Press Statement of Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph G. Recto

The latest jobs report states the obvious: Joblessness is a result of jablessness. 

The contagion of unemployment is a brutal side effect of this virus. Mass inoculation is the cure to mass unemployment.

Any ayuda is but a temporary pain killer that will lessen the symptoms a bit but will not cure the cause.

Opening up the economy remains a rhetoric if not accompanied by the opening up of more vaccination sites. Our recovery is through the tip of the needle.

We should ramp up vaccination before the start of the rainy season, when typhoons and floods and the power and transportation disruption they cause can wreak havoc on vaccine roll outs. 

Nature has a way of disturbing the best-laid plans of men. A nation weakened by the pandemic cannot withstand another calamity.

The coming months should be the summer of our liberation from COVID.