President Rodrigo Duterte urged the general public to take the vaccine jabs in the upcoming National Vaccination Day ordered by the government.

During the pre-recorded ‘Talk to the People’ address of the president on Tuesday, Duterte said the highlight of his talk is the Vaccination Day. 

“Mukhang ito ang pinaka-highlight dito sa iyong pinagdadaldal ko rito. Ang highlight nito is really iyong Vaccination Day where we should.. Lahat nang mahila mo doon sa vaccination sites sana, you can convince them to participate in the vaccination by having the jabs”, Duterte said.  

The government issued an executive order declaring November 29 to December 1 as National COVID-19 Vaccination Days, considering the duration as special working holidays, while November 30 remains as a regular non-working holiday. 

According to the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19, the whole-of-society and whole-of-government initiative is dubbed as “Bayanihan Bakunahan,” which aims to vaccinate 15 million individuals over the three-day period.

NTF medical consultant Dr. Maria Paz Corrales said the national government has coordinated with local government units, the medical community, religious groups, and the private sector to participate in the implementation of the said campaign. 

She also stated that the government will continue to expand its vaccination program in order to reach its goal of immunizing at least 54 million Filipinos by the end of December.

As of November, the Philippines has received a total of 121,979,340 COVID-19 doses from various manufacturers according to the National COVID-19 Vaccination dashboard.

The country has given out 66,816,976 doses of coronavirus vaccine, with 30,478,899 Filipinos now fully vaccinated.

The government remains optimistic about its goal of increasing the average daily vaccination rate to 1.5 million doses by the end of the year in order to achieve population protection.