‘Even reactions to the inefficiency of government seems to be defined by the coming elections.’
THE incumbent has a natural advantage in an election, and rubbing it in just piques Sen. Risa Hontiveros, who reacted the other day to presidential spokesman Harry Roque’s peroration on the coming Christmas, elections in 2022 and the vaccination program of the government.
Secretary Roque said achieving a “better Christmas” for the Filipino people would be a problem for the opposition, in the light of what he expects as a successful mass inoculation drive by the government.
“If the candidates of the administration have an advantage, it’s because first, there is a pandemic; second, they can see that the government has done everything; third, it will really depend on the vaccine rollout. But I think we would achieve a better Christmas and that’s the problem of the opposition,” said Roque.
This comment is enough for the senator to seethe in a displeasure and raise the flag on what could be the Duterte administration’s master plan in the polls next year. Hontiveros said it looks like the administration is delaying the vaccine rollout on purpose, to time it for the coming elections, so that full vaccination activities would commence right at the start of the campaign.
The senator said, “The vaccine is meant to save lives, not buy votes. Hindi laro ang buhay ng taumbayan. Hirap at gutom ang mga tao, bakit pamumulitika ang patuloy na pinapakain sa kanila (Do not play with the people’s lives. They are poor and hungry, why should we feed them politics)?”
Manila Mayor Isko Moreno, another opposition would-be candidate, has been all around town criticizing the “super slow” deployment of the vaccines in Manila and the rest of the National Capital Region. He said if you believe that vaccination is the solution to restart the economy, to bring back normalcy to people’s lives, the vaccines should not be stored for so long in different warehouses.
Moreno even cautioned the people not to be swayed by press releases of the Department of Health saying vaccine distribution was being done quickly. According to the mayor, out of one million vials of CoronaVac from Sinovac in China that arrived last April, only 8,400 was allocated for Manila and the city has not received its share from the latest shipment. Of the Pfizer vaccines, the city received only 1,170 vials which would be good for 7,020 doses.
Isko Moreno is perplexed by the slow rollout of vaccines, while Hontiveros is already angry. Even reactions to the inefficiency of government seems to be defined by the coming elections.
