A volunteer of the community kitchen “United Strength of the People” in Commonwealth, a low-income part of Quezon City, distributes food to workers in a junk shop, 27 February 2022. Photo: ©Kimberly dela Cruz

Photo Essay Top News

Who Cares? COVID-19 Divides in Southeast Asia (Philippines)

By Prof. Dr. Rosalia Sciortino / November 9, 2023
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The Philippines was hit early and hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, ranking along with Indonesia as the countries with the highest prevalence and fatality rates in the region for most of the pandemic. 

Emboldened by the special powers entrusted to him by quickly-enacted emergency legislation, then President Rodrigo Duterte placed the whole country under a state of calamity, justifying a top-down and punitive response, and enacted one of the longest and strictest lockdowns in the world. Metro Manila and other urban centers in particular were gravely affected by these measures. 

The   sweeping   economic  fallout that followed proved devastating for the country and its people, and was not alleviated by the massive yet nevertheless deficient and uneven government cash assistance program. The Philippine economy experienced one of the worst contractions since World War II, resulting in a significant expansion of the country’s already large impoverished population and an increase in the incidence of hunger. Community-based initiatives on the part of citizens and civil society groups sprouted to address the pandemic and its impacts. Among the most visible initiatives, hundreds of community pantries emerged in  mid-April 2021 under the motto of “Give according to your means, take according to your needs”.

While these bottom-up initiatives irrefutably became a crucial stopgap measure for the poor, they were flagged for surveillance by the public authorities who perceived them as providing a detrimental image of both the government and its social protection efforts.

Informal housing settlements alongside high-rise buildings reflect entrenched wealth disparities in Manila, which the pandemic further compounded, April 20, 2020.
Photo: ©Kimberly dela Cruz
Signs detailing curfew and face mask regulations in Sitio San Roque City, a low- income community in Quezon City under constant threat of demolition, April 20, 2020.
Photo: ©Kimberly dela Cruz
Jeepney terminal along Tondang Sora with a sign stating, “Sorry, Still No Rides Yet”, Quezon City, July 5, 2020.
Photo: ©Kimberly dela Cruz
Mothers and their newborn babies are crowded into Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital on December 3, 2020. The pandemic’s full effect on health services may not be completely understood for some years to come.
Photo: ©Kimberly dela Cruz
Protestors, fearing that an anti-terrorism bill would further curtail people´s right to free speech and assembly already limited during the pandemic, rally in UP Diliman, Quezon City, June 4, 2020.
Photo: ©Kimberly dela Cruz
Informal housing residents of Sitio San Roque line up to find out if government aid will be distributed more than a month after the strict nationwide lockdown was imposed, Quezon City, April 20, 2020.
Photo: ©Kimberly dela Cruz
People line up to obtain food at the Maharlika Street community pantry, Quezon City, 27 April, 2021.
Photo: ©Kimberly dela Cruz
Volunteers at the Maharlika Street community pantry sort out and distribute donations in Quezon City, April 27, 2021.
Photo: ©Kimberly dela Cruz
Volunteers of the community kitchen “United Strength of the People” in Commonwealth, a low-income part of Quezon City, cook noodles to be distributed later, February 27, 2022. Without aid from the government, residents look forward to the 80-100 meals that the community kitchen is able to produce and distribute once a week.
Photo: ©Kimberly dela Cruz
KALINGA volunteers distribute meals, soap and jugs of water for washing and drinking, driving with their car to places where homeless people congregate in Manila, November 16, 2021.
Photo: ©Kimberly dela Cruz
People lining up outside the Social Security System´s (SSS) Caloocan Branch in Manila, as the system struggles to handle loans and pensions during the COVID-19 pandemic, February 22, 2022.
Photo: ©Kimberly dela Cruz
Items distributed to patients who tested positive for COVID-19 featuring Mayor Joy Belmonte’s slogan point to the politicization of aid, Quezon City, January 18, 2022.
Photo: ©Kimberly dela Cruz
Informal housing residents of Sitio San Roque in Quezon City prepare communal land —guarded for years against government efforts to sell it to developers—to make a community garden as a means of alleviating food scarcity, February, 3 2021.
Photo: ©Kimberly dela Cruz

This photo essay is part of the photo exhibition “Who Cares? COVID-19 Divides in Southeast Asia”, organized by SEA-Junction and the Institute for Population and Social Research (IPSR) of Mahidol University, in partnership with the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation, the National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT), Silkworm, Khon Thai 4.0 and Bangkok Tribune. (The exhibition is on display from 17 October to 12 November 2023 | Curved Wall, 3rd Floor, BACC). For more details, check out at http://seajunction.org/event/photo-exhibition-who-cares-covid-19-divides-in-southeast-asia and https://bkktribune.com/photo-exhibition-who-cares-covid-19-divides-in-southeast-asia/

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