Published by Bayan Metro Manila
After imposing a ‘hard lockdown’ in Sampaloc, the Manila local government is set to adopt the same measure in Tondo.
The ‘hard lockdown’ is worse than the national government’s ‘enhanced community quarantine’ since it imposes absolute restrictions on individuals while deploying a bigger number of police and military forces in barangays.
The Manila LGU offers no new rationale other than to conduct sweeping mass testing operations. Why this can’t be done without locking up people inside homes and parading heavily armed troops in the streets is not explained by local authorities. Either it reflects a leadership bereft of imagination and innovation or it is informed by a militarist mentality that equates brutal social control with efficiency and good governance.
Mass testing is the correct response together with the implementation of medical measures to effectively contain the spread of COVID-19. This approach is also the clamor of citizens which is contrary to the claim of politicians that ‘pasaways’ are making it difficult for the government to aggressively undertake mass testing in communities.
The Manila ‘hard lockdown’ can hardly be presented as a model for other LGUs to replicate. It is straight out of the Tokhang playbook which relied on heavy policing (read: terrorizing) of communities under the guise of addressing a public health problem.
Sampaloc and Tondo were also saturated by Tokhang operations in 2016 and 2017. Tondo, in particular, was a hotspot of drug-related killings.
Whether it is drug abuse or virus outbreak, the government solution should consider numerous social factors such as extreme poverty conditions, health capacity, local governance machinery, and LGU resources.
But authorities have been consistent in their simplistic understanding of the situation and their disturbing militarist view that people need to be strictly confined in their homes while state troops are enforcing public health measures. Any violation or action perceived to be contravening official directives, however minor, is met with criminal punishment.
Instead of compassion and resorting to mass education, the ‘hard lockdown’ approach uses intimidation and repressive tactics.
This mentality, which is a throwback to the Martial Law era, should be vigorously challenged.
We are not assured by stories of checkpoint abuses and lockdown excesses perpetrated by uniformed personnel across the country.
We fear the long-term political and social impact of the ‘hard lockdown’ in Tondo, the historic enclave of the working-class poor.
Our advice to the Manila LGU is to derive guidance from the recently released document of the UN Human Rights which frowns on the use of militarist methods and ‘toxic lockdown culture’ in responding to the pandemic. It should reject the militarist framework of the national government and start mobilizing health personnel and community people’s organizations in implementing a comprehensive health and social reform package.
We ask other LGUs not to consider Manila’s ‘hard lockdown’ as an alternative worth repeating in their respective jurisdictions. It brings unnecessary additional suffering to the local population which is already reeling from the month-long repressive lockdown imposition of the national government.
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