Mahahalagang dahilan para magpabakuna laban sa COVID-19

What does “magpabakuna” mean in Filipino?

This public-health message urges action: «mas maraming dahilan kung bakit dapat ka kumilos ngayon» (“there are more reasons why you should act now”) and magpabakuna, get vaccinated. The word is a small grammar lesson on its own.

The root is bakuna (“vaccine”), borrowed from Spanish vacuna, a reminder of three centuries of Spanish in Filipino. The magpa- prefix means “to have something done to/for oneself,” so magpabakuna is “to have oneself vaccinated”, not the same as bakunahan (“to vaccinate someone”). Filipino’s rich affix system turns one root into a whole family of verbs.