The bankruptcy of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s response to the Covid-19 crisis is growing more apparent daily as new infections soar upwards, reaching 10,016 on March 29 before falling back slightly the next day. As other Asian countries transition more toward normality, the Philippines remains mired in a growing number of cases and with one source predicting full immunization of the populace won’t be reached before the first quarter of 2023.

As Duterte has done with his murderous anti-drug campaign, his response to the Covid-19 crisis has too often involved threatening the populace with being shot if they don’t follow quarantine instructions. The government has staked the bulk of its response to Covid-19 on arguably the world’s most stringent lockdown while paying considerably less attention to testing and tracing cases.

In fact, testing and tracing have deteriorated as the crisis has worn on, with the ratio of contacts traced falling to only three per positive case. The daily positivity rate has fallen to 20.4 percent, a quarter of World Health Organization recommended levels. The Philippines has paid the price with the second-highest recorded number of infections in Asia after India and Indonesia.

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