With billions of pesos at its disposal, from the nation’s coffers and from loans incurred in our name, this government still failed to institute even the minimum standards for COVID-19 response. Of the P380-billion COVID-19 budget under the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, it has spent P12.32 billion for health or merely 3.2 percent of the total COVID-19 allocation.
While it is true that ordinary citizens are expected to maintain civility, speaking out should not be criminalized. We are being punished for demanding from government what it should have been doing in the midst of a health crisis.
The Duterte administration should focus its energy on containing the virus instead of containing the growing discontent.
Instead of a moratorium on debt payments, the Duterte administration wants the country to sink deeper in debt. It is shamelessly taking advantage of the pandemic to push for the interest of his foreign masters.
All these actions aim to create chilling effect, to force us into silence amid the Duterte administration’s glaring failure to address the COVID-19 crisis.
After all the deliberations, the public demands more concrete answers. Immediate actions to combat COVID-19 do not require emergency powers. The problem is that from day 1, the Duterte administration does not have a comprehensive plan to deal with the crisis.
The only certainty we now have is that we have been left to fend for ourselves. This administration absolves itself of any responsibility to mind the ordinary people’s survival.
Let us demand what our communities need the most – public health education, free testing, water supply, sanitation, subsidy.
Our legislators, meanwhile, think it is best to put a tag price on our basic and essential public services and allow foreign corporations to profit immensely. In the first place, government should be providing these basic services to the Filipino people.
The VFA and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) have not modernized the armed forces. Military training between the troops ensured allegiance to US interests and adoption of counterinsurgency strategies, which have been brutal to the core.
Badoy echoes a national policy that espouses state-instigated violence against civilians. Portraying activists and journalists as “enemies of the state” justifies human rights abuses perpetrated by state agents. Badoy’s line is as dangerous as Duterte’s marching order to “kill, kill, kill.”
Why is there a legacy “report” halfway into Duterte’s term of office?
By pounding on ABS-CBN, Duterte aims to create a chilling effect among media practitioners. If he could bully the biggest broadcast network, what could stop him from doing the same to others? He and his minions in the House wield the franchise renewal like a Damocles sword, ready to maim freedom of speech and whatever is left of our democracy.
Nobody from the Duterte administration wants to admit that the Republic Act 11203, which has liberalized rice importation, is the culprit behind the miserable state of our farmers right now.
Albayalde’s statement justifying Oplan Sauron reeks of impunity. Like Oplan Tokhang, the Philippine National Police wishes the public to regard as normal the butchering of civilians.
It should be pointed out that these organizations are being targeted for the invaluable work they do – the defense of human rights of the poor and marginalized.
Rather than blame the poor and the victims, let us blame and seek solutions for this obviously flawed, foreign-patented, non-transparent automated elections system in an elite democracy.
Painting a conspiracy among the media groups and lawyers -- all perceived as enemies by Duterte -- might be used to justify further draconian measures and blatant attacks.
What we are witnessing is a war against civilians since Duterte assumed the presidency. He started with the thousands of poor drug suspects, using anti-drugs campaign as a veil. Now, authorities are mouthing anti-criminality and counterinsurgency for going after civilians.
A community of readers and supporters that help us sustain our operations through microdonations for as low as $1.