NO LESS than Cebu City Acting Mayor Mike Rama, Cebu City Health-in-Charge Dr. Jeffrey Ybones and Aboitiz instructed DILG lookout Mr. Clyde Vincent Betito to refuse vaccinations to those going for booster shots.
Or at least, that is what the man in the DILG T-shirt said to me.
I didn't quite get how the Aboitizes fit into the picture (maybe they can ask the DILG?), but I am almost convinced that Mayor Rama and the good Dr. Jeffrey Ybones himself are anti-vaxx.
Otherwise, how else can one explain that while other countries are practically pulling their citizens off the streets to convince them to get vaccinated, here in Cebu, we have the mayor himself and the City Health-in-Charge Dr. Ybones himself instructing Mr. Betito to weed out and refuse people asking for the Moderna shots they actually paid for!
These vaccines were legitimately imported by the private sector and paid for... twice over. For every Moderna vaccine set a person orders, he has to pay for another set as a form of indirect taxation. Presumably, the vaccines were to be given to the frontliners.
I know dozens of people in Cebu and in Manila who have had their 3rd and 4th paid-for Moderna shots after Sinovac. But it seems the DILG only instituted a lookout at the Central Bloc in Cebu IT Park. Where's the justice in that? Is vaccination a selective process only for the lucky ... or does DILG have a beef with the Ayalas and the Aboitizes?
There is of course the issue of implementing policies and guidelines but since this is a private sector and paid-for initiative, there has to be some leeway here. Someone whispered that the policy might have something to do with a "same shot" deal. People who got Sinovac can only have a Sinovac booster shot, and so on and so forth.
So now, the government dictates what we put in our bodies and the medications we take... despite the fact that one has personally paid for a vaccine of her own choice? That suspiciously sounds like a violation of human rights to me. Does DILG really want to elevate Maria Ressa to sainthood?
In the end, I asked Mr. Clyde Vincent Betito in the DILG t-shirt who his boss was...you know, perhaps, I could ask his boss for a few clarifications, but he replied he wasn't allowed to answer questions. What does DILG have to hide?