Litigant lawyers now in 4th priority group for COVID-19 vaccination
MANILA, Philippines — Litigant lawyers are now included in the category for frontline workers in essential sectors on the government’s priority vaccination list.
On Friday, presidential spokesperson released the updated list of sectors under the A4 priority group, which now include “frontline workers in law/justice, security and social protection sectors.”
Department of Justice prosecutors and the nearly 30,000 employees and court officials of the Judiciary have earlier been included in the same priority group.
They will be next in line for inoculation after health workers (A1), senior citizens (A2) and people with co-morbidities (A3).
Integrated Bar of the Philippines President Domingo Egon Cayosa expressed thanks for the inclusion of lawyers in the A4 category.
“Litigation lawyers, prosecutors, [Public Attorney’s Office] lawyers and lawyers who are frontliners in the justice/law sector who are at high risk of COVID-19 infection should be similarly protected as the magistrates and court employees,” he said.
Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said in a separate message that the “immediate staff” of the Office of the Prosecutors and PAO are also included in the same category.
Cayosa earlier wrote to the National Task Force Against COVID-19 to ask for lawyers’ inclusion in the priority vaccination list as he stressed the “need for the justice sector to be operational in these trying and challenging times.”
Cayosa vowed that the IBP will “fully cooperate to ensure fair and efficient allocation of vaccines.”
PDLs vaccination
As more sectors are added to the A4 category for priority vaccination, the Commission on Human Rights and advocacy group Kapatid are calling on the government to not forget about inmates in cramped prisons across the country.
Kapatid spokesperson Fides Lim in a statement on Friday urged the government to release a clear schedule for vaccination of Persons Deprived of Liberty (PLDs).
“A vaccine schedule is the only way to concretize the assurance given to us by the Department of Health that ‘all persons deprived of liberty as determined by [Bureau of Jail Management and Penology and Bureau of Corrections] are included under the Priority Eligible Group B-9,’ and to thereby correct the avoidable confusion caused by the DOJ Secretary,” Lim added.
Guevarra said that the NTF had approved on Thursday the final list for vaccine priority A4 category, but inmates were not included since they are not frontliners.
The DOJ chief, however, assured that they “will make sure that PDLs will also be vaccinated like everyone else, as they are highly vulnerable to transmission of the COVID-19 virus due to lack of space.”
“There is still category B and C. We'll discuss the matter at the technical level first,” he added.
The latest data from BuCor showed that one inmate and 13 personnel have tested positive on RT-PCR tests for COVID-19. Separate data meanwhile tallied 175 inmates, 32 personnel and 161 trainees have tested positive on rapid antigen kits as of April 14.
BuCor spokesperson Gabriel Chaclag said: “All are asymptomatic and have been isolated for more than a week. They are tested weekly using rapid antigen, and if [result is negative], they go back to routine job or old places.”
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