‘We uphold the call for Filipinos to join the vaccination line, whatever COVID-19 vaccine is available… the sciences of virology, medicine, pharmaceuticals, etc. are all we’ve got to defeat the pandemic — not religion, not superstition, cults and personal beliefs.’
THE Commission on Human Rights (CHR) has taken the position that preventing unvaccinated individuals from leaving their homes could result in unjust discrimination. This possibility loomed when President Rodrigo Duterte, during his State of the Nation Address, said that he will order the police to escort unvaccinated individuals found outside their residences back to their homes.
CHR spokesperson Jacqueline Ann de Guia reacted with a terse quip: “There are reasons for being unvaccinated that are beyond their control. The country has yet to vaccinate other priority groups, including indigent populations not covered by the A1-A4 category.”
The President repeated the idea last week, saying he wanted policemen and barangay officials to stop people who refuse to be vaccinated from leaving their homes to prevent them from becoming “walking spreaders” of COVID-19.
Based on the latest presidential pronouncements and the statement of Health Undersecretary Ma. Rosario Vergeire that the COVID-19 cases may reach 30,000 despite the two-week lockdown in Metro Manila, it would seem that the Delta variant really needed serious attention.
Bold and unusual steps may be taken by the government to cope with the impending upsurge of the disease in the National Capital Region.
If it is any consolation, Gen. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar, chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), allayed fears that unvaccinated individuals will be stopped from leaving their homes. Eleazar said the President was just stressing the need for everyone to get inoculated.
Eleazar said this is the President’s way of encouraging some of our countrymen who continue to doubt the effectiveness of the vaccine against COVID-19.
But De Guia is unmoved. She affirmed that impeding human rights in times of an emergency, such as a pandemic, must not only be based on necessity but must also be lawful and proportional to its goal. She cited the Siracusa Principles, guidelines adopted by the United Nations Economic and Social Council in 1984.
Sen. Franklin Drilon said Congress needs to pass a law to confine unvaccinated people to their homes, although it is also correct to encourage the unvaccinated to stay home, and the process of escorting them back to their homes is a reasonable exercise of police power to protect public health.
We uphold the call for Filipinos to join the vaccination line, whatever COVID-19 vaccine is available, and believe in the power of Science in fighting this pandemic, for the sciences of virology, medicine, pharmaceuticals, etc. are all we’ve got to defeat the pandemic — not religion, not superstition, cults and personal beliefs.
