President Rodrigo Duterte is set to appear in a new infomercial to encourage more Filipinos to get vaccinated against COVID-19, Malacañang said Thursday.
“We will not stop. On Monday, we will take videos of the President as the biggest endorser for the new infomercial that will be produced by the Office of the Presidential Spokesperson,” Sec. Harry Roque said.
Roque, however, did not mention the possible date of the release of the infomercial.
Duterte’s expected appearance in the latest infomercial came after he completed his COVID-19 vaccination.
Duterte was inoculated with his first dose of COVID-19 vaccine developed by Chinese state-owned pharmaceutical firm Sinopharm on May 3. He received the second jab on July 12, or exactly 70 days after his first shot.
In June, Duterte also appeared in a nearly two-minute commercial, inviting Filipinos to get inoculated with COVID-19 vaccine to help the country beat the ongoing health crisis.
He said public participation was vital to the safe reopening of the Philippine economy.
As of Wednesday, around 10,026,722 of the 14,074,514 individuals have received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, while the remaining 4,047,792 have been fully vaccinated, Roque said in the press briefing.
The Social Weather Stations, in its June 23 to 26 survey, found that around 45 percent of Filipinos are now willing to receive COVID-19 vaccines.
Roque said the Palace is elated by the SWS poll results.
“First and foremost, we are elated that there are more Filipinos [who want to get inoculated against COVID-19]. The number of people who want to get vaccinated has doubled or tripled,” he said.
The Philippine government aims to inoculate up to 70 million within 2021 to achieve population protection amid the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic.