Lawmaker rues ‘lopsided’ vaccine allocation

By Joseph B.A. Marzan

An Ilongga lawmaker on Tuesday lamented the insufficient supply of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines to Iloilo province, amid praises heaped on Iloilo City for its “vaccine sharing” scheme.

In an online meeting on Oct. 14, 2021, the national government’s “COVID testing czar” Vince Dizon called Iloilo City a “model for COVID vaccination”.

Dizon praised the city’s high daily rollout of vaccines as well as its donations to neighboring towns in the provinces of Iloilo and Guimaras.

Representative Sharon Garin (AAMBIS-OWA Partylist) reacted to Dizon’s statement on her Facebook page saying “Well how can the other [local government units] be aggressive if they don’t get vaccines?”

Garin told Aksyon Radyo Iloilo on Tuesday that she hoped that the province would also get more vaccines like the city.

She said that she had personally complained to Dizon and “vaccine czar” Carlito Galvez about the situation. The two officials assured her of more vaccines to the province.

“When I saw [Dizon’s statement], I talked to [Galvez] and complained again. He said he will check, but then he assured me the next day that 130,000 vaccines would go to Iloilo at the time,” she said.

Garin clarified that she was happy about Iloilo City’s COVID vaccination achievement, but she pointed out the lopsided situation of Iloilo province.

She said that allocation for the province should be “at the same pace” as that of Iloilo City so they could speed up the vaccination together.

She also emphasized that Iloilo province was the last to recently de-escalate from the “more restrictive” Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine (MECQ) status.

“I’m happy for Iloilo City and Iloilo City should really get as much vaccines as it could. It’s good for all of us because it’s the center of the economy. But it doesn’t mean that [Iloilo province] is good, because these are separate local government units. They cannot give to Iloilo City and the same [number] would also be for the province,” she added.

COVID vaccination data from the Department of Health-Western Visayas Center for Health Development (DOH-WV CHD) as of 12 a.m. of Oct. 18 indicated that the number of fully vaccinated people in Iloilo City is 344,466 (86.29 percent of 2021 population), while Iloilo province has inoculated 436,040 persons (22.01 percent of 2021 population).