The Duterte government is desperately intensifying its counterinsurgency operations as a cover-up for its failure in handling the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts, human rights watchdog Karapatan said, as the group decried the continuing killings, arrests, and harassment of farmers and activists at the hands of police and military forces.
Police forces keep nabbing government critics, those dismayed with government pandemic response
Lawyers, teachers and groups beheld how authorities keep summoning social media users who air their opinions against government’s response on the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Teacher from Zambales arrested for P50-million bounty post The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) arrested a public teacher from Masinloc town in Zambales who posted on Twitter offering a bounty […]
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Financial strength, development weakness
The Inter-Agency
Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF), presided
by Pres. Rodrigo Duterte, addressed the country on Tuesday. Finance Secretary Carlos
Dominguez III was a moment of lucidity especially compared to his principal’s
rambling incoherence. Unfortunately, being lucid doesn’t necessarily mean being
correct.
Resilient and the
best?
Sec.
Dominguez opened by rejoicing about the Philippines being ranked number six out
of 66 countries in the world for “economic resiliency” and supposedly “the best
in Southeast Asia for financial strength”. The compulsion to welcome any sort
of accolade is understandable especially coming from The Economist, a well-regarded business newspaper. We’re so starved
of good news that ranking highly on any international scale – like in boxing or
beauty pageants – always gives an endorphin rush.
But
then again, it’s probably useful to be a little more circumspect about the
metrics used to say that the country is supposedly doing well. The four
measures of ‘financial strength’ in the magazine’s report are of course fine as
they are and include the most important usual measures of financial strength –
public debt, foreign debt, cost of borrowing, and foreign exchange reserves.
Hence Sec. Dominguez’s elation over our so-called financial strength and the
country’s credit ratings.
But
we should presumably see things from a real development perspective and beyond
the shallow endorphin rush. In which case, the main problem is the confusion
between means and ends. This is actually a recurring problem with our
neoliberal economic managers in particular, and free market-biased economists,
policy folks, and business minds in general.
The
four metrics and credit ratings aren’t valuable in themselves but for how
useful they are for the presumably real development ends of policymaking – enough
jobs and livelihoods so that there are no poor Filipinos, and an equitable,
stable, self-reliant and sustainable economy. It’s always been odd that
whenever policymakers see a conflict between financial strength and social
development, the latter always loses.
Which is also to highlight that while those measures are of course better favorable than unfavorable, supposedly favorable performance can actually be undesirable depending on the price paid to get them.
Financially
strong for whom?
So,
some thoughts on Sec. Dominguez’s self-congratulatory echoing of an assessment
that the Philippines “continues to enjoy the confidence of the international
community” – meaning all the foreign creditors and investors whose main
interest in the country is that we keep borrowing and stay profitable for them,
to put it bluntly.
First,
“financial strength” is a misnomer if this is in any way taken to refer to the
level of development of the Philippine economy or even of the government. The
only underlying so-called strength these metrics refer to is the country’s
perceived ability to pay its foreign debt obligations. There’s no direct
correlation between such so-called financial strength and a country’s level of
development – a quick scan of the ranking with countries like Botswana, the
Philippines, Nigeria, Indonesia and India ranking high should make that easily
clear.
Finance
secretaries, central bankers, and other economic managers around the world are
regularly feted as the World’s Best this or that by global finance magazines
and organizations. Their countries, economies and governments correspondingly
benefit from the halo effect and are projected as developing – even if, as is
often the case, they’re not.
Second,
it matters how “good performance” along these indicators was achieved. Put
another way, what may be good for financial strength may be bad for
development. As is often the case.
For
instance, the Philippines has had comfortable foreign exchange reserves since
the 1990s mainly because of remittances from the unprecedented export of cheap
labor and overseas Filipino workers. We’re so used to it, but it’s worth
keeping in mind that this enormous reliance on overseas work is at huge social
costs for families and exposes the inability of the domestic economy to create
enough jobs for its population. It also actually distorts the economy with a
huge imbalance between domestic production and incomes and final household
demand. Mammoth overseas remittances – not brilliant economic managers – are
arguably the biggest factor in the country avoiding foreign debt payments
crisis such as in the 1980s.
Public
debt, including public foreign debt, has moderated and credit ratings also
improved. However, this was done on the back of an increasingly regressive tax
system that relies more and more on consumption taxes rather than on direct
taxes. The regressive trajectory of the country’s tax system started in earnest
with the introduction of value-added tax (VAT) in the 1980s then worsened with
VAT expansion in the 2000s and 2010s, and with cuts in personal income, estate
and donor taxes particularly through the regressive Tax Reform for Acceleration
and Inclusion (TRAIN) reforms since 2018.
