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More compact communities seen improving sustainability of PHL cities

A MOVE TO more compact and integrated communities is expected to improve the sustainability of Philippine cities by limiting the distances residents need to travel for work and leisure, an expert panel said.

United Nations-Habitat Country Programme Manager Christopher E. Rollo said at a virtual property forum organized by the Philippine Star, “Compact cities and communities maximize the use of urban land and promote economies of scale and efficient services.”

“An integrated community should link with the rest of the city in terms of mobility options, communication, markets, and services. And so integration should be [in] the physical, social, economic, and environmental spheres,” Mr. Rollo said.

“[It’s] not just building houses, but building the capacities of people to build their own communities, to strengthen the social cohesion within them,” he added.

Other members of the panel at the Philstar event, “Building Integrated Communities for a Sustainable Future,” said compactness was a valid goal for quality of life reasons.

SM Development Corp. (SMDC) President Jose Mari Banzon said a so-called “15-minute city,” in which all the population’s needs can be serviced by establishments at most 15 minutes away, is a target to shoot for.

A community “should allow people to have everything they want, everything they want and they need within a few minutes away, or just by walking outside. And it should have a nice living experience… with all the amenities,” Mr. Banzon said.

A third panelist, Leechiu Property Consultants, Inc. Chief Executive Officer David Leechiu, said how regulators shape the development of communities is key.

“We have many laws in the Philippines that cover every aspect of humanity and the way we should take care of citizens, but where we fail constantly is implementation,” Mr. Leechiu said.

“All the policies are there, we just have to bloody execute it properly but because of the lack of controls, or I should say the hyper-regulations… Everyone is watching so many people, but at the end of the day, we just end up conniving to game the system,” he added. — Kaycee G. Valmonte

COVID-19 vaccination drive may start next week

By Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza, Reporter

FILIPINOS on the government’s priority list may get vaccinated against the coronavirus as early as next week as the government takes delivery of 600,000 vaccine doses donated by China on Sunday, according to the presidential palace.

“Three more nights and the vaccines will be here,” presidential spokesman Herminio “Harry” L. Roque, Jr. told a televised news briefing on Thursday.

President Rodrigo R. Duterte will welcome the arrival of the vaccines made by Chinese drug maker Sinovac Biotech Ltd., he said.

Sinovac General Manager Helen Yang on Wednesday said the vaccines were being prepared for delivery to the Philippines.

Of the initial batch of vaccines, about 100,000 will be used to immunize soldiers. The rest will be used to inoculate people on the priority list including medical frontliners.

The Department of Health (DoH) and the National Task Force Against the Coronavirus said in a joint statement details of how the vaccines would be distributed were still being discussed. An inter-agency task force would approve the plan, they added.

Mr. Roque said the President had used Philippine friendship with China to get early access to COVID-19 vaccines.

Sinovac’s CoronaVac is one of the frontrunners in the vaccine race, along with those developed by British drug maker AstraZeneca Plc, Russia’s Gameleya National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology, and America’s Pfizer, Inc., Moderna, Inc. and  Johnson & Johnson.

TALLY
The Department of Health (DoH) reported 2,269 coronavirus infections on Thursday, bringing the total to 568,680.

The death toll rose by 72 to 12,201, while recoveries increased by 738 to 524,042, it said in a bulletin.

There were 32,437 active cases, 88.5% of which were mild, 6.1% did not show symptoms, 2.4% were critical, 2.3% were severe, and 0.78% were moderate.

The Health department said eight duplicates and one case found to be negative had been removed from the tally. Twelve recovered cases were reclassified as deaths.

Three laboratories failed to submit their data on Feb. 24, it said.

More than 8.1 million Filipinos have been tested for the coronavirus as of Feb. 23, according to DoH’s tracker website.

The coronavirus has sickened more than 113.1 million and killed more than 2.5 million people worldwide, according to the Worldometers website, citing various sources including data from the World Health Organization.

More than 88.7 million people have recovered, it said.

LESS EFFECTIVE
Senator Francis N. Pangilinan earlier urged the Health department to cancel the purchase of Sinovac’s CoronaVac, which he said is six times more expensive than AstraZeneca and less effective.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Director General Rolando Enrique D. Domingo earlier said the Chinese shot was not recommended for medical frontliners since its efficacy only reached 50.4% for their class based on trials in Turkey.

The efficacy of Sinovac ranged from 65.3% to 91.2% in patients aged 18 to 59 years based on trials in Indonesia. AstraZeneca has a 70% efficacy based on trials in Brazil and the United Kingdom.

Health professionals are not barred from taking Sinovac vaccines, Mr. Roque said, citing Mr. Domingo. “If they want it, they can have it. They won’t be taken out of the priority list.”

At the same briefing, Philippine General Hospital Director Gap Legazpi said their medical workers were ready to receive the Sinovac shots.

“Whatever vaccine comes, we should welcome it because it will make a difference in helping control the spread of this infection,” he said.

“We are not the last country to receive the vaccine,” Mr. Roque said. He added that had the government insisted on buying Western brands, it would have waited longer.

Vaccine czar Carlito G. Galvez, Jr. this week said only 5.1 million vaccine doses would arrive in the country this quarter.

Mr. Galvez earlier said the Philippines had secured about 10 million doses of coronavirus vaccines under a global initiative for equal access, most of which were from  AstraZeneca

and Pfizer.

