COVID-19 in the time of Duterte
Five years ago in mid-March 2020, the Philippines, like most countries, went on a lockdown never before experienced by generations of Filipinos alive today because of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) that was sweeping the world. For the next three years, the Philippines was like a ship marooned in a vast ocean. The Rodrigo Duterte presidency was in the second half of its six-year term, clumsily unprepared to face the “veerus,” as he called it, with countless Filipinos suffering unnecessarily because of glitches and incompetencies in the bureaucracy, but most of all, because of irregularities in the procurement of vaccines, health supplies (face masks, face shields, personal protective equipment or PPEs), and the like.
But while families were mourning thousands of COVID-19 deaths and counting, families were also mourning because of Duterte’s continuing brutal drug war that saw the deaths of tens of thousands carried out through extrajudicial killings even while mainstream media’s coverage was limited because of the pandemic.
Today, even as we gasp in disbelief that the author of the heinous crimes committed “for love of my country” has been arrested and flown away to face trial in the International Criminal Court in The Hague in the Netherlands, we also pause to remember those who perished during that dark period. We remember the victims of both the unseen virus believed to have been spawned in China that infected millions of humans on planet Earth, and the homegrown gun-wielding virus that killed with impunity mere suspects, innocents, bystanders, passersby, small-time drug pushers. The majority of them were from the poor sector of society, slain without due process, while the big fish, the drug lords, got away or remained untouched. Read Patricia Evangelista’s best-selling “Some People Need Killing: Memoir of Murder in my Country,” (Random House, 2023).
As a journalist, I did my part to put in writing what was happening while the COVID-19 pandemic was claiming lives. These observations, reflections, and documentation are in my book “COVID-19 in the News: Of Seekers, Scoundrels, and Saints,” (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2023), which includes photographs, illustrations, and graphics. The book is dedicated to “the Filipino health care frontliners who risked and lost their lives during the COVID-19 pandemic.” The 57 pieces are in chronological order to show how the pandemic was progressing from day one. The book’s first page shows the Inquirer’s Jan. 9, 2020 front page with the headline: “Chinese woman 1st PH case of Wuhan virus.”
Photographs were not easy to come by because of limited access to health and quarantine facilities during the lockdown but thanks to insiders and camera-wielding friends, I got good ones. I included some of mine.
Here was COVID-19 in numbers as of October 2023, included just before the book went to press:
Global: confirmed cases (771,407, 825); deaths (6,972,152); vaccine doses administered (13,516,282,548).
Regional: Europe cases (276,563,944); deaths (2,251,388). Western Pacific cases (207,368,477); deaths (417,430). America cases (193,316,004); deaths (2,969,521). Southeast Asia cases (61,206,803); deaths (806,796). Eastern Mediterranean cases (23,398,740); deaths (351,564). Africa cases (9,553,093); deaths (175,440).
Philippines confirmed cases (4,115,714); deaths (66,702); vaccines administered (189,317,358 for 78 million plus individuals) (Source: World Health Organization Coronavirus Dashboard)
Like elsewhere, the pandemic had a dramatic progression here but was Filipino in all its ramifications, as in the saying, “Only in the Philippines.” We had our share of locally stranded individuals who could not get to their destinations and spent nights and days on sidewalks before the government took notice. There were stampedes for preferred vaccine brands. China’s Sinovac got a bad press. Patients were turned away in hospitals because no rooms were available, while others waited in their vehicles begging to be admitted. Lockdown terminologies were a puzzlement.
Meanwhile, the Duterte administration’s preferred China-made PPE, leaving Filipino manufacturers in the lurch. There was the Pharmally case, where the overnight corporation with not enough capitalization cornered the procurement of PPEs. Until now, the culprits are walking.
But there were sparks of kindness and mercy displayed by ordinary citizens who took it upon themselves to help their communities. One of them was Ana Patricia Non who started a community pantry in her Quezon City neighborhood. There, people could get food for the day or leave edibles (veggies, eggs, canned goods, bread) to share with others. The initiative spread like wildfire, and soon, individuals and groups all over the country did the same. Non became a household name. She is cited in the book.
In 2021, the Inquirer chose the health-care frontliners (nurses, doctors, hospital staff) as 2020 Filipinos of the Year (FOTY). Also cited were essential workers (security guards, drivers, food delivery workers, food producers and providers, law enforcers, drugstore staff, etc.) who were “the many faces of pandemic heroism.” I wrote the unbylined page-one FOTY piece. It was an assignment I could not refuse.
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