Pandemic carrot and stick

Pre-COVID-19 seems so long ago that I had to review my columns to pinpoint when the concerns of the day back then started to give way to pandemic-related questions. In terms of this corner, I started tackling coronavirus matters on Jan. 22. Before that, the political questions of the day were the Vice President’s critique of the so-called war on drugs, as a former member of its coordinating committee, and speculation on a Go-Duterte tandem for 2022. The big news that intruded on the growing pandemic was the government’s mounting a pincer attack (the House of Representatives failing to pass a franchise, and the solicitor general mounting an attack through the Supreme Court) versus ABS-CBN in early February. So that was the status of the political landscape: The President had not only recovered his popularity, but was more popular than ever (hence the trial balloon of his running for the vice presidency to put Sen. Bong Go over the top for the presidency); and old scores were poised to be settled, with the two-pronged attack on ABS-CBN, except the network mobilized star and people power and temporarily halted the administration’s offensive in its tracks. But then the pandemic struck.

The scale of the calamity that is the pandemic was revealed by the administration obtaining a declaration of a state of emergency from Congress, something only done twice before in our history: when World War II broke out, and after the 1989 coup attempt. Never has so little been done with so much legal muscle, although enough muscle memory remained with our bureaucracy and institutions to manage the long lockdown. What made the lockdown, in some ways, an exercise in futility was the lack of effective leadership on the part of the Department of Health, and the Department of Transportation. All the fine-tuning which took place on the part of the generals (active and retired) put in charge could not, and cannot, compensate for those two colossal failures. We are seeing it still, in the lack of credibility of official figures on COVID-19, and the absence of any real effort at widespread, targeted testing. And we are seeing it in the continuation of the vendetta against old-style jeepneys by other means, without having in place not only a replacement, but a workable, humane plan to address the sudden drop in public transport capacity because of social distancing requirements.

Still, for lack of any definitive survey, we can still assume that the President managed to retain his popularity, because his people kept an eye on social media and modified official pronouncements and behavior whenever things showed signs of middle- and upper-class support sagging. Tweaks here and there and ramping up the delivery of relief helped stave off major unrest on the part of the poor. In this, the private sector played a crucial part in sensing public discontent and acting to address it. But now comes the hard part: People are being laid off, mortality rates are high in terms of corporate survival, OFWs are still coming home without jobs, and so on. At the start of the countdown to the next national elections, everyone in government is in the same boat, which has very little by way of supplies.

Which will only serve to consolidate the President’s control of the political class, since he holds the keys to the national pantry and everyone who needs a piece of the shrinking national pie will have to play by his rules if they are to get even crumbs. And the administration’s twin priorities only underscores the dual hold of the President over everyone: economically, his economic team that formerly campaigned to trim incentives for foreign investments now wants to give him exclusive carte blanche over giving incentives to investors; on the security front, a new antiterror bill proposes to expand government’s powers to please the military on whom the President, and everyone else, are dependent to keep things under control at a time of austerity.

This is why the earliest economic news during the lockdown was that Pogos were here to stay and government would refrain from even pretending to toe Beijing’s anti-Pogo line. Just like the pre-martial law era, too many national officials are (allegedly) on the take, providing permits and certificates; and too many local officials also (allegedly) on the take, and too many middle- and upper-class beneficiaries (leasing land, housing, or office space, etc.) for the government to risk cutting off one of the few revenue streams that survived COVID-19. Beijing, after all, is getting what it wants in the West Philippine Sea. Besides which, if one manages to pay attention to the President, he seems highly impressed with Chinese medicine and is furthermore of the opinion that China will be the source of a forthcoming vaccine.

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