The country, however, had a rough time dealing with drug makers seeking blanket protection from potential lawsuits, he said.

The Senate and House of Representatives have passed a bill creating a 500-million indemnification fund that will be used to compensate patients who may get sick from vaccines.

Under the measure, manufacturers won’t be liable for vaccine-related injuries. The National Government will assume responsibility for the emergency use of the vaccines.

The bill has been submitted for Mr. Duterte’s signature.

Mr. Galvez earlier said the lack of an indemnification plan had hindered the delivery of the first 117,000 doses of Pfizer vaccines under the Word Health Organization-led COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) facility.

About 24.1 million vaccine doses would come in the second quarter, Mr. Galvez told an online news briefing on Wednesday night. More vaccines under the COVAX facility will arrive in the second half, he added.

Mr. Galvez said the country was in talks with the United Kingdom, China, Russia and India to get more vaccine shots and ensure early delivery.

The country this week had a marathon meeting with Moderna to finetune the “language of the supply agreement,” he said.

Safeguard rights, Duterte tells Pinoys on People Power day

PRESIDENT Rodrigo R. Duterte on Thursday, urged Filipinos to be vigilant in safeguarding their rights and the country’s democratic institutions as he marked the 35th anniversary of a street uprising that toppled the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos.

In a statement, he asked Filipinos to set aside their differences and “work together in building a legacy that we can proudly leave behind for future generations.”

Vice President Maria Leonor G. Robredo said Filipinos should have a “collective resolve” to fight the threats to the country’s fragile democracy.

Filipinos are in the process of “forging the nation we dreamt of and fought for,” the opposition leader said in a separate statement, adding that the promise of the EDSA uprising remained unfulfilled.

Ms. Robredo, whom the Supreme Court favored in an election protest filed by rival and the dictator’s son Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr., cited “efforts to revise history for the personal agenda of a powerful few.”

The Philippines slipped one place to No. 55 out of 167 countries in London-based think tank Economist Intelligence Unit’s democracy index last year.

The nation under Mr. Duterte retained its “flawed democracy” status, with a score of 6.56 from 6.4 a year earlier.

At least 188 human rights defenders have been killed under the Duterte administration, while 426 activists and community organizers were arrested, according to human rights group Karapatan.

Since becoming president in 2016, Mr. Duterte has attacked journalists critical of his policies, particularly his deadly war on drugs.

Amid a coronavirus pandemic, Mr. Duterte signed a law expanding crimes against terror, which critics said could be used to violate human rights and stifle dissent. 

Congress under his administration also rejected the franchise application of ABS-CBN Corp., which is critical of his government.

The tough talking leader said he would bar the broadcasting firm from using free TV and radio frequencies even if it gets a new franchise.

“Today, we are reminded of what we can do, marching towards a shared horizon, bound not only by the crisis we face, but by our collective resolve to truly achieve the promise articulated 35 years ago — a nation that has more freedom and more justice and more humane,” Ms. Robredo said in mixed English and Filipino.

The elder Mr. Marcos’s two-decade was marred by political killings, human rights violations, corruption and media repression.

About 3,200 people died, 70,000 were jailed and 35,000 were tortured during Mr. Marcos’s two-decade rule, according to American historian Alfred W. McCoy.

The country’s democracy is “under constant threat,” Ms. Robredo said. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza

Cops violated rules of engagement in drug war, DoJ chief tells UN

MORE THAN half of thousands of police anti-drug operations under President Rodrigo R. Duterte violated rules of engagement, Department of Justice (DoJ) Secretary Menardo I. Guevarra told the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council on Wednesday.

Police claimed suspected drug pushers were killed after they resisted arrest, he said in a video message at the seventh meeting of the council’s 46th regular session.

“Yet, no full examination of the weapon recovered was conducted,” he said, citing the initial results of a government investigation. “No verification of its ownership was undertaken. No request for ballistic examination or paraffin test was pursued until its completion,” he added.

Mr. Guevarra said the government rejects any attempts by the international community to meddle in Philippine affairs.

“We reject any attempt by any external entity to assume jurisdiction over internal matters which are being addressed more than adequately by our national institutions and authorities,” he said.

The Justice chief also urged the UN council to use “dialogue and cooperation as it carries out its important mandate and noble duty to the community of nations.”    

Mr. Guevarra said his office had referred the findings to the Philippine National Police, which has conducted its own probe of thousands of drug-related incidents. A number of policemen had been recommended to be charged criminally and administratively, he added.

“It is now the immediate task of the review panel to ensure that these recommendations have been acted upon and carried out by the proper disciplinary authorities, and that measures are adopted to avoid loss of lives during legitimate law enforcement operations against illegal drugs,” he said. — Bianca Angelica D. Añago

Nationwide round-up (02/25/21)

Senate president says time to pass law for just one agency to handle anti-drug enforcement

THE deadly shootout in a busy commercial area Wednesday night between members of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) and the police warrants the passage of the bill seeking to create a unified drug enforcement body, Senate President Vicente C. Sotto III said. “The ‘misencounter’ between PDEA and PNP (Philippine National Police) shows the wisdom and ripeness of my bill creating a united Presidential Drug Enforcement Authority,” Mr. Sotto told reporters via Viber on Thursday. Mr. Sotto in July 2019 filed Senate Bill No. 3, which seeks to create the drug enforcement authority that will be under the police. The measure aims to “further strengthen” the fight against illegal drugs by “unifying the four major programs of enforcement, prosecution, prevention, and rehabilitation, under one agency.” If passed into law, PDEA and the Dangerous Drugs Board will be dissolved and the former’s functions will be exercised by the police. “This fiasco will not be the last if we do not act on this soon,” he said.

