MANILA (Reuters) – At the peak of the Philippines’ war on drugs, people in the rundown neighbourhoods of Navotas in the capital Manila grew used to police knocking on doors, or bursting into the homes of drug suspects – who often wound up dead.
Now, many residents of the Navotas area, which has been particularly badly hit by the coronavirus, fear another harsh police campaign after the government said officials will visit homes of patients with mild or no symptoms and escort them to isolation centres.
Some Filipinos have labelled the plan “Tokhang 2”, calling it the sequel to a police-led anti-drug campaign that became synonymous with thousands of killings.
“We are afraid of the house-to-house. We don’t know what the police and soldiers will do to us,” said Crisanto dela Cruz, a 46-year-old pedicab driver in Navotas.
“At the same time, we’re afraid of being swollen because we’re outside.”
Infections have tripled in the Philippines since June 1, and the Interior Ministry announced this week that fitness officials, along with local government and police, would move others suffering from COVID-19 from their homes to isolation centers. He suggested that neighbors report possible cases of other inflamed people that the government is not contacting.
President Rodrigo Duterte’s spokesman, Harry Roque, stressed the home visits will be led by local health workers.
In a statement, he said “police presence is merely to provide support or assistance in the transport of patients”.
But Roque also said anyone likely to spread the virus could be forcibly removed “if need be”.
“We can still force them, but I don’t think it’s natural for them to be treated as criminals,” the Philippines told CNN.
The United Nations has said that at least 8,663 people, and most likely many, were killed in the Philippines after Duterte introduced a war on drugs in 2016. According to the report, the killings took a position opposite to a context of “almost impunity.” “by the police and incitement to violence through senior officials.
Most of the deaths occurred in deficient and deteriorated spaces such as Navotas.
Police said their movements in the drug crusade were legal and that the deaths occurred in shootings with those who resisted arrest.
The coronavirus strategy was announced within a week when the Philippines recorded the largest daily accumulation of disease deaths in Southeast Asia.
While much of East Asia appears to have COVID-19 under control, the Philippines has recorded nearly 36% of its infections and 23% of its 1660 deaths in the past two weeks. In the region, the death toll in Indonesia is emerging faster.
The government has defended the door-to-door approach, saying they inflamed others who don’t have enough area to quarantine their homes and transferred them to isolation centers.
But opposition senators and human rights teams say the crusade is from the anti-drug war e-book.
Senator Franklin Drilon said the police had imposed a competitive blockade and that there were “no fascist movements to call for submission.”
The National Union of People’s Lawyers called it “another tool to sow in our communities.”
“With a government that has encouraged its own uniformed body of workers to violate human rights with impunity, how can we be sure that the police will not abuse this new power,” he said.
Critics say a major technique is to touch and search, with only 0.9% of the population tested so far. About two-thirds of the tests followed the downing of restrictions on June 1 in an attempt to save the economy.
Since then, Navotas has noticed the number of instances from 286 to late May to 906 and until July 16, which led the government to reimpose the restrictions, with police armed with camouflage equipment deployed to keep others inside and threaten presenters with fines.
“It’s martial law, you don’t have to be a cop going from space to space,” said Arvin Provito, driver of the Navotas tricycle.
“What they should do is do house-to-house testing.”
Former health minister Esperanza Cabral said the government reconsiders its approach.
“As they say, give a carpenter a hammer and all he will see are nails,” she said. “As for the people, they’ve been so used to being treated as nails they’re naturally scared of anyone who has a hammer.”
Additional reports by Adrián Portugal, Eloisa López and Neil Jerome Morales; Edited by Martin Petty and Raju Gopalakrishnan
All quotes were delayed for at least 15 minutes. See here for a complete list of operations and delays.
© 2020 Reuters. All Rights Reserved.