As everyone celebrates their Christmas vacation with their loved ones during December

2019, a new type of coronavirus was first identified in Wuhan, China, and called novel
coronavirus (2019-nCOV, or COVID-19). The rapid outbreak of the virus was
announced by the news that caused panic for people in Wuhan, China. As such, this
response forced the China government to close boundaries in order to prevent infecting
more people. People in Wuhan were given a chance to leave the country in the next
24hrs before it closed its boundary. Hearing this announcement, many people chose to
leave the country or move to another city or province of China with the fear that they
could be infected by the virus. However, because the China government decided to let
the people in Wuhan move to another place, their decision affected the whole world and
made us feel the suffering that we now face today.
It was January 30, 2020, when it was first announced in the Philippines’ media that
Department of Health reported the first new COVID-19 cases in the Philippines. It was
said on the news that the first case was a 38-year-old female Chinese patient that was
from Wuhan, China, and traveled to Hong Kong before she arrived in the Philippines
last January 25, 2020. This made the public to be alert and made a petition from
President Rodrigo Duterte for a closure of the Philippine boundary. However, no
response has been received from the public. After reporting 7 cases of COVID-19, the
border of the Philippines has just been closed. This is the only time when the President
has decided to take action against the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the
Philippines.
The President responded to deal with the pandemic by implementing two emergency
measures under the authority of two statutes: The first statute initiated was the
Mandatory Reporting of Notifiable Diseases and Health Events of Public Health
Concern Act of 2018, which empowers the president with the authority to declare a
public health emergency and deploy governmental and non-governmental agencies to
respond against the threat (Section 7). And the 2nd statue that was operationalized is
the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010, which authorizes
the president to declare a state of calamity (Section 16). However, these two executive
statutes were not enough, as Congress enacted Bayanihan to Heal as One Act of 2020
(Bayanihan Act) in March for the exclusive purpose of giving the "necessary special
power" to President Duterte to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, with the support of
emergency power under the 1987 Constitution (Article VI, Section 23).
The national government put the Philippines on lockdown with the suspension of public
transportation and the closure of different establishments. President Duterte's leeway to
combat COVID-19 was through enforcing "militarization" in the presence of the police
and military on the streets. The lockdown was enhanced by the fully-armed uniformed
soldiers at strategically positioned checkpoints. President Duterte's militarization was
effective in part because every person in the Philippines was forced to stay in their
homes and has been limited to leaving outside due to safety protocols that were
implemented by the national government, together with the LGUs. However, President
Duterte made this approach ominous as he handled it with menace, especially when he
announced to the media that he was encouraging the police to "shoot them dead" for
those recalcitrant violators. Hearing this remark was appalling to many Filipinos
because it disregards the fact that a large portion of Metro Manila’s population has to
leave their homes to work in order to make ends meet on a daily basis. The president’s
message to the police brings concern and fear to the public as on April 21, 2020, at
about 2:30 pm, a police officer shot a retired military at a checkpoint in Quezon City.
This situation has prompted netizens to question whether President Duterte's militarized
approach is effective in combating COVID-19 in the Philippines. Only people who
witnessed the chaos can answer the stated issue.
In conclusion, we believe that approaches to combating COVID-19 can be handled in a
healthy way without threatening or violating the human rights of many Filipinos. As the
mentioned issue above explains, President Duterte's strategy was not effective since he
focused more on a militarized approach than the public health approach. He made this
crisis more of a martial law-like lockdown. We all know that governments should not
spread fear. Instead, they should make their citizens feel safe and serve them by
providing for their needs and giving them concrete plans to follow. The only enemy at
this time is the deadly virus, not those Filipinos who break the rules due to the
reasonable situation.
References:
Michael Henry Yusingco and Angelika Lourdes Pizarro, ‘The Militarized Response to
the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Philippines: An Escalating Threat to Human Rights’
IACL-IADC Blog (18 June 2020) https://blog-iacl-aidc.org/2020-posts/2020/6/18/the-
militarized-response-to-the-covid-19-pandemic-in-the-philippines-an-escalating-threat-
to-human-rights
DOH (30 January, 2020). DOH CONFIRMS FIRST 2019-NCOV CASE IN THE
COUNTRY; ASSURES PUBLIC OF INTENSIFIED CONTAINMENT MEASURES.
https://doh.gov.ph/doh-press-release/doh-confirms-first-2019-nCoV-case-in-the-country 
Ferreras V. & Cahiles G. (22 April, 2020). Retired soldier shot dead by police at
checkpoint in Quezon City. CNN Philippines.
https://www.cnnphilippines.com/news/2020/4/22/Retired-soldier-shot-dead-by-
police-.html 
Zhu H., Wei L., & Niu P. (2 March, 2020). The novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan,
China. BMC. https://ghrp.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s41256-020-00135-6