INVESTIGATIONS
Senator Risa N. Hontiveros-Baraquel said she will file a resolution to conduct a Senate investigation on the incident, noting that there was a “dramatic lack of coordination” between the agencies. “We need to look into this further. It is very alarming that this is not the first time that such a ‘misencounter’ has happened. The National Capital Region Police Office did admit that this has happened numerous times. These ‘misencounters’ should be rare, not common,” she said in a statement. The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) is also conducting a separate probe on the incident upon the order of Justice Secretary Menardo I. Guevarra. The NBI’s investigation “is separate and distinct” from that being jointly conducted by the two agencies, Mr. Guevarra said. The gun battle between police and PDEA agents outside a shopping mall and fastfood restaurant in Quezon City left at least two cops and one still unidentified person dead and four others injured, based on reports as of Wednesday evening. Police chief Debold M. Sinas announced the creation of a PNP-PDEA Board of Inquiry for a joint investigation. — Vann Marlo M. Villegas and Bianca Angelica D. Añago

Senate panel says mechanisms in place to penalize unwarranted tagging of persons and groups as terrorists

A Senate panel said there is a need to pass a law that penalizes those linking progressive groups and other individuals to terrorist groups without evidence or legal basis. “At present, various legal and institutional mechanisms are in place for the State to protect constitutional rights and civil liberties, which can be availed by the leaders and members of the progressive groups, as they have done in the past,” read the report of the Senate committee on national defense and security. The Senate committee probed the red-tagging of progressive organizations and other personalities by military officials, but noted that some of the recourse available were already provided under the Revised Penal Code and Civil Code, among others. The committee said that current legal remedies were “sufficient and available” to those who were subject to “red-tagging,” adding that some have already filed cases before the Office of the Ombudsman.

CAUTION
The panel, however, said the security sector “should exercise caution” in making public pronouncements as these carry a semblance of authority from the government. “The authorities should refrain from publicly vilifying, labeling and imputing guilt by association to the communist groups, various institutions and progressive organizations based on false or unverified information,” it said. The security sector should also “reassess their communication and information dissemination strategies in consideration of the resulting increase in polarization between the government and the people.” The panel also said that red-tagging is not related to the passage of the Anti-Terrorism Act, which does not penalize advocacy and legitimate dissent. There are 37 petitions filed before the Supreme Court against the implementation of the law — Vann Marlo M. Villegas

Ex-special envoy to China could also be included in NBI probe on illegal COVID vaccines

RAMON T. Tulfo, a former special envoy to China, could be included in the National Bureau of Investigation’s (NBI) ongoing probe on the smuggling and administration of China-made uncertified coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines. Justice Secretary Menardo I. Guevarra told reporters on Wednesday that he is leaving it up to the NBI to make the decision. “I have directed the NBI to submit a progress report on the above investigation ASAP (as soon as possible),” Mr. Guevarra said. The Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health had already confirmed the inclusion of Mr. Tulfo in their respective investigations on the matter. Mr. Tulfo publicly admitted to having knowledge on the alleged smuggling of Sinopharm vaccines from China, and had himself injected with one dose last year as he wanted to be the local distributor of the vaccine brand. The China state-owned Sinopharm has yet to apply for emergency use of its vaccines in the Philippines. The Presidential Security Group also confirmed earlier that they inoculated their members with unregistered COVID-19 vaccines to better protect President Rodrigo R. Duterte from getting infected with the virus. — Bianca Angelica D. Añago

Regional Updates (02/25/21)

Approved Bangsamoro Civil Service Code covers indigenous peoples, Shari’ah Bar and madaris teachers

THE Civil Service Code for the Bangsamoro was approved Wednesday, one of the priority legislations crucial to the new region’s transition. The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao’s (BARMM) civil service law is mainly in line with the Philippine’s rules on government workers, but with additional provisions in consideration of the region’s sociological, cultural, and historical background. Among the distinct points of the BARMM code is the development of special examinations for members of indigenous peoples groups. “We want the examination giving bodies, like the Civil Service Commission, to conduct special exams to make that kind of eligibility (for government service), that require those examination, more reachable to our communities,” said BARMM Member of Parliament Anna T. Basman in a press release from the regional government. Ms. Basman and Deputy Majority Floor Leader Raisa H. Jajurie led the defense of the legislation during hearings among the Bangsamoro Transition Authority.  The code also recognizes passing the Shari’ah Bar as an eligibility factor for appointments to certain positions. “This is based on the ORAOHRA (Omnibus Rules on Appointments and Other Human Resource Actions) provisions, and it emanates from Supreme Court decisions which has the power over the administration of the Shari’ah Bar,” Ms. Jajurie said. For teachers in madaris, or Islamic schools, guidelines will be set on qualifications, appointments and promotions, which will be included in the Bangsamoro Education Code. Pending the education law, the rules will be based on the recommendations of the region’s Ministry of Basic, Higher and Technical Education. “Not only did we accomplish yet another mandate as stipulated under the BOL (Bangsamoro Organic Law), but we have also paved the way towards standardizing the regional bureaucracy that can truly manifest the shared aspirations of our people,” BARMM Chief Minister Ahod Ebrahim said during the code’s signing ceremony Wednesday night. The BOL requires the passage of several legal codes for the region. The transition body is focusing next on those covering education, local government, revenue, and elections.

