MAKATI CITY -- The national government, in partnership with the private sector, is making COVID-19 vaccines more accessible to workers with the launching of the 'Jabs in Job Sites' program here at the Teleperformance in Makati City on Tuesday.
The 'Jabs in Job sites' focuses on the administration of primary doses and booster shots which has gone down since Metro Manila and 38 other areas were placed under Level 1.
"This is so important for companies like Teleperformance because we have 57,000 employees in the Philippines and to get vaccines straight to the workplace is a great opportunity for us to keep everybody safe, and at the same time, the government will be able to provide vital service," said Jeffrey Johnson, Teleperformance senior vice president for human capital resource management.
Johnson said the company targets to vaccinate around 200 to 300 of their workers during the program's pilot rollout.
"Hopefully, in the coming months, more and more companies will be joining this group to allow their workers to get vaccinated no more in the traditional venues for vaccination but now in their own workplaces," Labor Undersecretary Benjo Santos Benavidez said.
While vaccination is not mandatory by law, Usec. Benavidez emphasized that it is the workers’ duty to keep themselves and their workplaces safe against the deadly virus.
“We need to recover the employment loss, and one way to do that is to get our workers vaccinated.” he said.
In spite of the Philippines being the country with the lowest number of daily confirmed COVID-19 cases, Metro Manila Development Authority Usec. Frisco San Juan, Jr. reminded public not to be complacent
“I want to remind everyone that let us not be complacent, the success that we have right now could easily shift in another direction if we are too complacent. Surely we can be confident but not complacent," San Juan said.
For his part, National Task Force against COVID-19 Chief Implementer and vaccine czar Secretary Carlito G. Galvez, Jr. thanked the management of Teleperformance for volunteering their company to be part of the 'Jabs in Job Sites' program.
"I have heard that 85% of your employees are already fully vaccinated. We would like to encourage you to include [your] families in the bandwagon of Teleperformance,” Galvez said.
“Napakalaki po ng ambag ng BPO industry sa ekonomiya ng ating bansa. Kaya naman ganoon din kalaki ang pagpupursigi ng pamahalaan para ang lahat ng empleyado ng industriyang ito ay mabigyan ng booster shot. Malaking tulong ito para makaiwas tayo sa severe cases o pagkaospital o pagkamatay,” he added.
In the meantime, the government is scheduled to conduct the fourth round of the National Vaccination Days (NVD) from March 10 to 12, wherein 1.8 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines are targeted to be administered.
As of March 7, the country has administered a total of 137,085,697 vaccine doses nationwide, in which 63,793,957 Filipinos are now fully vaccinated, while 10,616,590 individuals have received their third dose or booster shots. (National Task Force against COVID-19)
