MANILA, Philippines — Health Secretary Francisco Duque III told lawmakers Friday that he will push for overseas Filipino workers to be moved up in the COVID-19 vaccination priority list by six spots.
“I, myself, will make representations to the Inter-Agency Task Force [for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases] to move up OFWs from B5 to A4,” Duque said in Filipino during a hearing of the House overseas workers affairs committee.
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Currently, OFWs would have to wait until frontline healthcare workers, senior citizens, persons with comorbidities, frontline personnel in essential sectors, indigents, teachers and social workers, government workers, other essential workers, and socio-demographic groups at higher risk for COVID-19 are vaccinated before they get their shot.
If Duque’s proposal is approved, OFWs would be vaccinated alongside frontline personnel in essential sectors including uniformed personnel and those in working sectors identified by the IATF as essential during enhanced community quarantine.
The health chief also wants OFWs who are healthcare workers to be vaccinated alongside frontline healthcare workers, OFWs who are senior citizens to be inoculated alongside all other senior citizens, and OFWs who have comorbidities to be immunized alongside all other people with comorbidities.
Duque said he will speak to fellow Cabinet members to support his proposal, adding that the IATF would probably not oppose his bid.
He said the government’s pandemic task force would only need data from the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration on how many OFWs are in the country and are preparing to leave the country to determine how many from this sector would need to be vaccinated.
While health authorities have laid out a prioritization scheme, the implementation of this has been marred by reports of line jumping, which could potentially jeopardize the remaining vaccine doses the country is waiting for from the World Health Organization co-led COVAX facility.
The Philippines is aiming to secure a total of 146 to 148 million vaccine doses to inoculate 70 million this year alone. — with a report from Gaea Katreena Cabico