The congressman of San Juan City, Ronaldo Zamora, said Monday he had received four shots of COVID-19 vaccine since last year.
In a speaking engagement, Zamora, who delivered a speech without a face mask, started off saying in a mixture of English and Tagalog, "If you are wondering why Congressman Zamora is not wearing a mask, I will tell you—I have been vaccinated twice, twice over, four [doses]."
The government has not allowed vaccinated individuals to go around with masks.
But the Department of Health warned that doctors administering extra doses of COVID-19 vaccines to patients could face sanctions, as the agency had yet to approve the use of booster shots and the mixing and matching of jabs.
"We were not informed about this matter. This is something that they did between the individual and physician," DOH spokesperson and Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in an online press conference.
"The mixing and matching of boosters is not recommended right now because the evidence is still incomplete,” Vergeire said.
Vergeire said sanctions might be imposed against doctors administering different brands of COVID-19 vaccines to their patients.
She said health officials have yet to authorize the safety and effectivity of mixing and matching vaccines.
"I hope we all follow, align with the government's protocols,” she said.
Zamora intimated he received the Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine, the same as the one administered to President Rodrigo Duterte.
"If we got it from the same source, then we both received a bootleg (brand)," Zamora said, noting that it meant he would not have a document or vaccination form that would allow him to travel to other countries.
Zamora added that unlike the Philippines that accepts almost all brands, the US and European countries do not allow any Chinese-made vaccines. He said one could only enter if one got doses from Western brands like Pfizer, Moderna, or the single-shot Janssen vaccines.
He added that he completed his Sinopharm dose last December — ahead of the government's vaccination program rolled out in March this year.
He said it was his doctors who advised him to take not one, but two booster shots since he was immunodeficient. He later told reporters that he got Pfizer as his booster shots.
Medical experts say when a person is immunodeficient, that person has the inability to produce a normal complement of antibodies or immunologically sensitized T cells especially in response to specific antigens.
T cells are one of two primary types of lymphocytes—B cells being the second type—that determine the specificity of immune response to antigens (foreign substances) in the body.
The DOH likewise discouraged Filipinos from taking COVID-19 booster shots as authorities have yet to recommend these.
Vergeire earlier said it would not recommend the use of booster shots while vaccine supply remains limited.
"We are not encouraging anyone to get the booster because we want to focus on equity,” she said.
In May, the Department of Science and Technology said it would begin a study on the effect of jabbing Filipinos with different types of COVID-19 vaccines.
The government earlier said the Philippines would maintain its “single brand” policy for COVID-19 inoculation while the study has yet to be completed.