All
this increases so-called financial strength by unduly burdening poor and
low-income groups who make up the majority of the population, while making it
easier for the narrow sliver of the richest in the country. Sec. Dominguez is
unrepentant and noticeably still pushing for the Corporate Income Tax and Incentives
Rationalization Act (CITIRA) bill which, among others, lowers corporate income
taxes – most of all to gain further favor from the international community.
Lastly,
what is prevented by insisting on these measures as if they were ends in
themselves also matters. The onset of COVID-19 and the national and global
measures to control the pandemic have a tremendous impact on the economy. The
Philippines and the world are in recession, and some are saying that the world
is in its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression almost a hundred
years ago.
Our
current pandemic panic will eventually settle in the coming months, but the
economy will still be stumbling. Worse, poverty and unemployment will be
soaring. In such circumstances, it doesn’t make sense to be so insistent on
narrow indicators of so-called financial strength to the point that urgent
development measures are prevented.
Today,
it’s incredibly important to put more money in people’s pockets both to help
them maintain their welfare as well as to boost effective demand. It’s also
important to support rural producers and small enterprises to ensure that the
goods and services needed are still available. It’s also important to rapidly
expand the public health system to deal with the pandemic and to meet the
country’s vast COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 health problems.
Attending to all this means the government having to spend more as well as building up its capacity to intervene. Giving unwarranted emphasis on measures of ‘financial strength’ unfortunately sets artificial limits to the government meeting its human rights obligations to intervene on a massive scale.
To force an analogy, it’s like being in the hinterlands of the Philippines with an emergency case in the back of the car and the nearest hospital hours away. In this kind of situation, you don’t obsess about fuel-efficient driving or not red-lining the tachometer or limiting the car’s mileage – you step on the gas. Glorifying ‘financial strength’ is stepping on the brakes.
Based on science? Gaps seen in government’s COVID-19 data
“The integrity of the data drops is particularly important given that no less than President Rodrigo Roa Duterte himself has said many times that the government’s decision on managing COVID-19 will be based on science.”
By JANESS ANN J. ELLAO
Bulatlat.com
MANILA — A study by the Resilience Institute of the University of the Philippines showed gaps in government data on COVID-19.
The UP COVID-19 Pandemic Response Team, which has been analyzing data from government, noted 45 erroneous data among the sex of patients, 75 in their age, and 516 for their residence.
One patient, too, reportedly died on April 24 but is no longer reported dead the following day, the policy note written by the UP COVID-19 Pandemic Response Team read.
Three months since the first confirmed case in the country, the UP COVID-19 Pandemic Response Team said the government has yet to reconcile its data from the health department and the local government units. On its May 6 reporting, the local government’s total reported case was at 9,542 while the health department said it was at 10,004.
“The UP COVID-19 Pandemic Response Team believes that the availability of accurate, relevant, and timely data is a basic requirement in managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Decisions depend on data, and any analysis is only as good as the data at hand,” the group said.
While the lapses may seem “small,” the UP Pandemic Response Team said patient case data is the “keystone for effective and insightful metrics and analysis.”
“The integrity of the data drops is particularly important given that no less than President Rodrigo Roa Duterte himself has said many times that the government’s decision on managing COVID-19 will be based on science,” the group said in their seven-page police note.
Pre-requisites for lifting the quarantine?
Paul Quintos, senior lecturer of the University of the Philippines’ National College of Public Administration, pointed out that the Philippine government should adhere to the requisites set by the World Health Organization in lifting the community quarantine.
Health workers said the Philippine government has not fulfilled any of the six criteria set by the World Health Organization as “prerequisites” in lifting lockdowns or quarantine measures currently in place.
Among those they listed are: (1) disease transmission is under control, (2) health systems are able to detect, test, isolate and trace every contact, (3) hotspot risk are minimized, (4) schools and workplaces have established preventive measures, (5) risk of importing new cases can be managed, and that (6) communities are fully educated, engaged, and empowered to live under a new normal.
Citizens’ Urgent Response to End COVID-19 (CURE-Covid) noted there has been no efficient mass testing in the country.
Read: Without mass testing, PH not flattening the curve – scientist
In a webinar hosted by CURE Covid, Joshua Danac of the Scientists Unite Against COVID-19 said that instead of flattening the curve, the country’s health system may actually be “reaching the ceiling” of its testing capacity.
Read: Metro Manila-centric COVID-19 testing centers present gaps in mass testing, says community doc
Quintos agreed with the government that the community quarantine indeed saved lives but only “if you compare it to doing nothing.”
“It is not enough,” he said, “the health and economic factors that make people vulnerable to the pandemic should be addressed.”
