Published by Bayan Metro Manila
It’s not the first time that President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered law enforcers and state troops to shoot people dead but to hear him give the same directive during his press conference last night was extremely jarring, to say the least.
He was reacting to the protest of some residents in Quezon City who were merely asking for assistance yet he made it appear as if those who joined the action were conspiring to create destabilization.
His outburst was meant to make people forget that the hunger and deprivation affecting millions is caused by the government’s slow action and failure to properly prepare after the lockdown order was imposed in Luzon more than two weeks ago.
He warned against provoking social disturbance but his government is responsible for this. He was given emergency powers and more than 200 billion pesos to deal with the crisis but the government remained slow in distributing food and other relief to poor households.
Millions stayed at home, lost their jobs and livelihoods, and desperately waited for the promised assistance that was not only delayed but also inadequate.
Instead of addressing the bottleneck in the delivery of relief, Duterte directed his anger at those who were asking help from the government. It reflects an authoritarian mindset which projects a leader in control but is actually besieged by a nagging fear that he has already lost hegemony.
Duterte is haunted by the knowledge that his government is incapable of giving the basic needs of the population that is why he has chosen to rely on his trusted generals to be in charge of the COVID-19 task force.
The government is wrong to think that it can contain the virus by spreading fear. It has arrested curfew and quarantine ‘violators’, it filed charges against those who post ‘fake news’, it has summoned officials accused of undermining the efforts of the government, and it is now running after internet users who are criticizing the incompetence of the Duterte presidency.
The president’s order to shoot protesters who will endanger the lives of the police is a serious threat to civil liberties. This was the commander-in-chief giving specific instructions to police and soldiers manning the checkpoints and communities across the country. When the president issued a similar command in the past, it led to more than 5,000 drug-related deaths, displacement and bombing of Lumad communities, massacres in Negros, extrajudicial killings of activists, and other impunity attacks targeting critics of the state.
To prevent social unrest, Duterte must acknowledge the failure of his approach in confronting the country’s social problems. But his militarist thinking and anti-poor bias have polluted his judgment.
Duterte underestimates the people’s capacity to resist as it becomes more rabid in spreading terror. Our only option is to help ourselves by organizing our ranks and together we can beat COVID-19 and the virus in Malacanang.
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