Wenceslao: Vaccination

Wenceslao: Vaccination

I admit I am one of those eagerly looking forward to being vaccinated so I can be freer to move and earn something for the family. Before this, I had planned the direction of my retirement days. The first few months was somewhat of a success. I joined a campaign machinery, and learned many more things about our electoral process. The candidate I supported won, and I learned many more things about how a new government fills up the local government bureaucracy.

Part of my plan was to set up a sari-sari store. I borrowed this plan from my mother whose itch to manage a store afflicted her for much of her married life. She once managed one of the bigger stores in the sitio where I grew up in Barangay Sambag 2. The store’s earnings augmented the income of my late father, whose salary as a salesman of a multinational soft drinks firm needed augmentation considering that we were nine children in the family.

When I look back now at what happened before and during the pandemic, I would say there seemed to be a purpose to all of them. My retirement and even my failure to land a new job after the candidate I supported won didn’t look good for the family’s financial standing, but it now looks to me like those were good for me healthwise. Those circumstances made it easier for me to stay home during the lockdowns. And while my sari-sari store is still not earning that well, it did provide my family with some of its needs during those dire times.

But we do need things to normalize a bit more. That can only happen if people get vaccinated. I think that will happen somewhere in the middle or in the latter part of this year yet. That is why we need to be patient. In the meantime, we need to be strict in following health protocols by wearing face masks, maintaining social distancing and avoiding crowded places.

There’s also the matter of regularly washing one’s hands.

I say that vaccination is now the biggest challenge for incumbents. If they succeed in having their constituents vaccinated, the goodwill they will earn from the people will not be erased come election time. But they should be warned that many eyes are watching. We all know that graft and corruption always hound transactions involving the government. Procurement of vaccines is one such transaction.

This should also be the concern of people because government money is involved in the purchase. As for private funds, I agree with senators pushing for less stringent requirements in the purchase of the vaccines by private entities. My wife works in a company that is now part of the group of businessman Manny Pangilinan. The Pangilinan group wants to purchase vaccines for its employees. Inoculating the employees should ease the anxieties of the employees’ families.

I am hoping that the government will be able to speed up the process as far as mass vaccination is concerned. This is the only way to finally end the pandemic and return us to normalcy.

Trending

No stories found.

Just in

No stories found.

Branded Content

No stories found.
SunStar Publishing Inc.
www.sunstar.com.ph