1st African Swine Fever case in Tacloban City confirmed

TACLOBAN City has been added to the list of areas in the Eastern Visayas Region with a confirmed case of the African Swine Fever (ASF), with one farm infected. The city government announced Thursday that the Department of Agriculture’s regional office reported the positive result on Wednesday that came from Barangay 84. “The Regional ASF Task Force, together with the local government unit thru the City Veterinary Office shall undertake the necessary measures for the rapid containment and elimination of the disease. Part of which is the mandatory humane slaughter and proper disposal of all pigs within the 500-meter radius infected zone,” the city’s information office said. Agriculture Regional Executive Director Angel C. Enriquez met with Mayor Alfred S. Romualdez on Feb. 24 to discuss the indemnification process for affected hog raisers. Mr. Romualdez committed that stricter border controls and intensified monitoring measures will be undertaken to stop the spread of the virus. Tacloban City serves as the regional center. ASF cases were first reported in the region in January this year. The affected areas are the towns of Abuyog, La Paz, and Javier, all in Leyte province. These are so far the only ASF infections in the Visayas, which cover the country’s central islands. On Wednesday, the Agriculture department said Eastern Visayas was not among the areas that shipped hogs and pork supply to Metro Manila due to “insufficient” stock. More than 436,000 hogs have been culled as of end-January across the country, mainly in the northern mainland of Luzon, since the first ASF outbreak was confirmed in 2019. — MSJ

Keep GCQ: Setting fire to our ship…

History tells us that in the 3rd century B.C., General Xiang Yu sent his army across the Yangtze River to fight the Qin Dynasty. While the troops slept, he ordered all their ships burned. He was quoted to have said: “You now have a choice: either you fight to win or you die.”

The general removed the option to retreat. He forced his troops to concentrate on the only thing that mattered. They had to win the battle, or die.

President Duterte’s decision to reject the recommendation to relax restrictions on business and mobility unless vaccines are rolled out is burning our ships to force the whole of government to focus on the rollout of the vaccines and provide general defense against the virus. This is the only way to restart business activities, get people to resume their normal activities, and initiate economic recovery.

While the Senate has discovered that our health authorities had fully known the need for an indemnity law as early as the last quarter of 2020 but raised it only this February, the way forward is to get all the necessary paperwork out fast and satisfy all the requirements of the vaccine manufacturers. Every minute counts. Those who are responsible for the delay should ensure no one could fault them that it was more deliberate. Once the smoke disappears, accountability should be established and punitive action taken against those who faltered. Without doubt, the sustained increase in the number of cases and mortalities is an absolute evidence of their costly slippage. This administration has barely one year and a half to pick up whatever pieces are left. Legacy is essential.

There is no time to lose because at the rate the rich economies are procuring whatever vaccines are available, there might be nothing left to the laggards.

In Geneva the other day, the World Health Organization (WHO) slammed the advanced countries for hogging vaccines beyond the requirements of their own citizens. So far, the Group of 7 industrialized countries plus the rest of the European Union and Australia had cornered 1.25 billion more doses than their combined population. Some of them are prepared to pay with premium such that the original stock allocated to the emerging nations like the Philippines is effectively skimmed. As WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus explained, available money is “worthless if there (is) nothing to buy.”

What is also urgent is to ensure that once the vaccines are available, logistics would not further delay the rollout.

While conducting an educational drive to get people to agree to get vaccinated — no compulsion please — throughout the Philippines, our health authorities should announce the priority for getting the jabs. Transparency is paramount at this time when civil society remains suspicious of the efficacy of the vaccines and the cost of getting them. As the government is setting aside some budget for the vaccines and borrowing from various sources to fund them, we need to have clarified whether we shall be getting those vaccines for free. Otherwise, how much should we prepare for the inoculation?

It is also good for other levels of government to be pitching in.

Some proactive city mayors and heads of other local government units (LGUs) have unveiled their respective vaccination plans. Procurement and deployment of vaccines can be better secured if they are truly devolved to the LGUs with authority to cover their constituencies. It will be helpful for everyone to know the working arrangements between the National Government and the LGUs with respect to the vaccines’ rollout. However, despite all these announcements, it is not clear if anyone from the LGUs has started doing a survey of the possible coverage of their vaccination program. The list of potential recipients should be prepared now prior to the actual rollout as soon as the vaccines become available.

While preparing to launch the vaccines, our health authorities should remain vigilant in enforcing current health protocols.

In another broadsheet, we presented Israel’s experience in having vaccinated almost half of its population. By next month or so, they would have completed the required critical mass for herd immunity and only then, re-start their economy. But Israel decided to continue with some important aspects of the restrictions, including those on allowed capacity for public places and gatherings. We cannot afford to bring our guards down; the virus continues to rampage through the cities and provinces while its new mutants have started to appear. Health surveillance remains indispensable. We cannot afford to simply rely on manual reporting by filling up forms which nobody seems to consolidate into a reliable database for monitoring and tracing purposes.

Which is why we find Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles’ announcement that the “economic managers will likely come up with ways to further reopen the economy after President Duterte turned down” the recommendation of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) to ease quarantine restrictions relevant. By all means, let us try to work within the general community quarantine (GCQ) framework to get the economy somewhat moving again. But let it not distract the rest of government from finalizing the agreements with the drug companies, get them to Manila and start vaccinating those who needed to be vaccinated first and fast based on a transparent set of guidelines.

