THE Progressive Alliance of Capitol Employees (Pace) in Negros Occidental is supporting the mandatory vaccination of employees, its top official said.
Pace president Renelo Lastierre, in a statement, said that they welcome the vaccination for government workers as a preventive measure to protect their health.
"In these worst times, it's better to be prepared. However, respect for the right to life as a constitutional mandate must equate with safety of the many,” Lastierre said.
He said that every person must be responsible for the collective protection with due respect to liberty, freedom from coercion, discrimination, and religious belief.
Lastierre also said that measures calculated for the common good must be the essence of governmental policies without which our very existence will be at stake.
Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson on Monday, November 29, said that he will check the number of Provincial Government employees who are still unvaccinated.
"We will talk with them and convince them," Lacson said, adding that if there is a need to issue an Executive Order for the employees to mandate a compulsory vaccination, he will do so.
Meanwhile, the National Congress of Unions in the Sugar Industry of the Philippines (Nacusip) slammed the Department of Labor and Employment (Dole) for its “cowardly response” to an inter-agency order to employers to require their employees to be vaccinated against coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
The resolutions issued by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) on November 12 and 18 ordered all establishments and employers to require their employees who must report in person to be vaccinated.
The Dole, however, said it will no longer issue a Labor Advisory on the IATF Policy.
Nacusip president Roland de la Cruz stressed that “this cowardly response by Dole by not issuing a Labor Advisory on the IATF Resolutions that will adversely affect the security of tenure, income, and rights of workers to be gainfully employed is a clear manifestation that the labor department is not 100 percent or all-out on this drastic and unconscionable policy of the IATF.”
"The unavailability of vaccines, religious beliefs, the incoherent local government vaccine policies, as well as the failure of the government to clearly send the message of the importance of Covid-19 vaccination to workers and the Filipino population in general are the major reasons why many Filipinos are unvaccinated at this point in time,” the group said.
Refusing unvaccinated workers to enter worksite premises is patently illegal, the group also said.
They warned Dole and the Civil Service Commission that illegal dismissal cases will flood their offices, as well as notice of strikes and work stoppages will be implemented nationwide unless this “inhumane”, “dictatorial”, “anti-worker” and “anti-Filipino” policy of the IATF is withdrawn.