Six-hundred (600) seafarers were jabbed today with European-approved vaccines at the Bureau of Quarantine Central in Manila. Members of the Kayod Marino Volunteer Movement (KMVM), the volunteer arm of MARINO Partylist, assisted by distributing lunch packs to the vaccination staff and snacks to the 600 seafarers.
“We send our volunteers to vaccination sites and provide additional workforce as needed,” MARINO Partylist First Rep. Sandro Gonzalez said. “We also provide lunch packs to our health workers and to the staff of Bureau of Quarantine (BOQ), Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA), and Association of Licensed Manning Agencies Maritime Group (ALMA). If we’re not organizing the vaccination itself, we assist whenever we can through manpower and food distribution.”
The vaccination of 600 seafarers was organized by MARINA and ALMA, in partnership with the Department of Health (DOH), Bureau of Quarantine (BOQ), and Marino Partylist. Seafarers had to register at Marina’s vaccination portal and coordinate with their manning agencies to get a slot for the vaccination. The vaccination portal can be accessed here: https://marina.gov.ph/seafarer_covac/seafarers/index.php
“We’d like to thank our volunteers for spending their time assisting at the BOQ vaccination site,” MARINO Partylist Second Rep. Macnell Lusotan said. “Truly our Kayod Marino volunteers are one of the strong forces of the partylist. With them, we have extended the services of Marino Partylist to cover more areas.”
“There are about 30,000 active COVID-19 cases now in NCR, which is a lot,” Rep. Gonzalez added. “Despite the MECQ status of Manila, our volunteers risk their lives to assist in vaccination sites. What they do, I believe, is a heroic act. They can also be considered frontliners.”
“The pandemic tests our resolve to band together in the maritime community,” Rep. Gonzalez continued. “Not only government officials and agencies are involved, but regular people with the good intention to make our seafarers’ vaccination as effective and efficient as possible. All our vaccination nationwide truly is a bayanihan effort.”