Yes, we need to monitor the cost of the President’s decision to postpone the re-opening of the economy.

But the press and our concerned authorities should be very careful in laying the blame for the expected delay in economic revival to the extended GCQ. The extended GCQ is a result of the non-rollout of the vaccines. In turn, vaccines are nowhere to be found because of some problems with our health authorities. Human lives are important. To preserve human lives over the long run, we must burn our ships in order to concentrate on winning this war against the pandemic.

Our planning authorities should also be fair in the reassessment of “the country’s economic target for (2020) after President Duterte decided to forego a plan to put the Philippines under the most lenient quarantine status until mass vaccination has started.”

Under the current health conditions, we find the real GDP (gross domestic product) target of 6.5% to 7.5% quite ambitious because of the assumptions used: shift to a modified GCQ, implementation of the recovery program and timely COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) vaccination. In a previous column, we explained the need to assume the worst in doing macro modelling given the precarious health situation today and the progress of our fight against the pandemic. The three assumptions defined a very optimistic scenario in a fundamentally difficult situation.

Economic scarring has been serious in the last 12 months. For this reason, consumer and business confidence remains low. No amount of re-opening the economy would convince people, especially the seniors and those with health issues like allergies and co-morbidity, to drop the quarantine because of some directive allowing it. No early reopening prior to mass vaccination would inspire firms to start expanding capacity and employing more workers.

In fact, some economists have begun to realize this.

For instance, ING’s Nicholas Mapa opined: “Moving to relax restrictions will have only a modest impact on overall spending as the more likely impediment to consumption is the lack of consumer confidence.” Ateneo’s Alvin Ang said that vaccine rollout and lowering of cases are more critical for recovery as easing restrictions will require that these be established to inspire confidence. Sustained policy support especially fiscal is equally vital.

There is such a thing as the illusion of attention. While vaccination is as big as a gorilla in a room, only a few seem to realize everything revolves and depends on it. We hope this is the last time that President Duterte burns the ship.

 

Diwa C. Guinigundo is the former Deputy Governor for the Monetary and Economics Sector, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). He served the BSP for 41 years. In 2001–2003, he was Alternate Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC. He is the senior pastor of the Fullness of Christ International Ministries in Mandaluyong.

Reinventing EDSA

The 35th anniversary of the 1986 civilian-military mutiny known as EDSA I — or as its participant-adherents then called it, the People Power Revolution — that overthrew the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship and forced him and his family to flee to Hawaii, USA came and went this year with hardly anyone noticing.

Feb. 25 has become for most Filipinos just another anniversary of this or that incident in history whose meaning has eluded them for years, or the birth or death date of someone they were told in elementary school did something that made him a hero. Exactly why an incident or a certain date is important is something they haven’t bothered to find out. Jose Rizal? Didn’t he have a girl in every port? Tirad Pass? Is that where that anti-American guy died? And EDSA 1986? Wasn’t that the incident that ended the administration of the best president the Philippines has ever had?

As in previous years, only the usual platitudes and motherhood statements emanated from Malacañang Palace. It was as if the biggest bureaucrats in government feared that saying something meaningful could educate the mass of the citizenry enough for it to harbor such dangerous ideas as that they’re the true sovereigns of this country and that government officials serve at their pleasure. That’s as likely to happen as this country’s making it out of the Medieval Ages and into the 21st century, but one could almost hear President Rodrigo Duterte asking his staff if it’s that time of the year again, and can’t we just forget about EDSA I?

Not that Mr. Duterte has ever given the event any importance. Since 2017 he has studiously avoided attending any ceremony marking its anniversary, thereby pointedly sending his followers the message that it is really nothing to celebrate. It makes perfect sense for a president who counts the surviving Marcoses among his most reliable partisans and closest allies. But beyond the demands of that alliance — and even his declared preference for defeated 2016 vice-presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. to succeed him should he decide not to complete his six-year term — is the fear of an EDSA I repetition, or even of the year 2001’s EDSA II, when another president, Joseph Estrada, was also removed from office through direct people’s action.

Although referred to as a “revolution,” EDSA 1986 was true to that word only in one sense. It certainly was not an economic revolution, since it didn’t transform the economic system. The land tenancy anomaly survived it and even emerged stronger than ever; inviting foreign investments into the country is still the main development strategy of Marcos’ successors as it has been since 1946; and industrialization has never been seriously contemplated as economic policy. Neither was that “revolution” a social upheaval: it did not end the vast inequality, the social injustice, and the poverty that still afflict millions of Filipinos.

But it was a moment of mass empowerment, the precedents of which go back a hundred years to the Reform and Revolutionary periods of Philippine history. For the first time since the country declared its independence, and after decades of tolerating corrupt and incompetent misgovernment from 1946 onwards, some two million Filipinos braved the tanks, the helicopter gunships and the mercenary soldiery of a murderous dictatorship to declare that they had had enough of the human rights violations, the torture, the enforced disappearances and the extrajudicial killings of the regime, and that it was time to end the lies and the deceit of a self-serving kleptocracy that had brought only dishonor to this country and suffering to its people.

It was in that sense that EDSA 1986 was truly revolutionary — and it is for that reason that, though they have never found the words to explicitly say it, the power elite fear it.

