PRESIDENT Duterte’s latest threat to use the police and military ala martial law against violators of quarantine restrictions may seem alarming in that it signals more human rights violations to come as the government grapples to solve the crisis brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The threat is at best misdirected and at worst, degrading of our dignity.
Why should Duterte threaten all of us when it is only a few citizens in certain places who violate the imposed physical distancing, curfew and quarantine? As law-abiding citizens, is it right that we are being subjected to this indignity?
Instead of threatening people, the government should look into why the “pasaway” ignore or choose to violate the impositions which have kept everyone confined for more than one month already to their homes, many of whom deprived of the basic necessities. The police have even become as creative as to use coffins to strike the fear of death on violators, still the violations continue.
The violators who were reported to have held a cockfight in one community may just have been too burned out because of the long confinement, but are they not in fact restless due to extreme anxiety that their families will go hungry in the coming days? All of us know that no threat can quell such anxiety.
The several gantas of rice, few cans of sardines and some packs of instant noodles received from local government units or the controversial social amelioration assistance from the national government are no assurance that there will be food on their tables in the coming days. But this is where the Duterte administration should focus on if it wants to instill discipline among the people.
In addition, it should put the Department of Health in proper order, preferably under a new and more capable and upright leadership to be able to efficiently tract and isolate COVID infections, cure the victims and stop the spread of the virus.
There should already be a review of the nationwide imposition of quarantine measures considering that more than a month has lapsed and most of the towns in the country have been COVID-free from the start or have completely recovered, notwithstanding the current statistics.
Given that Malacañang recently admitted that the government is not capable of feeding the people indefinitely, people in these COVID-free places should already be allowed free movement to be able to resume production, especially of food crops.
Instead of just forcing discipline on the people, it might be worthwhile for Duterte and his men to see the real situation on the ground so that measures taken to remedy this crisis will be effective and will be appreciated by the people. – REYLAN VERGARA, secretary general, Panay Alliance Karapatan
