Nicanor Perlas (Photo Courtesy of Covid Call to Humanity)
MANILA, Philippines — A group opposing mandatory vaccination is set
to bring charges against the government for allegedly forcing Filipinos
to get jabbed against COVID-19 and imposing policies discriminatory to
those who refuse to do so.
In a phone interview on Wednesday, Nicanor Perlas, head of COVID-19
Call to Humanity (CCH), said a legal team was finalizing the “series of
lawsuits we have been preparing for a month.” He did not disclose
details but said the suits would be filed “as soon as possible.”
He said victims of all forms of vaccine coercion, vaccine-injured
persons, and those who lost a relative that had received at least one
jab were among the plaintiffs.
The lawsuits are in response to the government’s inaction to the
“cease and desist” document and notice of liability to stop “mindless
lockdowns and forced mass vaccinations.”
DOH position
The 86-page dossier was submitted in October to the Office of the
President and other government agencies, as well as hundreds of local
government units (LGUs). According to Perlas, the Department of Health
responded that it would maintain the status quo.
“The general response was it’s business as usual, and they basically
ignored it, so we will be filing lawsuits after exhausting
administrative remedies,” he said.
In response, the DOH on Wednesday said it was standing with the
medical community in reiterating the safety and efficacy of COVID-19
vaccines.
“All information about the vaccines has been made transparent and
open to the public. Before being approved for emergency use, these
vaccines have been properly tested to ensure hat the benefits of the
vaccination far outweigh any risk,’’ Dr. Beverly Ho, concurrent director
IV of the Health Promotion Bureau and the Disease Prevention and
Control Bureau.
She said that from March to November, 93 percent of COVID-19 deaths in the Philippines were unvaccinated Filipinos.
Cabinet Secretary and acting presidential spokesperson Karlo Nograles
said on Wednesday that the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management
of Emerging Infectious Diseases ( IATF) had yet to decide on whether to
impose mandatory vaccination.
“We will need a law on that,” Nograles, who is IATF cochair, told
ANC. “We in the IATF, we continue to discuss it. We also don’t want to
preempt Congress.”
‘Dangerous’ 2019 provisions
But he cited Interior Secretary Eduardo Año’s opinion that LGUs could pass ordinances requiring mandatory vaccination.
Perlas and the CCH are mainly opposing the IATF’s Resolution No.
148-B which, among its “dangerous” provisions, compels employers to
require all on-site workers to be fully vaccinated, strongly enjoins
local governments to ramp up demand for vaccination, and prioritizes
fully inoculated persons for services from both government and public
and private establishments.
“What is happening is there is discrimination between vaccinated and
unvaccinated individuals, which is unconstitutional,” said Perlas, a
sustainable development advocate who made an unsuccessful run for the
presidency in 2010.
It’s OK to be vaccinated, but the government should not coerce people
“and create conditions that will force them to get vaccinated,” he
said.
Per the CCH, the resolution contradicts Republic Act No. 11525 (or
the Covid-19 Vaccination Program Act of 2021), which states that
Covid-19 vaccination shall not be considered an additional mandatory
requirement for educational, employment and other government-transaction
purposes.
Perlas said the CCH had “more than 100,000” supporters composed of
doctors, lawyers, researchers, workers from the private and public
sectors, businesspersons and lay leaders.
He said that since the CCH’s inception, it had been receiving “almost
50 complaints” daily from Filipinos forced to get jabbed against
Covid-19—from government employees to impoverished beneficiaries of
government programs.
Informed choice
“Forced vaccination is rape of our body, soul and spirit,” Perlas said, quoting from the CCH statement.
“We insist on free and informed choice that is based on full
disclosure of the adverse effects of Covid-19 vaccines, and our
constitutionally protected human right to choose what kind of drugs and
vaccines will be injected into our bodies,” he said.
Interior Secretary Año earlier said that in the absence of a law
requiring COVID -19 vaccination, LGUs could, through Section 16 of the
Local Government Code, issue executive orders and ordinances that will
protect their constituents.
Perlas said such “executive orders and ordinances” would be challenged by CCH members in their respective localities.
But at the Palace public briefing, Health Undersecretary Myrna
Cabotaje, head of the National Vaccination Operations Center, backed
calls to make vaccination mandatory.
“Yes, that is the only way for everyone to get vaccinated. You know
the directive of the President that no one should be left behind. So
everybody should get vaccinated,” she said.
