Human rights watchdog Karapatan decried the government’s continuing militarist response to the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic following the illegal arrest of volunteers set to distribute humanitarian aid to urban poor and peasant communities in Norzagaray, Bulacan as well as the arbitrary arrest of a screenwriter in Cebu City over a satirical Facebook post regarding the halting of mass testing in an urban poor community in the city.