Mr. Duterte is not alone in wishing it and its example away. His predecessors were equally focused on getting the people to forget both EDSAs, and for entirely the same reason.

Although he was one of the leading figures of EDSA 1986, former President Fidel Ramos, for example, repeatedly discouraged its repetition supposedly because the political instability it would signify would discourage foreign investments. Joseph Estrada’s removal from office via EDSA II naturally made him, his family, and his allies leery of anything similar, while Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo allegedly contemplated declaring martial law out of fear that an EDSA III could depose her.

Himself accused of fomenting a military putsch during the coup-plagued presidency of Corazon Aquino, former Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, instead of discouraging the celebration of EDSA I as well as EDSA II, encouraged remembering both differently. Like Ramos, he was, after all, also one of the 1986 event’s leading figures, and apparently believed that something similar could propel him to power. Rather than admit that what overthrew Marcos in 1986 and Estrada in 2001 was the people’s direct action, he declared at some point when he was eying the Presidency that it was the military that had done the deed.

That claim is only partly true, however. Elements of the military were indeed involved in both uprisings, but without the millions massed at Quezon City’s Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA) between Camps Crame and Aguinaldo, those rebel units would have been overrun by the superior numbers of Marcos’ military loyalists. It was civilians — nuns and priests and middle-class folk — who faced Marcos’ tanks and shielded Ramos, Enrile, and their military cohorts from being attacked and annihilated in 1986.

It was also an event 14 years in the making. Without the heroic efforts of Church people, journalists, writers, teachers, students, artists and many other sectors to provide the citizenry from day one of martial rule, the information that finally led millions of men, women and even entire families to mass at EDSA from Feb. 22 to 25, the dictatorship would have prevailed. The same commitment of the same sectors was similarly indispensable to the success of EDSA II.

As untenable as Enrile’s re-invention of EDSA I and II may be, it seems that Mr. Duterte is of the same view, although not necessarily because of Enrile’s say-so, and without publicly admitting it. The same assumption of military primacy as Enrile’s is evident in his unending courtship of the officers corps — his packing his government with retired generals, and his putting the interests and welfare of the soldiery above those of everyone else’s in terms of perks and salaries. Rather than the people shielding him from the military, it would seem that Mr. Duterte is anticipating the possibility that the military might have to shield him from the people.

But could he be mistaken in assuming that the military will be true to him no matter what the cost? There are no indications so far that it won’t be. And as for the possibility of something like another People Power uprising occurring, that, too, seems hardly likely. After decades of disinformation and forgetfulness, the Filipino masses have yet to learn the revolutionary lesson as well as the meaning of both EDSA events.

Mr. Duterte and company are in the rare and privileged position of being protected by both the seemingly boundless loyalty of the military and the cluelessness and apathy of the heirs of a generation that brought down a seemingly invincible tyranny. That makes it so much the worse for the future of the interminable work-in-progress that is Philippine democracy.

 

Luis V. Teodoro is on Facebook and Twitter (@luisteodoro).

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China and Russia are beating the West at vaccine diplomacy

IT WAS encouraging to see G7 leaders including France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Angela Merkel and the UK’s Boris Johnson all on the same page when it came to COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) vaccines last week. With the US back in the fold of global health cooperation as a member of the 92-country COVAX (COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access) initiative, they all agreed to help distribute doses around the world to start healing a pandemic divide between rich and poor.

But beyond the positive sentiment, there’s a troubling lack of action. The gap is already so wide that just 10 countries account for more than three-quarters of COVID vaccinations, while 130 countries have yet to give a single jab. COVAX is a welcome effort, but its target this year is to cover just 20% of its member countries’ populations, meaning it’s only part of the answer. The World Health Organization has called the lack of cooperation across continents a “catastrophic moral failure.”

The risk is that this failure, left unchecked, will prolong the pandemic and allow geopolitical rivals to fill the void. China and Russia are planting flags globally with their own home-grown vaccines, for cheap or for free, while Europe and North America struggle with manufacturing bottlenecks and coronavirus flare-ups. Despite all the talk of sharing, Western allies have prioritized themselves and threatened export curbs; Canada even resorted to tapping COVAX itself for its own supplies.

Their great-power competitors look positively altruistic as a result. At the European Union’s Eastern border, Serbia has raced ahead of the bloc’s own vaccination program thanks to more than 1 million doses of China’s state-backed Sinopharm jab. In the US’ neighborhood, Russia’s Sputnik V shot, initially dismissed by the West, has made in-roads in Mexico with 24 million doses. In Africa, where COVAX is generating mixed feelings, these vaccines are gaining ground next to Western shots that may be more effective in some cases but are pricier and can be more complicated to transport.

In an ideal world, it shouldn’t matter where medicines come from. Yet vaccines are now a tool of soft power and statecraft, and after a grueling year of this pandemic they’re seen as key for national self-defense and foreign policy. Israel recently agreed to buy hundreds of thousands of doses of Russia’s Sputnik V for Syria as part of a prisoner swap deal, according to the Haaretz newspaper. In Asia, Taiwan’s health minister blamed “external” political pressure for the abrupt scuppering of a vaccine purchase from Germany’s BioNTech SE.

Can the West play this game too? After all, it has collectively pre-ordered enough doses to vaccinate its population several times over. One strategy mooted would be for a “Marshall Plan” of vaccine deliveries across Eastern Europe. The hitch is that ambitious vaccine diplomacy depends on domestic support, and that is where the EU especially falls down, with too few inoculations so far, mixed messages on vaccine efficacy, and many still in lockdown.

