Some 400 court employees are scheduled to receive their anti-COVID-19 vaccines this week, as the Supreme Court celebrates its 120th anniversary, Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo said Friday.
In virtual press briefing with the media covering the judiciary, Gesmundo said he was just informed by Senior Associate Justice Estela Perlas-Bernabe of the vaccination schedule.
The judiciary has some 30,000 officials and employees nationwide.
Gesmundo made the disclosure even as he admitted that all SC magistrates have received their vaccine jabs.
In the past few months, the SC had been requesting for a share of the vaccines for the employees of the SC, Court of Appeals (CA), Court of Tax Appeals (CTA), Sandiganbayan (SB) and the regional trial courts (RTC) in the country.
According to the top magistrate, having their employees — considered as the most valuable resource of the Judiciary — vaccinated would help avert a “looming judicial crisis.”
Based on the SC’s COVID-19 Response Team report, as of June 3, a total of 1,994 employees of the SC, CA, CTA, SB, and RTC have been afflicted with the virus, of which 33 have died.
About 1,846 judiciary workers have recovered, and 115 remain as active cases.
Of the 1,584 court workers who underwent quarantine after contracting the disease, 213 were hospitalized and 33 were quarantined in COVID-19 facilities. Another 972 underwent home quarantine or went in isolation.
The SC has also created a task force, headed by Court Administrator Jose Midas Marquez, that requested all the judges and court employees in the provinces to coordinate with their respective local government units (LGUs) for their vaccines.
The court workers have been included in the government’s COVID-19 Vaccines by the National Task Force COVID-19, under the classification of A4.
In Bacolod, all the RTC judges and court personnel and even police officers and lawyers who appear before their courts have been vaccinated.