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Study reveals poor protection for health workers amid fight vs. COVID-19
The survey revealed that health workers are working in “excessively long hours while earning very little pay.”
Related story: Based on science? Gaps seen in government’s COVID-19 data
By JANESS ANN J. ELLAO
Bulatlat.com
MANILA – More than three months since the first confirmed case in the country, health workers still lack protection during this pandemic, a study revealed.
Paul Quintos, senior lecturer of the University of the Philippines’ National College of Public Administration presented survey among frontliners that aimed to revisit why there is a very high incidence of confirmed cases among their ranks.
“The survey confirmed what health workers and advocates have long been saying. It is not just about flattening the curve but also about raising the bar and the strengthening of our public health system,” Quintos said in a recent webinar hosted by the Citizens’ Urgent Response to End COVID-19.
This, he said, includes “taking care of our health workers so they can take care of us.”
The survey by the Alliance of Concerned Teachers and the Alliance of Health Workers looked into the working conditions of health workers. Quintos found it alarming that 19 percent of the total confirmed cases are frontline health workers, who serve as the “backbone” of the country’s health system.
Conducted between April 24 to May 3, 2020, it had 487 online survey respondents, of whom 457 were considered valid.
Poor pay, protection for health workers
The result of the survey showed that more than half of the respondents said their health facilities “do not meet even half of what they perceive as the adequate number of health personnel and the sufficient number of infection, prevention and control (IPC) supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE).”
Two-thirds of their respondents, too, believe there is “severe lack of doctors, nurses and nurse assistants as well as administration and utility personnel in their health facilities.”
Earlier, health workers have called on the Philippine government to immediately fill up plantilla positions in the health department to address the chronic understaffing in the public health system that the COVID-19 has aggravated. This, the Filipino Nurses United said, could lessen the exposure of frontliners to COVID-19 patients.
Read: Nurses push for mass hiring, safe space amid increasing COVID-19 cases
The survey revealed that health workers are working in “excessively long hours while earning very little pay.”
A sizable portion of the respondents – 29 percent – said they worked more than 45 hours per week, with 6.6 percent of them working for more than 90 hours per week. This is in stark contrast with the pay they are receiving. One in every five health workers are getting below P15,000 a month while nearly half of the respondents are receiving salaries between P15,000 to P30,000.
Health workers in the public sector have long been pushing for a P16,000 national minimum wage, a P30,000 entry-salary for nurses, and the scrapping of contractualization among their ranks.
Read: Contractualization, poor pay continue to hound health workers
Respondents also decried the shortage on personal protection equipment, most especially N-95 masks. The survey noted that there are hospitals that do not even have as basic as water to provide for their health workers and patients.
Part of protecting health workers is also the provision of regular testing. However, respondents said only 42percent of symptomatic health workers and 30 percent of asymptomatic health workers were tested. This includes those in Metro Manila – the epicenter of the pandemic in the country.
Rights and welfare
Majority of the respondents said the Philippine government has yet to provide the rights and safeguards that the World Health Organization (WHO) has listed earlier.
“Close to half of health workers said that most of their rights are rarely/inadequately or not at all implemented. For most of the rights and safeguards listed, just a little over half of respondents indicate that they are implemented most or all of the time,” the result of the survey read.
Among the rights and safeguards that the WHO listed are: provision of PPEs and training on occupational safety, maintaining of appropriate working hours with breaks, and access to mental and counseling resources, to name a few.
“Part of upholding the rights of health workers in involving them in decision-making,” said Quintos.
The fact that upholding the rights of health workers is “not an overwhelming majority” is “alarming,” according to the survey.
As of this writing, 27 health workers in the Philippines have died of COVID-19.
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Kung paano pinaghahandaan ng ilang guro ang pasukan sa panahon ng pandemya
Inihayag ni Propesor Lynda Garcia, isang guro ng Miriam College, ang ginagawang paghahanda ng mga katulad niyang edukador ang parating na pasukan habang nasa gitna ng lockdown ang bansa dahil sa pandemya ng coronavirus. “Heto po, nagsisiskap para matugunan ang lahat ng responsibilidad ng isang guro”, ani Garcia.
The post Kung paano pinaghahandaan ng ilang guro ang pasukan sa panahon ng pandemya appeared first on Kodao Productions.
Calls for Sinas to resign, be arrested for birthday party mount amid denials
Calls for National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) chief Major Debold Sinas to resign or be arrested mount as he continues to deny the party or violations committed during his birthday celebration. Sinas was given a birthday party in Camp Bagong Diwa when he turned 55 on May 8. The photos of the celebration were […]
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Journalists experience work-related stress in the time of COVID-19 pandemic
Citing medical studies, psychiatrist Dr. Reggie Pamugas said that work related stress, especially among journalists, is common. Around 86 to 100 percent of journalists are actually exposed to “potentially traumatic events over the course of their careers.”
