Sen. Joel Villanueva prodded the Duterte administration on Tuesday to include media workers in the priority list of essential sectors to be vaccinated against Covid-19, reminding “they are our information frontliners” to get the public updated on the latest development on government efforts to contain the contagion.
In a news statement, Villanueva, the Senate’s Labor Committee chairman, suggested the inclusion of the media sector in government’s list of priority recipients of the Covid-19 vaccine, citing their “indispensable work of providing timely and truthful information” in the midst of the pandemic.
The senator made the suggestion as the government bared Monday its priority list of essential workers.
“Press freedom and timely access to truthful information are a must in times of pandemic. Media should be included in the A4 list,” said Villanueva as he reminded that “media workers are our information frontliners. Bukod sa peligroso ang kanilang trabaho, napakahalaga po ng kanilang ambag na kaalaman at impormasyon laban sa pandemya.”
For instance, the senator noted the dangers faced by media field workers who need to move around to gather news and essential information for the public’s consumption, adding that “aside from field reporters, newsrooms are staffed by various individuals such as photographers and videographers, editors, production crew, among others, to provide content to various platforms such as television, radio, print, and online.”
“Given their role in society as information frontliners,” the senator prodded administration authorities to include media workers in their A4 priority list, which clusters workers categorized as essential.
Earlier, Villanueva stood at the forefront of pushing for the inclusion of essential workers in the vaccine priority list, recalling he had also pressed on the leadership of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases during the Senate Committee of the Whole hearing to prioritize essential workers into the government’s vaccination program.
Moreover, the senator suggested that apart from media workers, the priority list must also “include vendors in public and private markets, staff in groceries and places where essential goods are sold, drivers of public-utility vehicles, delivery riders, security guards, sanitation personnel like garbage collectors, workers in electricity, water, and telecommunication services, and construction workers in public and private projects among others.”