Filipinos breaking Covid-19 rules risk beatings, humiliation – unless they’re rich or well-connected
- Wealthy and political elites escape punishment for flouting antivirus restrictions, as the poorest are subject to ‘cruel’, ‘degrading’ penalties
- While such inequality has long been rife in the Philippines’ ‘semi-feudal society’, a ‘call-out culture’ is beginning to emerge, one analyst said
For those Filipinos who aren’t rich and powerful, not wearing a face mask is enough to warrant a police beating so severe that the violator is unable to work for days, as local media reported happened to a market porter in Cebu City on Monday. The porter, who said he was repeatedly hit around the thighs with a paddle, told reporters he had seen as many as 10 other people subjected to similar beatings that day.
Three days before, the police chief of Silay City in Negros Occidental province ordered 39 people caught not wearing masks to march down a road single file with their arms out in front of them to “maintain proper social distancing” – a parade seemingly designed to make the participants look like caricatures of zombies, and which the country’s human rights commission called “cruel” and “degrading”. At the end of their forced march was a seminar on the dangers of Covid-19, featuring an empty coffin as a prop.
Such heavy-handed tactics were nowhere to be seen, however, at a January 17 birthday party attended by Benjamin Magalong, mayor of Baguio City and the Philippines’ supposed contact-tracing “tsar”.
At first, Magalong claimed ignorance of the illegal gathering – a sumptuous gala filled with celebrities that featured cultural dances and the guest of honour riding a horse – until a YouTube video emerged showing the former general and his wife at the event.