Ricardo Saludo
COMPARING oneself to others is not always a good move, whether for people or countries. Unless one has reached the top, there are always individuals and nations better as well as worse.
So, Malacañang’s directive for state media to highlight how other nations are doing in their battle against coronavirus disease 2019, or Covid-19, would make the Duterte administration look good as well as bad.
The Philippines has certainly done better than wealthy Western nations, including the United States, where there are 33 times our 1.06 million cases. But closer to home, we are among the very worst hit in East and Southeast Asia.
Indeed, among Asian nations, only India, Iran, Indonesia and Iraq have more Covid cases (excluding Euro-Asian states like Russia and Turkey). And many Filipinos cannot but wonder why we could not have done even half as well as Vietnam.
Our neighbor across the sea, which borders the first Covid epicenter China, has all of 2,995 cases and 35 deaths, at the latest count, against 1,067,892 infected and 17,622 killed in the Philippines by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2, the Covid microbe (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/?utm_campaign=homeAdvegas1).
Critics of President Rodrigo Duterte then blame him and his alleged delay in closing our borders to China, in deference to Beijing. In fact, Thailand, which recorded the first Covid case outside China, allowed flights even in February last year, partly because of its mammoth tourism industry.
WATCH: #UNDAS2019 in Metro Manila [November 01, 2019]
It’s the culture, Covid
Plainly, one cannot ascribe to a single factor like closing borders the disparity between nations in Covid cases and death. Indeed, articles praising Vietnam’s pandemic response highlight mainly its years of preparation after the 2003 SARS contagion, which enabled health authorities to quickly and effectively isolate whole villages where local outbreaks occurred.
It is a deficiency of government for the Philippines to be lacking in health readiness. But that failing cannot be laid at the door of one administration. More important, there may be other factors that are equally, if not more significant in the success of many Asian nations in fighting the coronavirus.
One of them has to be national culture, particularly social cohesion bordering on militaristic discipline. All the major Asian nations that ably handled the pandemic are known for a disciplined citizenry obedient to state authority, from Thailand and Vietnam to China, South Korea and Japan. Though not a state, Taiwan also did well.
The people in these Covid-beaters immediately and strictly followed protocols, as if they were gearing up for war. And that may well have been how many Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Thais and Vietnamese felt deep inside them.
For all those nations had long faced actual or threatened war from rivals across the border or across the globe. Vietnam, in particular, fought wars with America, China, Cambodia and Thailand. Conflict loomed in Korea just three years ago, over the North’s nuclear weapons and missile development. And China and Japan have had millennia of authoritarian rule, plus World War 2 and the US-Soviet Cold War.
This war threat and memory in the national psyche instilled in every citizen the prompt and meticulous obedience to government directives so crucial in war — and pandemic.
A further advantage of countries geared up for war is the well-drilled system and skills for finding spies and tracing their contacts, plus locking down areas infiltrated by enemy agents or forces.
On the other hand, a unique challenge for the Philippines is our worldwide diaspora of more than 12 million overseas Filipinos, whose return from Covid-ridden places would be hard to oppose without provoking public resentment, if not anger.
During the SARS outbreak, then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo did appeal to citizens abroad to defer trips home. But she kept borders open to them. With the current Covid outbreak, however, Thailand told its overseas nationals to stay away. But then, there are 2.7 million Thais outside the country, fewer than a quarter of overseas Filipinos.
Who lost West Philippine Sea?
Turning to another headline controversy, another Duterte comparison was made regarding China’s presence in or control of waters and islands we claim in the South China Sea, dubbed the West Philippine Sea by the Aquino 3rd government.
The President himself made or implied the comparison when he publicly chided retired Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio last week: “If you’re bright, why did we lose the West Philippine Sea?”
Justice Carpio then accused Duterte of “grand estafa or grand larceny” in promising during the 2016 campaign to take back control of the disputed waters, thus purportedly winning 16 million votes by fraud.
In fact, Duterte never promised to take back what was lost to Chinese encroachments, though he did mouth the “hyperbole,” as his camp put it, of riding a jetski to our claimed maritime territories with the Philippine flag.
But sticking to the President’s question of losing Philippine control, there were two areas where Chinese intrusions pushed us out: Mischief Reef in 1995, during the Fidel Ramos presidency; and Scarborough Shoal in 2012, under Benigno Aquino 3rd.
Last month could have been the third loss of Philippine control, when more than 200 Chinese vessels, said to be maritime militia controlled by the People’s Liberation Army, anchored near Whitsun Reef, or Julian Felipe Reef to Filipinos.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. filed daily protests, and both he and Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana issued stinging statements telling the Chinese ships to leave. Locsin even used an expletive in his tweet this week, though he later apologized.
President Duterte himself met with the Chinese ambassador to ask that the vessels leave the waters near Julian Felipe. Nearly all the Chinese ships left, moving to other parts of the West Philippine Sea.
And the Philippine Coast Guard, along with the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources have since been patrolling the waters we claim as part of our exclusive economic zone.
So, which leaders lost control of our waters and which one didn’t?
Republished from Manila Times 06-05-2021