A DAY after Christmas, on Dec. 26, 2020, President Rodrigo Duterte revealed in his weekly briefing that some soldiers have been vaccinated against Covid-19. That revelation, including his mention of Sinopharm, a Chinese state-owned corporation that controls over a thousand subsidiaries and six publicly listed companies (including China Traditional Chinese Medicine and Beijing Tiantan Biological Products), as supplier of the vaccine, left his alter egos scrambling for rationalizations of an obvious off-road approach to “self-preservation.”

Interior Secretary Eduardo Año said the soldiers referred to by the President were members of the Presidential Security Group (PSG). In a media interview, PSG chief Jesus Durante said the vaccinations began in the months of September and October 2020.