Chalice Anne R.

Pamintuan
May 17, 2021
Trigger Warning: suicide

Filipinos Under House Arrest: Filipinos’ Response to the Militarized Pandemic

The noise-filled streets of Metro Manila were silenced as the national government placed
it on lockdown. The crowded and polluted cities became clean and traffic congestion-free, its
sidewalks that were full of vendors making a living turned desolate, and trains, buses, and
jeepneys that were always crammed are nowhere to be seen; indeed, the normal, busy lives of
every Filipino were halted as a deadly virus became globally widespread and unmanageable.
Although the origin of the virus remains uncertain, the prevailing theory was that this virus was
brought to life by the destruction of wildlife and misuse of nature that led to a fast spread of
diseases among animals which then reached a wet market in Wuhan, China where the first
sightings of the virus occurred. The market had live butchering of animals that were possibly
infected with a virus, which resulted in the air being contaminated with pathogens and later
found its way to infect humans. This disease was named Coronavirus (a.k.a. COVID-19 and
Sars-CoV-2) and its lethality has changed the world in a snap, resulting in a global economic
downturn, hospitals on full capacity, worsened mental health of the people, and an increasing
death rate each day. All of these happened in just a couple of months after the virus outbreak
worldwide. With the ongoing global health crisis, the government of our country decided to use
military force in combating the pandemic. The Filipinos were locked down in their houses and
were given strict orders wherein the ones who will fail to follow will be fined or arrested. Now,
the question is: how are the Filipinos doing during this pandemic with the strict regulations and
highly militarized response of the government?

It was late December 2019 when the first case of Coronavirus was announced in China.
In other countries, like Taiwan and New Zealand, the response to the virus was serious and
immediate, complete with emergency measures and travel restrictions. In contrast to this, the
Philippines during early January of 2020, when the national government was questioned by its
citizens about its response to the virus, President Duterte only said that there is “nothing really to
be extra scared of that coronavirus thing.” Only after the first case of local transmission of
COVID-19 did the president respond to the virus, weeks later than other countries’ responses.
The blatant and irresponsible complacency of the government laid down the foundation for a
deep-rooted pandemic to occur and has plagued the Filipinos ever since. The government's lack
of action in the early appearance of the virus resulted in its unhindered and exponential growth
which forced them to put Luzon and later the whole country on a strict lockdown. This in turn
has caused a lot of business in every industry to fall into bankruptcy, and further placed many
Filipino families in grave financial difficulties. Aside from the adversity of transitioning from the
then normal lives to the current lives in quarantine, Filipinos struggle to figure out how they
would survive each day without their source of income. During the unemployment crisis, the
government chose to pursue the sudden and unnecessary shutdown of a huge private company,
ABS-CBN Broadcasting Network, which led to over 11,000 Filipinos losing their livelihood. It
was a harsh and untimely decision especially when the entire Philippines was facing an
economic downfall due to the pandemic. Furthermore, the national government opted to fight the
main problem using militarized responses while giving insufficient support to the medical forces.
In Thailand, aside from their early response, the forefront in fighting the virus was entrusted to
their medical professionals, a move praised to be the reason why they had less than 10 cases each
month until December last year when the virus mutated to another variant. Still, even with the
new variants of the virus, the cases in Thailand can be considered a small number compared to
other countries’ reported cases. This shows that a police-centric response to the virus is
inefficient; instead, medical forces should be on the forefront being consulted in nearly all the
decisions as they are the most knowledgeable about viruses and pandemics. A lot of Filipinos are
complaining about the inefficiency of lockdowns and how it hardens the lives of Filipinos, but
does the government listen to their citizens? Up to this date, Filipinos still live as if they are on
house arrest where uniformed officers and barangay personnels are everywhere patrolling the
area to enforce strict measures and wherein the lightest mistake can put anyone to penalty. It is
apparent how harsh the stay-at-home orders of the administration are and how significant the
damages are to the Filipinos and to the country’s economy, howbeit, the government only
implements strict regulations while patiently waiting for the vaccination as the only solution in
ending the country’s sufferings despite other countries being able to successfully fend off the
virus with other countermeasures.
With all that has been going on in the country: health crisis, unemployment crisis,
economic recession, and all while under a government that has authoritarian tendencies,
Filipinos’ mental health has declined. It has been reported that there was a high increase in cases
of depression and anxiety among Filipinos since the beginning of the pandemic. Filipinos are
awfully troubled with how they will manage to outlast this pandemic without knowing when this
earth-shattering nightmare would end, but, unlike the government, Filipinos did not choose to
only wait for the vaccines to solve the problems under the pandemic, rather, they strived on their
own to figure out how they would be able to make it through each passing day. A lot of Filipinos
started to run small businesses, maximizing the time and resources of being locked inside their
homes. Very recently, it was reported that the unemployment rate of Filipinos decreased from
4.2 million to 3.44 million. Although the unemployment rate is still at an alarming level, this
shows that Filipinos are working hard to save themselves from the crises and are not just on
standby waiting for help. This pandemic that has challenged the Filipinos’ will has also sparked
the ‘bayanihan’ spirit of the Filipinos. The so-called “community pantry,” where people can
donate what little they have while those struggling to get by can get enough to last another day
has emerged in different cities and is runned by various non-government organizations, religious
groups, private sectors, and ordinary citizens with the intent to help their fellow citizens in their
times of need. This display of ‘bayanihan’ is nothing but admirable and respectable as it exhibits
how Filipinos support each other during difficult times. However, even this act of righteous good
will has been tainted by squandering politics of rivaling political groups which has caused the
unlooked-for red-tagging of the organizers of the community pantries. The first community
pantry that has been organized had to temporarily stop its operation as military officers
seemingly red-tagged its organizer by associating them to a communist group even without
sufficient proof. This red-tagging is a way of the administration to scare the citizens of not going
against them in any way as many criticize that various politicians feel undermined in their
responsibility to help the people because of the gratuitous community pantry. Sadly, the ugly
face of politics prevailed in the country even at times like this which only worsens the anxiety
that the Filipinos are experiencing.
 Coronavirus has worsened the different crises that the Philippines are enduring, and the
citizens, most especially the middle to lower classes, are the ones that are suffering the most. The
initial complacency of the government led to the adversities that Filipinos are going through and
the only response of the government to the virus is employing draconian measures while waiting
for the vaccines to come. Now, the Philippines is experiencing an economic turmoil, wherefore
the unemployment rate had an enormous increase and the mental health of the Filipinos were
awfully affected. During the first year of the pandemic, there was an attempted suicide in
Pampanga. When he was questioned by authorities, he bawled as he said that he cannot feed his
family anymore because of the ongoing crises. That man is only one of many Filipinos that are
experiencing the same hardships. A year has already passed, Filipinos still are as though under
house arrest, yet the strict measures of the government did not lead to any improvements in the
situations of the Filipinos under the pandemic. In spite of the citizens’ complaints on the
inefficiency of the government’s responses to the virus, the administration is seemingly
nonchalant, only justifying their decisions, and even uses red-tagging to scare the activists and
the ones who are instruments to the public's realization of the government’s incompetence. The
resiliency of the Filipinos has been romanticized too often as a way to allow the government to
serve without potency. Filipinos do not have to prove their resiliency nor their helpfulness every
time the government fails in giving service. Filipinos deserve a better government: a one that
truly cares for its people and not for themselves only, and one that thinks critically and
formulates decisions for the betterment of all instead of decisions that are done for selfish
political schemes. Filipinos are worthy of a government that is willing and capable to end the
crises that complicates the lives of their citizens.