Manufacturing knowhow may be a more productive diplomatic route for the US and Europe, at least until they can start seriously sharing doses at scale. Theodore Murphy, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations’ Africa program, has suggested the EU should help African countries make vaccines themselves. This may take time, but so will providing the jabs directly.

Voluntary technology-transfer deals could be signed with drugmakers that benefited from state backing; they would be made easier with US help. It would be a gesture reminiscent of Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin’s refusal to patent polio vaccines during the Cold War.

Vaccine pioneer Edward Jenner once stated that, “The sciences are never at war.” Of course he was lobbying Napoleonic France to release British prisoners at the time. Given Beijing is liberally spraying doses like ammunition, it’s time the West stopped guarding its vaccines like precious rocket fuel. Macron, Merkel, and Johnson should remember nobody is safe until everybody’s safe — and that sharing and collaboration sometimes need a shot in the arm to get going.

With assistance from Elaine He.

BLOOMBERG OPINION

Want to improve the country? Improve marriages

Recently came across a tweet purportedly from the account of a popular Metro museum. It alleged (citing a decades old book) that in pre-colonial Philippines: “Virginity was not a value and children were treated the same way. Unwed mothers were not shamed. Husband and wife were equal, with divorce being practiced.” Ostensibly, the point was to depict the “empowered” position of women, that is until the Spanish (i.e., Catholicism) came and ruined it all. Unfortunately, all that is simply misleading.

And irresponsible. Because if there’s any institution that should be encouraged nowadays to truly “empower” women, that would be marriage.

Follow the science. Study upon study has shown the benefits women derive from marriage: better physical and psychological health, more safety (domestic or sexual abuse predominantly happens outside the married relationship), better income (married women before childbirth were found to have 4-10% higher incomes than unmarried women), longer and happier lives, better relationship with their children (as compared to divorced parents), and — contrary to media portrayal — better sex lives.

One Philippine study (“Divorce and separation in the Philippines: Trends and correlates,” Jeofrey Abalos, 2017) points out that “Filipino women who cohabit in their first union and do not marry have higher odds of separating than those who are legally married.”

Another is particularly relevant: “Jobs, Expansion, and Development” (Paqueo, Orbeta, Lanzona, and Dulay, NEDA PIDS, 2013) talked about the “positive correlation of open unemployment with income and education.” More tellingly, they spoke of the fact that “income households headed by high school graduates is more than double that of households with only elementary education.” In short, “the rate of return to investment in education is relatively high.”

Put another way: the longer you stay in school, the higher your income and the greater the productivity, which then leads to overall national economic gain. But how can kids stay in school longer if they keep getting pregnant before they even graduate from college or reach marriageable age?

Figures indicate that teenage pregnancy in this country rose by 70% in the 10-year period between 1999 to 2009. Figures from 2010 show 206,574 teen pregnancies, with more than half of those girls below 14 years of age. Data from 2013 reveals the Philippines is the third highest when it comes to teen pregnancy in Southeast Asia, among the highest in the ASEAN region, and the only country where such a number is increasing.

More recent developments are far from comforting: the Commission on Population found that births by girls 14 years old and below increased by 7% in 2019 compared to the previous year, which also represents a nearly 300% rise from 2000.

The foregoing should be read within the context that 20% of marriages in the Philippines will be broken, with 82% of such broken marriages involving children. A World Health Organization study finds that there are 15 million solo parents in the Philippines, with 95% (or more than 14 million) of whom are women. Finally, with the steady decline in marriages in the country comes ironically a continual increase in the number of annulments.

Abalos cites particularly interesting data from the Solicitor General, showing that the majority of annulment cases “were filed by wives (61%), of whom 91% were 30 years old or younger. A large majority (80%) of husbands who initiated cases were also 30 years old or younger. About four in 10 of those who filed cases had been married for five years or less.” Coincidentally enough, 2020 unemployment numbers sees 70% of the unemployed are from the 15- to 34-year-old range (with males 61%, females 39%).

The skewed numbers could be explained by demographics: around 70% of the Philippine population is 30 years old or younger, with national average age at 25.7 years old. But another explanation is simply the state of marriage. Henry Potrykus and Patrick Fagan (“The Divorce Revolution Perpetually Reduces US Economic Growth: Divorce Removes a Fourth of Head-of-Household Productivity Growth”; 2012) points out: “Marriage is a causal agent of economic growth. It constitutes one third to one fourth of the human capital contribution of household heads to macroeconomic growth. The total contribution of human capital to growth of domestic product in turn is large, being of equal proportion to the other two contributing factors: size of the labor pool and physical capital. Divorce removes this agent of economic growth.”

And so it goes: children deprived of married parents tend to perform less well in school, suffer more from depression, engage in more harmful activities, are more vulnerable to doing drugs or suicide, engage in promiscuity leading to teenage pregnancy, and are less productive as adults. Even today’s lockdown data finds children in stable families faring better psychologically and emotionally during the pandemic (“Stable Families Are Helping Protect Kids From Lockdown-Induced Depression And Suicide,” Glenn Stanton, 2021). Considering the state the country is in, perhaps people should really not be too quick to discount the importance of marriage both to individual and national life.

 

Jemy Gatdula is a Senior Fellow of the Philippine Council for Foreign Relations and a Philippine Judicial Academy law lecturer for constitutional philosophy and jurisprudence.

