A Game of Russian Roulette of Quarantine
To assure organized ongoing quarantines to avoid transmission of CoViD-19, President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the deployment of his police and military men especially over the areas that are most affected to discipline those who will try to violate.
Somehow, however, the authorities need to be more well-informed and disciplined by themselves.
Even the United Nations (UN) lies with the same opinion, condemning the Philippines’ government for implementing a “militarized” concept of hitting into the bullseye the pandemic, that despite the International Law allows nations’ leaders to restrict some rights and to gain special powers when the state of emergency for public health will be declared, it surely is used in only necessary matters and not by the means of political propaganda.
But as to what incidents we are seeing right now on the news, it is like Martial Law. With that, it is no wonder why the UN called out the Philippines for alleged human rights violations during the lockdown alongside China, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and El Salvador. It is very shameful for a well-known democratic country to be named with nations that have already a long history of abuse.
As a basis for this, it has pointed out the high numbers of arrest during the implementation of quarantine, as in April, 30,000 people have already arrested, believed to be the highest amount in the world, and as of July 21, 3,059 quarantine violators remain in jail despite the charges against them are bailable due to filing delays. It is very illogical for our authorities to think that detaining them for doing such acts will leave them a remark to not do it again to stop the spread of the virus. Perhaps the only remark that they are saying is getting a CoViD-19 inside a prison, which has a very small space to do a physical distancing with each prisoner, contributing to the number one spot of the Philippines in South East Asia with the most cases, reaching more than 70,000 this Tuesday.
What is a lot worse is that the ways authorities used to capture them are inhumane. An example of that is local officials of Sta. Cruz, Laguna putting 5 youths who were caught breaking the curfew into a dog cage, squeezing them to fit. Another horrendous incident was a fish vendor getting beaten up while being arrested by the barangay watchmen in Quezon City for not only wearing a face mask, learning after that the guy has a mental disability.
What could really boil our blood is the fact that only those who are living in slums, also pointed out by the UN, despite the desire of just staying home and be safe but is not able to as the growl of a hungry stomach is a lot louder, are only paying the consequences, while those who are in a higher position that did a much worse than them such as NCRPO Major General Debold Sinas, Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) Deputy Administrator Mocha Uson, San Juan City Mayor Francis Zamora, and Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III did not even take the chance at stepping inside the prison as a criminal, as to what the national government always says, “compassion” is always a must.
And what could drive us into a lot more tragic situation is the fact that we have ended at playing Russian Roulette with 3 bullets: be arrested, rape/torture, or be killed. It is a matter of time that one will doubt if the police and military’s deployment nationwide is for the sake of the safety of people, or to mess up with the peace just for their happiness when reports of ‘sex-for-pass’ on checkpoints have been recorded, which the victims are now at the worry for their lives as they are fighting over policemen who think to be the most powerful of all.
The last bullet, with Duterte’s order of “shoot to kill” to those who will mess up the somewhat ‘peaceful’ quarantine, the murder, which was claimed to be a homicide at first, of the retired Marawi-veteran soldier Winston Ragos with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Schizophrenia got from the battlefield in the hands of Police Master Sergeant Daniel Florendo and 4 police trainees, foreshadows the possible scenarios if as an ordinary citizen, will resist being arrested, especially that Malacañang is highly favored for the possible warrantless arrest of violators.
Even with a pandemic, the Duterte administration still needs to bear in their minds that the eyes of the whole world are still watching our country, and one wrong move will surely be a lethal choice for them. They should change their ways of responding to the crisis nowadays, not because to not be criticized internationally, but for the reason that it was the right thing to do to put finally an end to the burden problems brought by this.
Authorities guarding the streets are of taking the part of reducing the cases of CoViD-19, but if this will only be the foundation of the solution, nonetheless, the problem will longer stay. It is more of a must to educate people who violated through seminars just like what other local government units (LGU) are doing and to ignite more the power of mass testing and medical solutions such as caring for our front liners and additional equipment for hospitals to ease their jobs. By this, the bullets of the gun used in the Russian Roulette of quarantine will be no more. Not because it was being shot, but because it was destroyed by the proper handling of the current situation.
Reference/s:
-https://www.cnnphilippines.com/…/Philippines-COVID-19-quara…
-https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/04/1062632…
-https://thediplomat.com/…/police-abuse-prison-deaths-draw-…/
-https://www.hrw.org/…/26/philippines-curfew-violators-abused#
