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public health

governance, public health

Grounding Government: Why Criticize Now During COVID-19?

March 18, 2020 by
G

I believe in government. Governments sprouted side-by-side with civilization to create order, as did belief, religion, and the study of natural sciences. The first “government officials” were those who displayed qualities of being ahead, for example, hunters of extraordinary prowess, priests, shamans, or those supposedly ordained by a god—pharaohs, emperors, prophets, etc. Ultimately, governments arose out of our need to make sense of life: social life had to lead somewhere, hopefully to a better end, or else, what’s the point of living with one another?

Government—coming in various forms—is human life’s answer to that. It is essentially an idea that a group of people, a “nationality” (an idea that sprouted much later), agrees upon and pools their time and resources (i.e. taxes) into so that, as a big(ger) group, they are able to surmise solutions to problems they could not solve as mere individuals. Simply put, big problems require big solutions.

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public health

Duterte’s iron fist no match for Covid-19

March 15, 2020 by
D

It’s 44 days after the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the country and day one of the Duterte administration’s community quarantine-cum-lockdown of Metro Manila. There is much more anxiety, fear and panic than there should be.

The coronavirus threat is real and it’s critical for the government to respond quickly and decisively. Everyone also has a responsibility to support every measure to stop the spread of the virus.

But what if the government’s response is muddled and, worse, ill-conceived? Do we, as the president said, “just follow” because it’s for our own good? Follow, and keep silent?

There are fortunately more than enough Filipinos who are neither blindly adoring of Pres. Duterte nor crave subjugation. Speaking up from outside government and especially within it, they are the best chance to get the Duterte administration to reconsider its militarist approach to addressing the COVID-19 pandemic.

And there should be no doubt that the response is certainly militarist.

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public health, social / media

#COVID19: Handling a health crisis in the time of Duterte

March 7, 2020 by
#

Here’s something that’s become clearer now: Duterte’s rhetoric—that one that’s been sold as a personality quirk, that cracks inappropriate jokes, that same one that shifts towards violence every chance it gets, that dismisses important issues by saying it’s fake news, that evades critical demands of nation by delivering empty soundbites and/or talking about the drug war over and over again, or his perceived enemies like media and America—this Duterte rhetoric is government’s communications policy.

Sure, it might not be written anywhere, but it is the rhetoric that Duterte’s men and women have used, especially when faced with questions from a populace now unable to contain its dismay and disgust. Keeping us preoccupied with soundbites also means we lose precious time for piecing together the parts of the various crises we face.

We see this strategy being used for the COVID19 crisis.

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