In line with ongoing government efforts to reduce vaccine hesitancy among Filipinos, Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Guillermo Eleazar on Sunday ordered all police units to use their social media platforms to convince the public to get vaccinated against coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
“Bilang dating PNP ASCOTF (Administrative Support on Covid-19 Task Force), nakita ko ang kahalagahan ng information dissemination para kumbinsihin ang kapulisan na magpa-bakuna (As former PNP ASCOTF commander, I saw the importance of information dissemination to convince police officers to take their Covid-19 jabs),” Eleazar said in a radio interview.
Eleazar also directed all chiefs of police to use the PNP’s OPLAN Bandillo as another platform in convincing the people in their areas of responsibility to educate the public on the benefits of vaccines against the coronavirus.
OPLAN Bandillo is a community awareness and information dissemination program against criminal elements and was eventually used to encourage people to observe the minimum health safety protocols since the start of the pandemic.
In implementing OPLAN Bandillo, Eleazar said local police forces use megaphones and speaker system during their regular beat patrol to communicate with people in the community.
He issued the order as the latest SWS survey revealed that only 51 percent of Filipinos have expressed confidence in the Covid-19 vaccination program of the government.
When the PNP ASCOTF conducted its own survey among PNP personnel on who wanted to avail of the Covid-19 vaccine in February this year, only 51 percent of the more than 220,000 personnel responded that they wanted to be vaccinated.
But using fact sheets and videos from the Department of Health that were uploaded in a PNP’s app-based program and made accessible to all its personnel, Eleazar said they monitored positive development every day.
“Every day, we monitored some of our personnel who initially declined being vaccinated changing their mind. And we attribute this to our aggressive information drive,” he said in a statement on Sunday.
Currently, 84 percent of active-duty PNP personnel now wanted to avail of the Covid-19 vaccine. (PNA)
