Editorial
The state of the nation can be explained in a few phrases: the people are starving, COVID-19 cases are skyrocketing, and peasant workers, farmers, and activists are fearing for their lives – as the primary targets of the fascist administration.
The decisions he has made in dealing with the pandemic have been shortsighted and disastrous. The lack of funding for our science and health sector, and his dismissal of the initial outbreak by still allowing incoming travelers to pander to foreign investors, have dominoed into where we are now: almost 80,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases nationwide, and more than 100 days under quarantine.
Despite calls for a scientific and medical approach in dealing with the virus spread, the five months of lockdown was spent deploying police and state forces to deal with ensuring people are self-isolating and taken to self-quarantine centers if tested positive.
These task forces are wrongfully treated as the centers of our plans to control the virus, going so far as to propose searching for infected people home-to-home and threatening imprisonment for anyone who tried to hide COVID-19 symptoms.
This set up has only led to the state forces committing human rights abuse with their newfound power. Along with the lack of mechanisms in place for giving humanitarian aid to those vulnerable during the crisis, people who have no means of self-isolating or sustaining themselves for too long are mistreated for violating curfew.
Back in April up to 30,000 have been arrested in one month alone, which has caught the attention of several human rights watchdogs for being cruel and inhumane. Instead of informing the people on what to do or providing their needs to lessen violations, they choose to be counter-productive by humiliating and bringing them to crowded detention facilities.
Duterte’s hyperfixation on expanding the power of the police amidst a health crisis proves that he is more focused on upholding state fascism than helping his citizens recover.
Even before the pandemic, this has manifested in his support for extrajudicial killings (7,000 killed in his first 6 months), as well as the killing of farmers and members of indigenous communities (177 farmers killed under Duterte as of 2019).
During the COVID crisis an act giving him emergency powers (Republic Act (RA) 11469, or the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act) was approved, along the more recent ”Anti-Terrorism” Law, which threatens the safety of critics of the administration with its alarming provisions regarding things like surveillance and warrantless arrests. Killings are also still rampant despite the ongoing health crisis, manifested by the power given to the nation’s police force.
Instead of addressing the calls of protestors – students and citizens from urban poor communities – for mass testing and food aid, they are violently dispersed and arrested by the police, such as the arrest of the Sitio San Roque protest participants, PISTON jeepney drivers, and the Pride March arrests.
In summary, the administration’s fascist tendencies have done nothing to help the pandemic response and instead, amplify the problems already faced by the poor and our health sector. While they are focused on silencing activists and sniffing out communists, more and more suffer without sustenance.
With the stunning lack of programs set for aiding those without any means of sustaining themselves during the quarantine, the people, especially those from the vulnerable sectors, are practically left for dead. Everywhere, especially in poor communities, signs that are hung outside of their homes asking for food.
There are no proper guidelines set for the distribution of goods, along with some unsupervised local government heads giving only limited or selective assistance. This has led to the doubling of the number of Filipinos facing involuntary hunger (reaching approximately 3.9 million families) in the past three months alone.
Prior to the COVID outbreak, the Philippine health sector was already dissatisfactory. Availability is greatly affected by low government health personnel to population ratio, and an overwhelmingly small number of public hospitals. In terms of accessibility, only 43% of communities have access to a health center, with many facilities still lacking equipment.
Proposed budget for health is also very small compared to that of national defense and the DILG-PNP. In fact, the Php4.1-billion General Appropriations Act of 2020 0r the national budget was described as “militarist, pork-laden and full of cutbacks on basic social services,” as its amendments only inflated the budget for defense and security agencies like the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) even more. Services encompassing heath and welfare were also placed under the administration of defense and security agencies.
Workers in the health sector are also suffering with horrible working conditions and low wage. They are also severely overworked, having to be on duty for up to 12–24 hours a day. Despite being the nation’s frontliners, they are generally unsupported, and are given inadequate protection due to shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE). Lack of funding is still also a problem.
It is imperative that we recognize that dealing with COVID-19 would require treating it as a public health issue. It has been said over and over again that the enemy is the virus and not the activists, journalists, and critics protesting the government’s horrible decisions. Redirecting efforts and attention towards improving the health sector and addressing social issues like livelihood and food security should be the next course of action for the administration. Only when this is done can we truly improve the state of our nation for everyone.
