The\nDuterte government insists that it is successfully responding to the COVID-19\npandemic. The reality is a little bit different \u2013 it hasn\u2019t done enough, and is\nplanning to do even less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The coronavirus is spreading faster than ever. It took over three months to reach the first 10,000 confirmed cases but less than a week to add the last 10,000, at over 57,000<\/a> to date. University of the Philippines (UP) researchers forecast between 100,000 to 131,000<\/a> cases by the end of August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Characteristically,\nthe government\u2019s containment measure of choice was a military lockdown \u2013 among\nthe fiercest and longest in the world<\/a>. It justified this as harsh but\nnecessary, repeating a favored talking point used to justify all sorts of sins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\neffect on the economy and the people was certainly brutal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The country was plunged into the worst crisis of mass unemployment in its history with 14 million<\/a> unemployed and a 22%<\/a> unemployment rate in April 2020, by IBON\u2019s reckoning. The combined 20.4 million<\/a> unemployed and underemployed are over two-fifths (40.2%) of the presumed labor force. These correct for serious underestimation in officially released figures<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\njoblessness and collapse in livelihoods are expected to ease as restrictions\nare relaxed. But whatever improvement will still not be enough to return to a\npre-pandemic state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\ncountry\u2019s gross domestic product (GDP) is projected to contract by 2.0-3.4%<\/a> for the\nwhole of 2020, according to the government\u2019s Development Budget Coordination\nCommittee (DBCC). The World Bank has a slightly more optimistic projection of -1.9%<\/a> while the International Monetary Fund\n(IMF) and Asian Development Bank (ADB) see it worse at -3.6%<\/a> and -3.8%<\/a>, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This will be the worst growth performance in 35 years since the -7.3%<\/a> (negative) GDP growth in 1983 and 1984. But if the low estimates materialize, it will also be the biggest decline from positive growth ever recorded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As\nit is, the economy is well on the way to its fourth straight year of slowing\ngrowth. It already contracted at -0.2%<\/a>\ngrowth in the first quarter of 2020 with just two weeks\u2019 worth of lockdowns.\nThe second quarter figures that will come out in August will be much worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unhealthy\nresponse<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n No\none is likely to have thought that the worst public health crisis and economic\ndecline in the country\u2019s history would be enough to spur the Duterte\nadministration to reform its anti-democratic and anti-development ways. It\ndidn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The government\u2019s military-dominated COVID-19 response team has proven unfit for purpose and the steeply rising cases today point to the protracted lockdown being squandered. Yet the rise in reported cases do not even give the complete picture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n To date<\/a>, there\u2019s a validation backlog of over 15,000. The positivity rate of 12.4% meanwhile indicates that testing is still, months into the pandemic, far below the levels needed. Local transmission is still gaining momentum even as other Southeast Asian countries have already stopped theirs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The hazy picture is a poor starting point for the contact tracing, isolation and selective quarantines needed. These are essential because the rise in COVID-19 cases clearly shows that social distancing and other precautionary measures aren’t going to be enough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Assuming\nall pandemic-related deaths are accounted for, the 1,534 reported deaths are\nstill relatively few and the number of daily fatalities fortunately fewer than\nthe peak in March. This may however soon change as the virus spreads in the\ncoming weeks and as the health system becomes overstretched even just by those\nwho can afford it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hospital\ncapacity hasn\u2019t been beefed up so much as portions of it carved out at the\nexpense of non-COVID-19 cases. The National Capital Region (NCR) and Cebu are\nthe pandemic\u2019s epicenters in the country. As much as 19 NCR hospitals are at or\nnearing their capacity of ICU beds for COVID-19 patients \u2013 14<\/a> of which were acknowledged by the\nDepartment of Health (DOH) last week \u2013 while Cebu\u2019s hospitals are already overwhelmed<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hyped\nassistance<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The inadequacy of the health response is more disturbing in how the time for this was bought with lost incomes, small business closures, joblessness and hunger. Tens of millions of Filipinos even suffered more than they should have because of similarly inadequate emergency relief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At\nthe start of the lockdowns, 18 million beneficiary households were promised\nPhp5,000-8,000 in monthly cash subsidies for just two months. That right there\nis an immediate problem \u2013 the lockdowns are running on four months now, since\nmid-March, with only partial easing in June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Emergency\nsubsidies reportedly reaching 19.4 million beneficiaries under various programs\nof the departments of social welfare, labor and agriculture sounds impressive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However,\nthe aid was very slow in coming. Most beneficiaries had to wait 6-10 weeks\nbefore getting their first monthly tranche. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The\naid is also very stingy. Taken altogether, the first tranche of the cash\nsubsidy programs only amounts to an average of Php5,611 per beneficiary family.\nOver the last four months this comes out to just Php11 per person per day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\ngovernment has even recanted and said that only 12 million beneficiaries will\nget the second tranche. But the number of those who will actually get this\nsecond tranche may be even less than that. The government is invoking\nbureaucratic difficulties to explain why only 1.4 million<\/a> of the 12\nmillion have received this tranche to date. <\/p>\n\n\n\n These\nemergency cash subsidies are also much lower than the latest official poverty\nthreshold of Php10,727 monthly for a family of five. Yet this miserly relief\nwill even seem generous in the period to come because little more is\nforthcoming. The official government policy was succinctly put by the\npresidential spokesperson recently<\/a>:\n\u201cWe cannot afford to give ayuda<\/em> (aid) to keep everyone alive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Business\nas usual<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nDuterte administration\u2019s lockdowns precipitated what may be the greatest\neconomic collapse in Philippine history. The lockdowns per se are of course\ntemporary \u2013 indeed, as too the pandemic, even if this will linger for at least\nanother year or more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though\ntemporary, the simultaneous demand and supply shock to the Philippine economy,\nother countries, and the global economy as a whole is unprecedented in the\nmodern era. The world economy is said to be undergoing its worst<\/a> recession since the Great Depression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet\napart from a momentary surge in emergency relief and despite lip service to the\neconomic crisis, it bizarrely still seems to be business as usual for the\neconomic managers. There are a couple of reasons for this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nmost basic is how the economic managers \u2013 and most of our political leaders \u2013\nare blinded by the free market dogma imbibed over four decades of neoliberal\nglobalization. There is a rigid faith that market forces will be enough to meet\nthe pandemic-driven economic challenge. This is matched by an inability to\ngrasp that responsible state intervention is needed not just to deal with the\ncrisis but for long-term national development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But there is also an extreme narrow-mindedness common among many afflicted by that dogma \u2013 that \u2018creditworthiness<\/a>\u2019, \u2018competitiveness\u2019 and \u2018investor-friendliness\u2019 are not just a means to but actually ends of development. The people who make up the majority of the economy are peripheral and ever in the margins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These\ngo far in explaining the lack of urgency and, apparently, seeing the current\ncrisis as an inconvenient but minor speed bump on the highway to free\nmarket-driven progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fragments\nof a response<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Genuine\nattention would start with immediately coming up with a plan fitting the vastly\nchanged pandemic-driven crisis conditions. Nearly six months into the pandemic,\nall that the people have are fragments \u2013 including fragments which are\nself-evidently exaggerated to give the impression of substantial action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\neconomic team came up with a \u201c4-pillar strategy\u201d in April that was eventually\nrebranded as the Philippine Program for Recovery with Equity and Solidarity (PH-PROGRESO<\/a>).\nSupposedly worth Php1.7 trillion or an impressive 9.1% of GDP, this figure was\ngrossly bloated by double-counting of interventions and their sources of\nfinancing, by conflating actual spending with merely foregone tax and tariff\nrevenues, and by including additional liquidity from monetary measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n