The Department of\nHealth has recently stated that it is looking into traditional Chinese medicine\nas a means to treat the country\u2019s over 7,700 COVID-19 patients. This was the\nstatement of the Secretary of Health during the visit of 12 Chinese health care\nexperts who recently provided technical assistance to the country\u2019s COVID-19\nhospitals. However, the government\u2019s attitude towards the otherwise renowned\ntraditional Chinese medicine is closely tied up to China\u2019s Belt and Road\nInitiative (BRI), which some researchers say is bad for the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The BRI is an infrastructure connectivity\npush by China that has goals of policy dialogue and communication, cooperation\non trade and investment, financial cooperation, and socio-cultural exchanges.\nThe Philippine government has been open to the BRI initiative since it jives\nwith our very own Build, Build, Build program. The revised 100-project Infrastructure\nFlagship Program (IFP) of the Duterte administration is looking to around\nPhp720 billion in loans and grants from China official development assistance (ODA).\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Duterte\u2019s courting entry into the BRI\nbegan when the Philippine government attended the first BRI forum in May 2017,\nand the second BRI forum in April 2019. In November 2018, the Philippines\nsigned a memorandum of understanding with China to cooperate on the BRI. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the China-funded infrastructure\nprojects listed in the IFP is the Php12.1 billion Kaliwa Dam project. Kaliwa is\na large dam funded by a China ODA loan with a 2% interest rate. The ongoing\nconstruction of the Kaliwa Dam project poses a threat to the environment because\nthe large dam inundates and destroys farms, communities, and watershed areas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, where does traditional Chinese\nmedicine come in? Well, one of the components of the BRI is to promote \u201cpeople\nto people cultural exchange.\u201d Cultural exchange meaning people-to-people\ninteractions, cultural cooperation, education, travel, and encouraging stronger\ncommunication between China and the Philippines. Cultural exchanges are in fact\ngood since this can increase technical knowledge of people through knowledge\nsharing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But could it be that these good practices\nare now being invoked to make onerous deals acceptable? China\u2019s cultural\nexchanges may also include the active promotion of traditional Chinese medicine\nin BRI countries that include the Philippines. In fact, a recent event to\npromote traditional Chinese medicine and the BRI was done in Cebu last December\n2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some advocates however warned that there\nare components of BRI-associated traditional Chinese medicine that may be\nharmful to the environment, particularly the use of endemic species. Could it\nbe that traditional Chinese medicine, known to have promoted the harmony of\nhumanity and the environment for ages, is now also being bent to serve\nprofit-oriented ends? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A study published in Nature Sustainability\nwarned that the active promotion of traditional Chinese medicine in BRI\ncountries could increase the demand for animal wildlife that are used in its\npractice. One example of an\nendemic species being used in traditional Chinese medicine is the pangolin. In\nfact, the high demand for pangolin scales for use in traditional medicine has\ndriven all eight species of pangolin to near extinction due to illegal trade. This includes our very own Philippine Pangolin found in Palawan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The practice of using endemic species to\ntreat various illnesses is destructive and puts traditional Chinese medicine in\na bad light. As for the Philippine experience, we know how traditional Chinese\nmedicine in the country is being practiced in far flung provinces particularly\nthe use of acupuncture. Traditional Chinese medicine is used by community\nhealth workers where our healthcare system is scarce or even absent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Community health workers like Vilma Yecyec\ngave basic training on acupuncture, acupressure, ventosa, and moxibustion to\ncommunities in Mindanao as early as the 1980s. However, Yecyec was targeted by\nthe military in 1985 when she was included in the \u201corder of battle\u201d or a list\nof people considered as \u201cenemies of the state\u201d. Even the Morong 43, a group of\nhealth workers in the Philippines, were red-tagged by the military and were\nalleged to be members of the New People\u2019s Army (NPA) for having acupuncture\nneedles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now that the government is looking into\ntraditional Chinese medicine, I can\u2019t help but wonder about the health workers\nfeatured in IBON\u2019s research Guns Against Needles<\/em> and how the military\nhas been targeting and red-tagging them for using alternative medicine like\nacupuncture to treat various illnesses in the province.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the end, promoting traditional Chinese\nmedicine in the Philippines won\u2019t change the current state of our healthcare\nsystem if it remains overlooked and health workers are targeted by the\nmilitary. Just as the illegal trade of Philippine pangolins won\u2019t stop unless\ngovernment addresses why people continue to poach them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A good economy not only delivers economic\ngrowth with investments and infrastructure. Primarily in fact, it favors the\nrights and welfare of people over profits to reduce inequality and ensures the\nprovision of basic social services. It also ensures environmental conservation,\nprotection of ecosystems and biodiversity with balanced use of the country\u2019s\nnatural wealth. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Department of Health has recently stated that it is looking into traditional Chinese medicine as a means to treat the country\u2019s over 7,700 COVID-19 patients. However, the government\u2019s attitude towards the otherwise renowned traditional Chinese medicine is closely tied up to China\u2019s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which some researchers say is bad for the environment.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":9482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-withbanner.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_expiration-date-status":"saved","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[2049],"tags":[1701,1041,432,1714,2199,347,1089,2173,223,2245],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9481"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9481"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9483,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9481\/revisions\/9483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}