Additional thoughts on the Two Philippines' in the era of #Covid19PH during #LuzonLockdown: in one of my favorite phrases from the late Leon Ma. Guerrero, "today began yesterday." If the government response from the start was focused on the military/police and not on health...
...this was because of a long-standing trend in our society dating to Edsa Dos, where middle and upper class pressure to overthrow the government divorced the poor majority from the middle and upper, a democratic unity fostered by the anti-Marcos and post-EDSA coup eras. When...
"Edsa Tres" happened, the sight/sounds/experience of urban insurrection frightened the middle and upper rightwards, creating a fracture that in turn opened (or more accurately, accelerated) the restoration of the Marcoses for one, and the removal of the taboo vs. strongmen...
... a fracture (cleaving) identified by one academic as a fundamental split between reformism and populism; GMA for her part, based her survival strategy on recognizing this cleavage, pandering to populist rhetoric when convenient, but ultimately premised her stay in power on...
... the disillusionment of all sides and craving for order; eformist restoration of 2010 was fractured in turn, opening up the coalition of the previously disgraced that elected the Great Eagle Father in yet another plurality (another example of today beginning yesterday...
...one weakness of post-EDSA system is inability to elect a majority presidency, dooming every admin to inheriting a permanent coalition of office holders who just transfer temporary loyalty en masse; also, a senate that has no barrier to mere money and celebrity...
...because bloc voting, similar to party list choice, was discarded long ago as :undemocratic" though ultimately more undemocratic in its real effects). So, from Day One, the present dispensation knew that maintaining Order was its primary expectation, and proved adept at...
giving the appearance of being able to do so despite democratic taboos (and so, Tokhang, juicy interventions to favor cronies, etc.). So when #COVID19PH began, knowing where its interests lay, it bucked public opinion on China to maintain relations, and focused on a martial...
approach to #LuzonLockdown despite initially announcing two reasonable policies, freely delegating authority to LGUs and putting medical experts via .@DOHgovph at the heart of all responses: except this didn't last very long, as it became quite obvious that the government did...
not have the means to secure the upper and middle classes without quite ruthlessly clamping down on the poor, who could not, and cannot, do "social distancing" even if they wanted to, have no economic reserves to eke out a quarantine, and to whom the government and law have...
never been anything other than biased, coercive, alien concepts. Grim and dark scenarios seized the imaginations not just of civilian and military national, but local, officials and the public, as well. What did prove a surprise was this: threadreaderapp.com/thread/1243144…
That after initial rumors (some organic, perhaps a few created) of poor majority taking matters into their own hands, and continuing rumblings, not to mention lack of empathy on the part of the haves for the have nots, all suggesting that confrontation...
..is looming, there has been greater all around patience (and/or resignation) than events might warrant. I still see Tweets suggesting that through the grapevine, while perhaps the majority of the poor are getting relief either from official or private efforts, there are...
disquieting rumblings from pockets of communties which have been overlooked or simply will never be reached. Yet after the initial clampdown and obsession with Quarantine Permits, Curfews, both national and local, it seems, have started to find ways to make the enforcement of...
rules more humane. But while good and necessary, the overall official attitude high and low seems to be policing and armed deterrence first, and more slowly and somehow, less surely, ramping up the medical response and figuring out some sort of economic response before even...
the middle and upper either run out of reserves, collapse entirely, or bear the brunt of public indignation; the idea being, as the Secretary of the Interior seems to have been suggesting over recent days, to brake ourselves for the last half of the quarantine, because it has...
to be lifted otherwise the economy is what will end up dead. This means, however, bracing the health system for a possible rebound in #COVID19PH cases if the current quarantine hasn't smothered the spread of the virus. As it is, government may have been able to adapt or modify...
its attitudes and behavior (ditto, perhaps to an even lesser extent, for most LGUs) to defuse the worst of public anger, and start producing results so that the all-around relief acts as a safety valve. If organisms have immunity from past exposures, societies can build...
a kind of herd immunity to crises, one both consciously and subconciously built up from communal experience in past conflicts, disasters and other upheavals. Combined with innate, defiant, optimism on the part of individuals during crisis times, we have seen enough examples...
of compassion, cooperation, dedication, wisdom, humaneness, to think and commit, to getting through, than to throwing in the towel and going berserk out of hunger, anger, and desperation. /end
