The Economist July 11th 2020 pp30-31 Asia “Lockdown in the Philippines” “Four months and counting”. “A ferocious lockdown lingers on, despite uncertain benefits”.
The Enchanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) initiated March 16th will continue until at least July 15th. In the Island of Luzon, “home to Manila and about half of the country’s 107m people, schools and offices closed and public transport shut down. People were only supposed to leave to buy food and other essentials”-liquor sales are prohibited. Some island provinces have closed their borders. Violators for even minor infractions like not wearing a mask have been fined or arrested. Minor attempts to re-open in a targeted way have been reversed after a surge in cases.
Officials point to keeping cases to only 50,000 as evidence of the benefit of lockdown having previously estimated that cases would have topped 3.6m. Like everywhere COVID-19 is active, despite a “dearth of testing”, cases seem on the rise.
People are understandably worried about keeping food on the table and roof overhead without a stream of employment income. Luzon alone may have 11m workers “displaced”. The government has distributed funds totaling $4b to 18m families (Average $222/family). Making matters worse, expat remittances from America and elsewhere have been strained as well falling by 20%. The World Bank estimates the Philippine economy will contract by 2% this year.
Meanwhile, besides giving military orders to “shoot them [protestors] dead” President Duterte is apparently taking the opportunity to further restrict civil liberties signing into law July 3rd “a sweeping anti-terrorism bill which, among other things, allows suspects to be detained without a judge’s approval for up to 14 days”.
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