MANKAYAN, Benguet – The municipal government urged residents in the municipality to avail of the vaccines that will be made available in the coming months to help contain the possible rapid spread of the dreaded Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the municipality and ruin the gains that were achieved when the town was under various levels of community quarantine for over a year now.
Mayor Frenzel A. Ayong expressed optimism that after the rounds that had been done by the members of the municipal government’s information and education campaign (IEC) team in the different barangays, residents shall have already understood the benefits of having to be vaccinated. He pointed out that the government did its best to make sure that the vaccines that will be procured and donated are safe to help in preventing the spread of the virus and eventually achieve herd immunity in the country.
The municipal chief executive admitted that negative reports on the different vaccines that had been published in the various forms of media over the past several weeks have cast doubts on the efficacy of the vaccines thus efforts are being done by the different local governments to address the situation to ensure high acceptance of the vaccines when these become available.
According to him, it will be awkward if the vaccines are delivered and only a few people will be volunteering to be vaccinated that is why as early as last month, members of the local IEC team had been going around the barangays to inform and educate the people on the benefits of being vaccinated.
The town’s IEC team is composed of nurses earlier hired by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) as contact tracers until last December, thus, the municipal government opted to hire them as IEC speakers who are mandated to inform and educate the people on the importance of being vaccinated.
The IEC team members were also presented to the public during the simple program for the celebration of the municipality’s 108th founding anniversary.
Ayong commended the passion and dedication of the IEC team members to their assigned duties and responsibilities because they continue to render genuine public service amidst the ongoing pandemic.
He claimed that the frontliners as the unsung heroes in the campaign of the government to contain the spread of the deadly virus in the communities that is why they do not deserve to be unjustly discriminated but instead given the necessary inspiration for them to be able to hurdle the challenges confronting them.
He urged the IEC team members to sustain the gains they achieve since they started making the rounds in the town’s 12 barangays and that their learnings should mold them as responsible, dedicated and productive individuals in their respective fields of profession.
Ayong said the municipal government continues to engage the people in the different barangays and explain to them the real situation on COVID and the appropriate ways and means to contain its spread for them to understand their contribution for the success of the efforts to abate the spread of the virus. By HENT
