Manila’s lockdown has been repeatedly extended
that we will get infected,” frets Diverson Bloso, “We don’t have money to bring us to the hospital, in case that happened.” A messenger at a printing press in Quezon City, part of Manila’s sprawl, he prays he keeps his job. His boss told workers that the business might have to close because of quarantine measures to stop the spread of covid-19. But at least Mr Bloso still has regular income.
Enforcement has been ferocious. Some 130,000 people, including those pictured, have been arrested or fined, often for small infractions such as failing to wear a mask. Were the army and police to encounter any violent lockdown violators, instructed Rodrigo Duterte, the president, with characteristic compassion, they should “shoot them dead”.
This bureaucratic fiasco and the uncertainty over case numbers may help to explain why the lockdowns have lasted so long. They have been lifted in some cities outside Luzon, only to be reimposed when cases began rising wildly. Ronald Mendoza of Ateneo de Manila University argues for more targeted quarantines. Metaphorically speaking the government has been using an axe, he reckons, when it really needs only a scalpel.
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