Populism can definitely deliver votes, but apparently, it can’t always save lives. Everyone can now see that it takes more than just entertainment – and more than just fear – to address a public health crisis as serious as COVID-19. President Duterte has tried joking, intimidating, cursing, playing the underdog, and appealing to emotions, but none of his usual tricks seem to work. As of this writing, the country has just breached the 100,000 mark of COVID-19 cases and President Duterte has not been offering new ways or new technologies to solve this conundrum.   

More and more Filipinos are now realizing that Duterte’s populism is about mere political propaganda and not about actual performance or tangible results. More and more Filipinos are now seeing that “the emperor has no clothes.”

Promises too good to be true

On February 3 of this year, President Duterte claimed in a press conference that the novel coronavirus was not cause for alarm because “one or two cases in a country is not really fearsome.” At the time, there were only two reported COVID cases and they were both Chinese nationals. “Hindi galing dito” (not from here),  Duterte said, implying that local transmission was not something to be feared. Around that time, Duterte also declared that “like SARS,” the COVID-19 virus “would die a natural death.” Just a little over a month later, on March 16, the President imposed an enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in the entire Luzon. By then, the DOH had reported that local transmission was already happening and the number of COVID-19 infected cases was steadily rising.  

The ECQ was initially only for Metro Manila and only until March 30. The lockdown was then made to cover the entire Luzon and then extended until April 30. After that, the President again extended the lockdown but tweaked it a bit and said it would now be “modified” ECQ, until May 31. Local government units outside Metro Manila like those of Cebu and Davao City also followed suit and declared their respective lockdowns. Aside from these lockdown pronouncements, the national government also pushed for a Bayanihan to Heal as One Act that would allot billions for COVID response. Still, the number of COVID cases continued to rise.  

President Duterte’s promises of preventing the virus from reaching the country and containing its spread were thus proven empty. His promises, after all, were too good to be true because the virus recognizes neither race nor territorial borders. Moreover, President Duterte did not combine his promises with clear plans. He was not clear on what conditions had to change during the lockdowns – especially within the healthcare system –  and how these changes were to be achieved. He was also not clear on how to address the problem of loss of jobs and incomes resulting from these lockdowns.  

Another promise that’s obviously too good to be true is the promise of having sufficient financial resources. In March, Duterte advised Filipinos, “Huwag kayong matakot, marami akong pera (Don’t be afraid, I have lots of money).”  In June, the President began singing a different tune: “Wala na tayong pera (We no longer have money).”  

President Duterte’s latest promise is that China has committed to helping Filipinos get access to vaccines that are supposedly going to be available “before the year ends, maybe in September.” That “double promise” (his and China’s) is also too good to be true. Before the 106 million Filipinos, China will have to provide vaccines first to 1.3 billion Chinese people. That’s a lot of vaccines. (Good luck, Mr. President!)

Fear and laughter as medicine

While people expected to hear of government’s clear plans and specific solutions, especially during the recent SONA, President Duterte offered the public something else: jokes and threats.  

Very early on, the President joked that he would “slap the veerus.” His exact words were, “Alam mo, kung hindi natin kaya itong putanginang idioto na corona ito, hinahanap ko eh. Gusto kong sampalin ang gago. (You know, if we can’t defeat this son of a bitch idiot coronavirus, I’ve been looking for it, I want to slap the idiot).” Very recently, the President gave another ridiculous remark and advised Filipinos to “use gasoline as disinfectant.” Malacañang quickly dismissed this remark as a joke but the President insisted that he meant what he said. 

But here’s the rub: nobody is laughing. If the President thought that he could lighten the collective mood through his jokes, he thought wrong.  Nobody sees this COVID-19 pandemic as a laughing matter. How can one laugh when thousands are getting sick and dying every single day?  

The other thing that the President has been doing is to issue threats to just about anyone and everyone: the pasaway, the terrorists, the Left, the opposition, the oligarchs, ABS-CBN, Rappler, etc. Again, he comes across as “incredible.” Why? Because it is plain for everyone to see that at the moment there is no enemy greater than COVID-19. At this point, nothing,  not even President Duterte, is scarier than this vicious virus. It thus becomes frustrating when government insists that no, there is another, greater enemy.  

The COVID-19 is a pandemic and therefore a health crisis, but President Duterte chooses to mobilize mainly the police and the military. These armed personnel are his main allies and apparently, his designated heroes for this “war on COVID.” Very early on, the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (AITF-EID), tasked with overseeing government’s COVID response, was composed heavily of military personnel. The President also declared that the military, and not the health workers, should be administering vaccine shots once the vaccine becomes available. Moreover, very recently, the President advised nurses to become police officers if they wanted higher salaries. Another ridiculous idea, of course, but one that nurses and health workers are not likely to simply forgive and forget.  

Again, the President is missing the point: the virus is a disease, not an armed enemy. One can only prevent or cure a disease, not kill it. There is no magic bullet and not even a strongman President can just wish the virus away. Only scientific solutions can beat natural phenomena like viruses.  

More inequality, not less

A populist President always takes pride in “being one with the people.”  President Duterte is no different. The President, in fact, has gone even further by presenting the image that “he is the people.” He talks, breathes, swears, dresses like “the people.”  

That kind of imaging is now becoming blurred. Unlike “the people,”  President Duterte is not losing loved ones to COVID-19 or losing his job or income or not eating 3 meals a day. He is not stranded in congested informal settlements or the Rizal Stadium or under the flyovers – the people are! The dissonance between image versus reality is getting clearer by the day: what about the people, Mr. President? 

The stark inequality is not only between the haves and the have-nots, it is also between the privileged few and the ordinary many. While the privileged few get away with mañanita parties during the ECQ, ordinary tricycle drivers get arrested for not wearing masks. While the privileged few can get tested immediately because of their “VIP” status, ordinary health workers can’t even get tested unless they develop severe symptoms. 

The issue thus is injustice. It is no longer whether Duterte is a good President or not, rather, whether or not he is aggravating or reducing the ongoing injustice of the rich and privileged surviving this pandemic comfortably while the masses just become anxious, or worse, just die. At the moment, everyone can see that Duterte is just letting this injustice happen. 

The emperor has no clothes

Is the President becoming insecure and paranoid?  This question needs to be asked because only an insecure, paranoid President will view an honest-to-goodness plea for help from doctors, health professionals, and nurses as a revolutionary call.  

This is perhaps the best time to assert that the virus is not going away just because President Duterte says that it will or wishes that it will. It takes scientific planning, scientific technologies, massive public spending, efficient public and social institutions, and, dedicated, trusted, and competent government personnel to control and contain this pandemic. 

In Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Emperor’s New Clothes, it took an innocent child declaring “the Emperor has no clothes” for an entire town to see that indeed, the emperor was naked and that the weavers who had supposedly made his wonderful clothes were actually swindlers.  

We already have this child in our midst.  The child is saying that jokes and threats and guns and propaganda will not stop the COVID-19 pandemic from escalating. The child’s name is coronavirus. – Rappler.com

Carmel V. Abao teaches political science at the Ateneo de Manila University. She is also currently the President of the Ateneo Loyola Schools Faculty Association (ALSFA).