The public outrage at the ineptitude of the US-Duterte regime heightens along with the resurgence of Covid-19 cases. The masses are currently confronted with even more intensified ala-martial law restrictions and suppression in the guise of solving the pandemic. Duterte has recently ordered the arrest, penalization and implementation of additional restrictions and punishment of those who are still unvaccinated or who have violated quarantine protocols. He shifts the blame onto them when the real reason behind the uncontrollable spread of Covid-19 is the government’s patent failure to enforce comprehensive health and socioeconomic plans.

Duterte has been sowing disunity between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated in an attempt to run scot-free from his obligations. However, the problem is not merely an issue of personal preference or an individual’s obstinacy. This is not a matter of debate between human rights and the common interest. The problem stems from the government’s lack of substantial system of Covid-19 testing and tracing, snail-paced distribution of vaccine and ayuda and the majority of the population’s disenfranchisement from basic health information and services.

Duterte also shoves the enforcement of martial law as the only answer to this crisis down everyone’s throats. But however hard he tries to skew the situation, mass arrests, suppression and further alienating people from their democratic interests and opportunities to earn their living will never be a rational solution. The people have no need of military and police. What they need are substantial support and ayuda in the face of unemployment and price surges, adequate and free access to vaccines, medicine and other medical services.

It is extremely obvious that Duterte’s ultimate intention has never been to solve the pandemic problem but to treacherously put in place measures that shall ensure his grip on power and the survival of his tyranny. He hijacks and deliberately fuels the chaos and confusion surrounding the pandemic for his self-interests. While pitting the issue of rights against the health situation and insisting on martial law as the key, his cohorts have been slyly putting the no elections scenario out to the public. Meanwhile, military and police units supposedly deployed in communities for Covid-19 response are bent over campaigning for the Marcos-Duterte alliance. By means of what the masses call the never-ending community quarantine (NECQ), his camp attempts to bind the public’s hands and prevent them from mounting big mass protests and movements calling for his ousting.

The people must steadfastly maintain that martial law is not the solution for the pandemic. Only through a methodical and comprehensive medical framework free from foreign and local ruling classes’ caprice can this health crisis be resolved. Duterte enacts all these restrictions suppressing people’s right to freedom of movement not to protect the masses from Covid-19 but to bar them from fighting for their rights and welfare. The masses must also remember that their fellow exploited and oppressed are not the enemies nor the obstacle hindering the end of the pandemic. Duterte only cunningly sets the people’s interrelated demands against each other to thwart their unities and stop the actualization of their organized strength.