WE ARE very elated that the vaccine roll-out at the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) in Davao City was very successful.
The barometer of its success was the huge number of health care workers who had themselves vaccinated despite the burning suspicion on the effectiveness of the China-manufactured vaccine Coronavax, the one administered in the rollout.
This only showed that with the leaders of the health workers at the SPMC showing the way in accepting the vaccine, all the fears borne out of doubts on the efficacy of the vaccine vanished.
Add to this is the apparent desire of the health workers to have some degree of protection against the dreaded virus, all the more that acceptance is overt.
On the day of the roll-out or last Friday, March 5, 2021, a total of 210 submitted themselves for vaccination. It was indeed a proud day for Davaoenos since it showed the level of our cooperation to the government who seems tireless in pursuing its task of protecting the population so that in the near future we will be able to return to normalcy.
We are strongly hoping that the level of enthusiasm the health workers – and that of the public soon — have shown their acceptance of the CoViD vaccines will not be dampened by the sudden surge in the number of new cases of infection registered of late in the country. All the more that the people should not hesitate to have themselves inoculated as soon as the opportunity comes to them.
Isn’t it much better thinking that we have something in us that we could consider protection than wandering around totally naked to all the vulnerabilities that could us unnecessary harm?
*****************************
Last Thursday, March 4, the City of Davao commemorated the 18th year of the bombing of the waiting area outside the old Davao airport in Sasa. The incident, which is considered the most treacherous and savage attack on innocent people, resulted in the death of about 20 people and the maiming of several others.
We would say it was most savage, and even barbaric because the perpetrators knew that their would-be victims then were all civilians most of them either sending off their loved ones or waiting for their arrival. Then suddenly with the blast hell broke loose and all of them lost the opportunities to give their relatives either a happy send-off or a warm welcome and reunion.
The commemoration which brought some of the survivors around to reminisce their ignominious experiences was led by no less than Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio. We remember that on that sad day we were still editing this paper and we received frantic calls from news organizations all over the world in their efforts to get a scope on the story. In fact, one television network based in Switzerland convinced us to go live. We obliged for the simple reason that if they got their facts right then the city will not be totally placed in a bad light.
But that infamy was not just the first one perpetrated in such similar public place with innocent people as victims. The second one was at the entrance to the Sasa wharf where passengers of inter-island vessels take to enter or exit. Again a good number of people died in that terroristic attack and many more wounded. The annual commemoration is also initiated by the local government. The same act of remembrance is also done to the deadly Roxas night market bombing which happened only in September of 2016. And like the first and second incidents, the Roxas attack was also bloody.
But we are somewhat intrigued why there is no effort to commemorate the days of the bombing inside the San Pedro cathedral some years back. The bombing happened twice. One during a Holy Week, while the other was perpetrated during a Christmas season.
We believe that the dead in those attacks also deserve to be remembered and the survivors gave some kind of salutation for surviving a serious affront not just to the people but to the House of God. We are not certain though if the Church authorities are doing their commemoration of those sad days.
Maybe our Sangguniang Panlungsod should look into the seeming disregard and start a move to have the recalling of those bloody incidents inside the city’s main church be officially considered as days and incidents worth remembering by the Davaoenos.
