Property rights and lockdown lefts, PNP threat to arrest partying people

* My column in BusinessWorld, October 22, 2020.

....  I also show here the results of Google’s Community Mobility Reports (GCMR) as measurement of changes in people mobility in certain places compared to baseline days, the median value from the five‑week period from Jan. 3 to Feb. 6, 2020. The GCMR shows six areas but for brevity purpose, I show only two, Retail and Recreation (restaurants, cafes, malls, museums, etc.) and Transit Stations (train stations, taxi stands, seaports, etc.).

The table shows two important points about the Philippines. One, it has poor performance in IPRI, poor property rights protection, it ranked only 70th/125 in 2018 and 67th/129 in 2019.

And two in GCMR, the country indeed seems to have the longest and strictest lockdown policies in the whole world. Compare the Philippines with no or light lockdown Taiwan, South Korea, and Sweden, even fellow hard lockdown Malaysia and India. Ours is the highest in negative percent changes even until this month. Meaning people’s mobility and economic freedom to work and do business are still highly restricted by the Philippine government.

Now the Metro Manila Mayors have proposed the extension of GCQ until end December while the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) has ruled no Christmas parties to be allowed in December. These are very insensitive policies by both national and local governments. The officials and personnel in charge of these policies and implementation should experience what millions of Filipinos experience — no salaries, no income while the lockdowns are implemented.

There are two important initiatives that do not share the lockdown leftism and alarmism. One, the Great Barrington Declaration (https://gbdeclaration.org/) initiated by three globally prominent academic epidemiologists Dr. Martin Kulldorff (Harvard), Dr. Sunetra Gupta (Oxford), and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya (Stanford) which said that “Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health — leading to greater excess mortality in years to come…”

And two, the Concerned Doctors and Citizens of the Philippines (CDC PH, https://www.flattenthefear.ph/) which declared that “the Philippines adopt a national protocol for the prophylaxis and early treatment of COVID-19 that aims to reduce hospitalization and prevent loss of lives… lift all lockdowns to allow our people to begin to rebuild their lives.”

Restricting if not prohibiting the people’s right to work and earn money so they can feed their families, boost their immune system against old and new diseases, is a criminal “cure” that is worse than the disease it purports to solve.

The government should lift the lockdown. By end-October.
------------

CDC PH livestream #2, PNP to arrest partying people
December 17, 2020

Last night, the Concerned Doctors and Citizens of the Philippines (CDC PH) produced its free-flowing discussion about Covid cases, deaths, early treatment, vaccines, herd immunity, economic contraction, the "great reset", etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3bUYGxHuvU
Now this hysteria is not about the virus, it's about dictatorship. Arrest party goers and what, jail them and put in congested jails where social distancing is a joke?


The IATF and NTF, the DOH plus other agencies especially the Major General Colonel Quarantine (MGCQ -- officially, "Modified General Community Quarantine") officials, they can now make laws on their own and implement such? PNP arresting people -- fine them xx thousands or jail them if they cannot pay the fine -- for partying inside their houses or compound? Wow.
No need for Congress legislation, no need even for a President's Executive Order (EO), this looks like decentralized dictatorship. --------------


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