By RITCHE T. SALGADO
Bulatlat.com
MANILA — Drastic changes and extreme challenges in one’s work and personal life brought about by the pandemic are causing work-related stress especially among journalists.
If left unmanaged this could cause problems that would not only affect the journalist, but their family and the news organization they serve.
In an article by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalists (PCIJ) (URL for link back: https://pcij.org/article/4043/journalists-struggle-to-cover-the-pandemic-as-space-for-media-freedom-shrinks), Nonoy Espina, chairperson of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) pointed out some of the challenges that journalists face in their job.
Safety issues, economic difficulties, and government restrictions that affect the gathering and delivering of news especially with media outfits critical to the government, are some of these challenges.
And then there is the danger posed by the vilification and red-tagging of journalists and alternative outfits by government agents and the continuing killings of colleagues in the provinces.
Psychiatrists Dr. Reginald Pamugas and Dr. Eunice Sermonia shared with media practitioners in an online webinar hosted by NUJP that stressors such as these would indeed take its toll on journalists, and with the added lifestyle changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is likely that many journalists are in extreme stress.
Pamugas said that research shows that “pressures of a crisis can trigger physical reactions” that could distort one’s perceptions and decision making.
The amygdala is the structure in the brain that would be affected. This is the fear and anger center and activates the “fight, flight and freeze” reactions.
Pamugas shared that if a person could no longer handle the stress that they are experiencing, they might go through the amygdala hijack, where the person becomes emotionally charged.
“The brain could no longer assess and plan how to react,” he said. The amygdala would block “slow” thinking and an “unthinking response,” which is sometimes violent, would be elicited.
Four levels of reaction to stress
He shared that when a person experiences stress and trauma, the body and the mind would react on four levels: physical, thinking, emotion, and behavior.
“When a person is stressed the body would release stress hormones to all parts of the body,” he said. This hormone, called cortisol, when excessive could cause various conditions to the body including palpitations, shortness of breath, and increased heart rate and blood pressure.
Stress also distorts the decision making of the person as he starts to think negatively and pessimistically like thinking that he would go hungry or that he could not finish the story that he needs to submit.
Emotionally, stressed individuals may experience extreme fear, sadness and anxiety, while behaviorally, Pamugas shared that a stressed person may cope negatively isolating herself, fearing she might get the disease or be the cause of spreading the disease to the family.
Citing medical studies, Pamugas said that work related stress, especially among journalists, is common. Around 86 to 100 percent of journalists are actually exposed to “potentially traumatic events over the course of their careers” causing post traumatic stress disorder, depression and even substance abuse in many instances.
However, he is optimistic because, quoting Bruce Shapiro of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, “journalists are a resilient tribe.”
Pamugas said that journalists have a strong peer support system, which is very important because, as Shapiro pointed out, “Resilience is highly associated with connectedness and peer support. Isolation is highly associated with risk.”
Collective grief and stress
Sermonia explained that the stress suffered by people in this time of pandemic is a collective experience of grieving as the world goes through drastic changes that literally transformed the way people behave and interact.
“There is a loss of normalcy,” she explained.
People fear the economic consequences that these changes bring, explained Sermonia emphasizing on those who are on a “No Work, No Pay” scheme. Add to that is the fear on the loss of safety and security of one’s health.
There is also a loss of connection, where we are no longer able to interact with friends and family or we could no longer do what we used to do outside.
Healthy coping
In order to cope healthily, Sermonia advises that we keep ourself safe and healthy by taking necessary precautions especially when one has to go out and interact with other people, and by finding meaning in what we do.
“This is a great opportunity for us to make our contribution,” she said.
Empathy and compassion towards others is also important. As an example she said that some people may be highly irritable at this time. If this is not their usual behavior that it could be brought about by stress, and so we should learn to tolerate and understand them.
Sermonia believes that positive self talk is important for us to cope with the situation, as well as taking small breaks from our routines.
She reminded everyone that we should be able to know how to disconnect not just from social media, but also from work.
“At this time the boundary between work and home is blurred,” she said.
“It is important not to mistake work and work from home,” she reiterated, adding that it does not mean that working from home doesn’t mean that one has to answer work-related calls after working hours.
Manage your stress
With this she suggested several ways of managing stress including progressive muscle relaxations, mindfulness, and breath counting meditation which starts with abdominal breathing exercises, and talking with friends and loved ones is also a way of managing stress.
Lastly, she advised that “if you feel sad, take time to feel sad; and if you feel angry, take time to be angry.”
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