THE Department of Interior and Local Government yesterday asked local government mayors to consider offering food packs to beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps to convince them to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
The DILG made the statement after getting flak from various quarters for its earlier proposal to deny 4Ps beneficiaries of their conditional cash grants if they refuse to be inoculated.
“We urge and challenge LGUs to adopt other creative ways to change the minds of their constituents, including the 4Ps beneficiaries, from hesitancy to vaccine acceptance and willingness,” the DILG said in a statement.
“This may be in the form of new incentives such as food or rice packs, raffle bonanza for the inoculated population, and one-stop shops offering a smorgasbord of government services to include vaccination, among others,” it added.
Interior Undersecretary and spokesman Jonathan Malaya on Saturday said in a radio interview the DILG has proposed to the Department of Social Welfare and Development a “no vaccine, no subsidy” policy for 4Ps beneficiaries who refuse to get vaccinated. “If they refuse to get vaccinated, they cannot get any subsidy,” he said.
On Sunday, various other sectors said the proposed policy is coercive and anti-poor. On Monday, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said “non-vaccination against COVID-19 cannot be a ground for suspension or termination of conditional cash transfer benefits if the beneficiary household has already qualified, and continues to qualify, under the 4Ps act.”
The DILG yesterday clarified the proposal was merely to “withhold a portion of the benefits of the 4Ps beneficiaries” until they are vaccinated, to ramp up vaccination, to achieve the 1 million to 1.5 million jabs a day and reach herd immunity before the year ends. It noted that only 12 percent of the 4.4 million 4Ps beneficiaries are vaccinated against COVID-19 despite information campaigns and intervention measures of the government and the private sector.
“Our proposal has never been to delist or remove a 4Ps beneficiary from the program but merely to withhold a portion of the benefit — the health and nutrition grant — until such time that the individual has been vaccinated,” it said.
“The intention behind this proposal is sincere and clear: to boost the inoculation drive in order to rise above the COVID-19 nightmare and reach population protection as soon as possible. Nonetheless, we defer to the wisdom of the President if our suggested policy will be adopted or not,” the DILG also said.
Interior Secretary Eduardo Año, in an interview at the Villamor Air Base on Monday night, acknowledged the 4Ps Law does not require the beneficiaries to be vaccinated.
“Of course, that is not a requirement under the 4Ps Law, but then we’re proposing (if it can be done) through a form of EO (executive order) or through policy. There is a 4Ps advisory council, in case they will consider it,” he said.
Año clarified the DILG was not actually proposing to deny the 4Ps beneficiaries of their cash assistance but to delay it until they are vaccinated.
Meanwhile, Año said vaccinators from National Capital Region will be lending assistance to hasten the vaccination in the Central Luzon and Calabarzon regions.
“The vaccination rate in regions 3 (Central Luzon) and 4A is quite low, so NCR is going to help to ramp up vaccination in 4A and 3. In fact they are willing to bring their vaccinators to these areas to improve (their vaccination rates),” said Año.
The vaccination rate in NCR is now 87 percent, contributing to lower COVID-19 infections.
“We want to improve the vaccination rate in Regions 3 and 4 because they’re near Metro Manila,” said Año.
The National Task Force against coronavirus disease (NTF COVID-19) is recommending the declaration of November 29 and December 1 as non-working “executive holidays” to enable more people to use the free time be vaccinated, task force chief implementer and vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said.
The government is holding a three-day national COVID vaccination day from November 29 to December 1. It aims to inoculate at least 5 million people and eventually hasten the country’s goal of population protection and herd immunity.
November 30 is a holiday as the country commemorates Bonifacio Day.
As of November 8, about 64.947 million vaccine doses have been administered nationwide, with 29.8 million or 38.64 percent of the targeted population fully vaccinated while 35.28 million or 45.55 percent received the first dose, according to presidential spokesman Harry Roque.
In Metro Manila, 18.55 million doses have been administered with 8.83 million or 90.35 percent of the targeted population fully vaccinated while 9.7 million or 99.4 percent received the first dose.
The country has so far received 113.45 million doses of vaccines, including 2.8 million doses of Sputnik V that arrived Monday night. A shipment of 793,900 doses of AstraZeneca was expected to arrive late Tuesday.
Senators Panfilo Lacson and Risa Hontiveros and Senate President pro tempore Ralph Recto welcomed the three-day national vaccination drive. — With Jocelyn Montemayor, Gerard Naval, Raymond Africa and Ashzel Hachero
