"We are back to the old practice of ‘to each his own.’"
There are indications that the vaccination program of the government will not be orderly as planned. We might even end up being one of the last countries in the ASEAN region to vaccinate its people. It now appears that a vaccine not yet licensed for use in the Philippines is available in the black market and being used surreptitiously by some important government officials. This is damaging to the credibility of the government.
In spite of many government press releases on the order of priority for vaccination, it seems that even before we can get started, we are back to the old practice of “to each his own.” It is a shame, but it is hardly surprising. It happens all the time in this country. People who are supposed to lead by example are the ones getting ahead of everyone whenever they can. I hate to think of what will happen when the vaccines do get here. Chaos, perhaps? Also, government officials justifying what the Presidential Security Group did are not doing a good job by downplaying it. They should simply be honest to the public.
Filipinos deserve the truth. If the vaccines were indeed smuggled, as some are saying, why were the vaccines not destroyed? Smuggled items are illegal per se and should have been destroyed. If it was the donors who smuggled and donated the vaccines, they should be arrested. Are we really to believe that it was the soldiers who injected themselves? The PSG should have more respect for the intelligence of the people. Filipinos are not that stupid.
Now, there are a lot of investigations on how the vaccine got here and who allowed the use without the authorization of the Food and Drug Administration. Even Congress wants to get into the act. There is no need for all these investigations if the PSG will only come clean and tell the public the whole story to put an end to all speculation. After all, it is hard to see the PSG people ending up being charged unless President Duterte would be willing to feed the Commander of his PSG to the “wolves” which I believe he will not do.
From what we heard from the PSG Commander Brig General Jesus Durante, he initiated the vaccination on his own so that the unit can protect the President more effectively during this pandemic. It was an understandable gesture of loyalty but he should have given more thought to the repercussions of his actions. He could have done it without violating the law. It probably did not occur to him that people in government must be the first to obey and follow the law. If they do not, what kind of a country are we? A Mickey Mouse democracy? We are supposed to be a country of laws. If it is not, we will lose our self-respect as a nation and end up becoming a laughingstock.
Even Senator Bato De La Rosa cannot seem to see this point. He lauded the PSG for being human guinea pigs when the whole point is about respecting and following the law. We must remember that an anarchic situation is the reason why revolutionary wars are waged by groups like the CPP/NPA. The government should not be the one giving the group a boost.
The biggest losers in this episode are the FDA and Secretary Carlito Galvez, the vaccine czar. Both were thoroughly embarrassed with what happened. FDA’s regulatory authority was completely by-passed while Galvez was blindsided. As the President himself said, when it comes to vaccines, only Galvez can decide. Maybe he should speak out. All these months, we have been hearing that the only agency in government that can authorize the use of any medicine or vaccine in this country is the FDA. There are now reports, however, that the 100,000 Chinese POGO workers in the country have also been vaccinated already and it is unbelievable that Harry Roque appears to be condoning this blatant disregard of our regulatory laws. I wonder what the Chinese government would do if Filipinos in China did the same thing.
So, what will the FDA officials do now? Resign in protest to demonstrate their resolve and save face? As I wrote last week, nobody would have begrudged the PSG close-in security, the President, Vice President and other very important government functionaries from being vaccinated ahead on grounds of national security so long as the process was followed. But not in the manner that it was done. The FDA, after all, can fast-track the issuance of a Compassionate Use Authorization. The bottom line in this unfortunate incident is that we cannot make a mockery of our own laws.