‘Vaccination is a moral obligation’

By Dolly Yas

BACOLOD City – Negros Occidental governor Eugenio Jose Lacson said getting vaccinated against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is no longer a question of choice but a moral obligation.

Lacson issued this statement as he joined President Rodrigo Duterte in his plea for every Filipino to get vaccinated.

“At this point, getting vaccinated has gone beyond the question of choice, it has now become our moral obligation,” he said.

The governor also said that the President’s 6th and last SONA revealed his hopes upon his assumption of office, the achievements of his administration, the challenges during his term, and how the pandemic forced him to respond with urgency to the unprecedented events as they unfold.

Lacson said that the President’s call for rebound and recovery programs, the retooling  and upscaling of workers for better job opportunities is decisively pivotal.

“For while we are in the midst of battling the COVID-19 virus, we also need to make provisions for the recovery of our economy. I am also with the President in his plan to pursue the creation of the Center for Disease Prevention and Control and the Virology and Vaccine Institute of the Philippines,” the governor said.

Bacolod City Mayor Evelio Leonardia said that “this was an extraordinary presidency, buffeted by extraordinary problems and difficulties. One cannot evaluate President Rodrigo Duterte’s last State of the Nation Address (SONA) outside of that context.”

“Given its problems, not the least of which was an unprecedented pandemic, I think we can give the President high marks for his achievements such as the universal health care, free tertiary education and in the areas of anti-insurgency, drugs, criminality and the campaign against Covid-19,” the mayor said.

He added that Bacolod has been one of those that markedly benefitted from the President’s attention.

Leonardia further said that aside from the infrastructure and social services projects, Bacolod have one of the most vigorous anti-Covid vaccination programs in the country “because the President has been quick to respond to our calls for additional vaccines. He even mentioned Bacolod in his speech. “