undergo evaluation under the Health Technology Assessment Council which is only recommendatory.
“Thereby, I said, creating an uncertainty and doubt in the minds of the people… So I hope that next time kung wala naman siyang masabi na tama, she just would maybe shut up (I hope that next time if she doesn’t have anything right to say, she just would maybe shut up),” he stated.
“Hindi ako pikon. Galit ako. Iyong galit ko hindi naman galit na galit na talagang gustong pumatay ng tao. Galit na more of an irritation (I am not touchy. I am angry not in the sense that I want to kill, it’s more of an irritation),” he admitted.
The camp of Robredo responded in a statement that they will just keep focusing on their work.
Meanwhile, Vaccine Czar Carlito Galvez Jr. reported an improvement in the public’s confidence on the vaccine developed by Sinovac following the inoculation of hospital directors.
“Halos araw-araw marami pong nagre-request ng mga vaccine. Ibig sabihin po, Mr. President, talagang tumataas na po ’yong ano ‘yong tinatawag nating uptake (There are requests for vaccines almost every day. This means the uptake is increasing),” Galvez shared.
Data presented by Malacaῆang on Tuesday show 35,669 individuals have been vaccinated as of 6 p.m. of March 7, with 463,540 total vaccines deployed.
While working on vaccine confidence, the Philippines has already signed the purchase order for a million doses of Sinovac to add to the country’s supply. The supply agreement was also signed for 13 million doses of Moderna vaccines aside from the 7 million meant for the private sector.
Sec. Roque said the supply agreement for 30 million doses of Novavax will be on March 10 while the agreement with Johnson & Johnson is “in progress.”
– Report from Mela Lesmoras
