The local government of Puerto Princesa City held a ceremonial vaccination campaign at Hotel Centro on August 3 as kick-off in aiming to vaccinate 15,000 tourism workers. On that day, 10 people from different parts of the tourism sector such as hotel staff received their first doze of Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine.
The said event was attended by Department of Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat, Deputy Chief Implementer of National Action Plan Against COVID-19 Secretary Vivencio ‘Vince’ Dizon, City Mayor Lucilo Bayron, City Councilor Matthew Mendoza, City Tourism Officer Demetrio Alvior Jr., Cong. Gil Acosta Jr., Cong. Franz ‘Chicoy’ Alvarez, IMT Commander Dean Palanca, and PPC-COVAC Chairman Dr. Ricardo Panganiban.
Secretary Puyat expressed her gratitude that other government officials recognize the importance of vaccinating tourism workers.
“So, importante lahat protektado. When we talk about tourism frontliners, hindi lamang ‘yung mga nagtatrabaho sa mga hotel. Kasama rito ‘yung mga tricycle driver, masahista, yung live events pati media, souvenir [shops at] lahat ng nagkanegosyo dahil sa turismo [ay] kasama po siya as tourism frontliners.”
The Department of Tourism Secretary also put emphasis on the significance of A4 category as many has lost their jobs due to the pandemic brought by COVID-19.
“Tuloy-tuloy na ang pagbigay ng bakuna sa A4 tourism workers kasi minsan A1 to A3 lang. Importante talaga ang A4 kasi masyadong marami ang nawalan ng trabaho lalo na dito sa Puerto Princesa [dahil] more than 1 year na hindi kayo bukas [ang turismo] sa NCR,” Puyat said.
“Importante kasi siyempre ngayon ‘di ba pinag-uusapan na kung fully vaccinated puwede nang mag-travel [at] wala ng RT-PCR pero ang sa akin dapat protektahan, lalo na’t may Delta variant, ang tourism workers para hindi lang ang turista ang protektado pero ‘yung nagtatrabaho [rin] sa turismo.”
Puyat also said that the LGUs will still decide if they will still require a negative RT-PCR test result even if a tourist is fully vaccinated. She is also pushing to lower the cost of the aforementioned COVID-19 test to make it cheaper for people to travel around the country.
“Ang LGU ang nagca-call nun… pero ang ginagawa namin kasi ‘di naman namin ma-control ‘yung LGU ‘di ba? ‘Yun ang karapatan nila. Kami mismo sa Maynila P750 lang ang RT-PCR swab at lumalabas in one day pero humihingi ako recently na sana mababa pa [ang] cost ng RT-PCR para hindi mabigat sa bulsa ng mga turista.”
She is hopeful that once all tourism workers are fully vaccinated, tourism in the city will finally reopen.
“It’s really up to the Mayor pero I’m hoping na kung bakunado na natin ‘yung 15,000 tourism workers eh mukhang magiging confident na rin si Mayor tumanggap rin [ng mga turista] basta protektado ang ating tourism workers.”
National Action Plan Against COVID-19 Deputy Chief also assured that the national government will continuously supply vaccines for the tourism frontliners until such time everyone is vaccinated.
“Oo, tuloy-tuloy yan. Ang commitment namin is regular ang padala [ng mga bakuna] hangga’t maubos tuloy-tuloy tayo. Depende kung anong available.”
Currently, more than 21 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have already been administered and almost 10 million individuals are now fully vaccinated in the country.
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