President Duterte on Monday said he might approve a recommendation for mandatory vaccination should the IATF make it.
He said he could invoke powers to implement measures to protect
public health even in the absence of a law, adding that he would not sit
idly while unvaccinated persons get sick with COVID-19 and infect
others.
Restrictions
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana is all for making COVID-19 jabs
mandatory, and is proposing restrictions for the unvaccinated.
“Everyone should contribute to the health of the community,
Lorenzana, who chairs the National Task Force Against COVID-19, said in a
message to reporters.
He said the unvaccinated were “vulnerable [to] getting the virus and
getting seriously sick,” and would “not only burden the state [with]
their hospitalization but also spread the virus around.”
Lorenzana said unvaccinated persons could be barred from traveling or
entering public places such as malls, restaurants or stadiums unless
they produce a negative result of a reverse transcription polymerase
chain reaction (RT-PCR) test taken within 72 hours.
Or, he said, unvaccinated workers could take weekly RT-PCR tests at their own expense so they could report for work.
—WITH REPORTS FROM JEANNETTE I. ANDRADE AND TINA G. SANTOS
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May we have the link to the inquirer post itself please?
Hello Jen, unfortunately, the actual open letter is not available online. But, here is the post to the news article written by PDI writers: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1522561/group-readying-suit-vs-coercive-discriminatory-vax-policies
Refuse to any activity of vaccination ..no to mandatory..stop vaccination to the youth
Thank You Po To All Patriots Who Continued To Fight And End This Medical Tyranny.
Sir, just a few minutes ago somebody uses my fb acct posting a comment about WHO messages. That is not me coz i am not in favor of vaccination and never ever be that i wud allow myself to be vaccinated. I am now troubled for somebody is having access to my acct.
Hello Benjamin,
HAve you tried changing your password? Change it now, and then log out all devices signed in to your FB account (there is a way to do this within FB). Also, search for various ways you can protect your privacy while on FB.
This fake pandemic only ends with unified mass non-compliance with these nonsensical mandates that are not based on science.
A fake vaccine containing all kinds of toxic shite, not least the ones that edit your DNA to turn the human body into a virus-factory.
Disables your immune system which is your first line of defense when it comes to personal health.
Masks and face shields that DO NOT filter anything!
A fraudulent RT PCR test that does not test for a virus. They just increase the amplification or cycle threshold to such a high level that it magnifies your genetic material as the virus. . If they want to manipulate public into believing that vaccines are working, they lower the CT. If they want to ramp up the fear, they simply dial up the CT. What they have is a perfect tool to manipulate humans into consenting to these fake vaccines.
The government is destroying us. IATF resolution 148B mandating onsite workers to be vaccinated is highly discriminatory! Businesses and the private sector is being co-opted by the government (like all governments in the world are simply corporations masquerading as governments) to enforce vaccine passports. Enforcing these mandates means creating a two-tiered society discriminating against those who refused to be vaccinated with this fake vaccine. Now I know how black people felt in the 1950s and 1960s.
And it is downright evil to put people in a situation where they had to choose between their life-long health and their livelihood. That IS A FALSE CHOICE!
Now they’re talking about vaccinating kids! We can’t allow that to happen!
Love your name, Non GMO Human!
In essence, everything we are doing now in CCH is really geared towards protecting our children – their future, and their freedoms. Every single freedom we surrender now is a right that our children will never get to experience. Come to think of it, Big Pharma is forcing these vaccines on our healthy children because they want to secure their long-term business!
Unfortunately, the people in government seem to have blinders. They cannot see beyond these vaccines. They do not see the data that the majority of those who get COVID actually recover. They do not see the deaths following vaccination, and the injuries the vaccines are causing. We can stop our government from coercing EVERYONE to get the vaccine. They cannot take away our God-given right to choose what we put/not put inside our bodies.
We know that even the vaccinated understand what freedom of choice means! We know that many of them stand with us in this position. So let us not be dissuaded. Together, we will overcome!
hi, my name is maria clachina, can you comment of what microbiologist Austriaco’s statement about omicron. it seems like he still believes that the unvaxed are most likely be affected.
https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/topstories/nation/817269/microbiologist-austriaco-says-omicron-the-beginning-of-the-end-of-covid-19-pandemic/story/
Hello maria, thanks for alerting us to this article. We’ll review it first and will let you know of our comments about it.