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Twitter @jemygatdula

Another great Tiger Woods comeback possible — experts

FIFTEEN-TIME major winner Tiger Woods — THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT FB PAGE

TORONTO — Tiger Woods could return to competitive golf within a year, top orthopedic surgeons said on Wednesday, but the road back from serious leg injuries sustained in a car crash will be a long and gruelling one.

Already credited with one of sport’s great comebacks when he returned from back surgery to win a fifth Masters in 2019, ending an 11-year major drought, Woods will have to be even more resilient if he is to overcome the damage done in Tuesday’s accident.

The 45-year-old golf great was hospitalized in Los Angeles and underwent emergency surgery on Tuesday for injuries suffered when his sport utility vehicle careened off a road and rolled down a hillside.

Woods sustained compound fractures of his tibia and fibula to his right leg in the early morning crash along with additional injuries to his foot and ankle, according to a statement posted on the former world No. 1’s official Twitter account.

He also suffered trauma to the muscle and other soft tissue of the leg.

The devastating injuries have raised concerns over whether Woods will return to competitive golf, with any comeback further complicated by his long history of knee and back problems.

But orthopedic surgeons interviewed by Reuters all agreed that, based on the information so far available, the 15-time major winner could return possibly within a year.

“What I have learned through my career in taking care of athletes, particularly at that level — don’t count them out,” said Dr. Victor Khabie, chief of surgery and co-director of the Orthopedics and Spine Institute, Northern Westchester Hospital, in Mt. Kisco, New York. “I would say a year.

“It probably takes about 12 weeks to four months for the bone to actually heal,” he said. “And then after that intense rehab, realistically, probably a full year before he is back playing at a high level.”

Experts warned there are plenty of unknowns Woods might have to navigate before attempting any comeback.

Concern over infection is at the top of that list, followed by potential nerve damage and debilitating arthritis should the ankle injury be more severe.

But absent any major complications, it is possible Woods could be ready to tee it up at next year’s Masters, said Dr. Riley Williams, sports medicine surgeon at New York’s Hospital for Special Surgery.

“He has the right psychological makeup and obviously very focused and driven,” said Williams, who operated on and managed NBA player Paul George’s compound fracture in 2014. “Let’s assume in the most straightforward case we’ve got good bone healing by 12 weeks and then another three months of general recovery.

“I could see him being on the range 6 to 12 months after surgery,” he said.

“The Masters next year is certainly within reason, again barring some unknown complicating factors.”

Dr. Nicholas DiNubile, spokesman for the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, said elite athletes possess all the tools to deal with such adversity, but that in this case, since Woods is 45, the question is whether he will want to go through the grind one more time.

“This is as serious as it gets when you have an open fracture because the risk of infection,” Mr. DiNubile told Reuters. “Tiger Woods, of everything I have read about him, is a really tough guy. He has been through a lot injuries.

“He used to train with the Navy Seals and it sounds like even at the scene of the accident, he was trying to get out of the car on his own,” he said.

“I wouldn’t (write him off). The thing against him is his age and at this point in his career, does he need to do that?” — Reuters

Tennis ace Alex Eala basks in chance to compete against older opponents, eyes more tournaments

HAVING competed on the women’s tour this year, Filipino tennis ace Alex Eala said she is basking in the opportunity and looking forward to more tournaments to play in moving forward.

To date, 15-year-old Eala, the number three-ranked juniors player in the International Tennis Federation (ITF), has participated in four singles tournaments on the women’s tour in 2021 with impressive results.

She won her first-ever professional singles title when she ruled the first leg of the Rafa Nadal Academy ITF World Tennis Tour in Mallorca, Spain, last month.

Then she followed it up with quarterfinal finishes in her next tournaments, the most recent of which in her first-ever W25 event at the $25,000 Trophee de la Ville de Grenoble in Grenoble, France.

Despite being a juniors player, Ms. Eala is given an opportunity to play in a number of professional tournaments through the junior exempt program of the ITF.

Her juniors ranking lets her compete in three $25,000 and two $60,000 pro events this year.

Ms. Eala’s impressive showing has seen her rise to a career-high 763 in the Women’s Tennis Association world singles rankings.

But while she is doing well on the tour, Rafa Nadal Academy scholar Eala admits she is still adjusting every time she takes on older and more experienced players.

She was quick to say, however, that all of these are something she is harnessing to be the best that she can be.

“Actually, I don’t know most of them [older players]. I’m quite new to the women’s tour. But I know they are more experienced than I am. I can be intimidated sometimes, but when you’re on court, it really shouldn’t matter,” said Ms. Eala, who is also a long-time Globe ambassador, in her recent guesting on the Power & Play with Noli Eala program.

And the journey continues for her on the tour, where she hopes to continue sharpening her skills and earn points to sustain her ascent in the circuit.

“The more I play in the women’s, the more I get to be noticed and learn more about the women’s tour. Now, I’m just trying to transition my game slowly to the one that will support me in the future,” said Ms. Eala.

Adding, “I think I’m going at a good speed. I’m really proud of myself for breaking the top 1,000 and I have bigger goals. I have goals that I hope to reach by the end of this year.”

Ms. Eala’s good start to the year is a continuation of her steady progress in the game, which includes winning the Australian Open girls’ doubles title along with partner Priska Nugroho of Indonesia and a semifinal finish in the French Open juniors singles tournament in 2020. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo

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