#title Abolitionism against pandemic policing in the Philippines
#subtitle The demand for abolition becomes urgent in the face of a highly militarized response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines.
#author Simoun Magsalin
#SORTauthors Simoun Magsalin
#SORTtopics abolition, COVID-19, Philippines
#date September 4, 2020
#uid Abolitionism against pandemic policing in the Philippines
#source https://roarmag.org/essays/philippines-pandemic-abolition/ https://bandilangitim.noblogs.org/2020/09/04/abolitionism-against-pandemic-policing-in-the-philippines/
#lang en
#pubdate 2021-01-12T03:22:54
#publication ROAR Magazine, Bandilang Itim
#language English
The COVID-19 pandemic has truly brought out the worst in the Philippine
government. Instead of treating the pandemic as a public health crisis,
the state is treating it as a security issue and has responded by
deploying its extremely violent security apparatus.
Demands for mass testing remain unfulfilled, while more and more police
and soldiers flood the
streets, [[https://rappler.com/nation/pnp-report-detained-filipinos-coronavirus-quarantine-violators-may-31-2020][ arresting]] thousands
of
people [[https://rappler.com/nation/pnp-report-detained-filipinos-coronavirus-quarantine-violators-may-31-2020][ and
subjecting them
to]] [[https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1304884/chr-to-probe-undressing-punishment-of-quarantine-violator-in-manila][ arbitrary
punishments]]. The police killed several people, including
an [[https://cnnphilippines.com/news/2020/4/22/Retired-soldier-shot-dead-by-police-.html][ unarmed
veteran]] suffering from PTSD,
an [[https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2020/03/25/2003278/bulacan-checkpoint-evader-killed-shooutout][ unidentified
man]] at a checkpoint and
even [[https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/regions/744707/4-army-men-killed-by-policemen-in-jolo/story/][ four
soldiers]]. Did these people need to die in order to stem the tide of
the pandemic? Did the incarceration of thousands of people make our
communities more resilient to disease? No, it did not. COVID-19 testing
kits remain scarce, yet bullets are in full supply.
And how effective is it to treat the pandemic as a security, rather than
a public health issue? The quarantine in the Philippines is
the [[https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2020/06/30/2024456/cebu-city-worlds-longest-locked-down-city][ longest
and]] [[https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1242084/ph-quarantine-guidelines-among-the-strictest-in-asia][ harshest]] in
Asia, yet the Philippine government has
categorically [[https://rappler.com/newsbreak/fact-check/philippines-lowest-covid-19-deaths-asia][ failed
to contain]] the pandemic; the country currently counts over 226,000
infections with nearly 4,000 deaths and no sign of the curve being
flattened.
The Philippine government refuses to implement mass testing and
competent contact tracing, two policies that have proven to be effective
in other countries. Instead, the
government [[https://crimethinc.com/2020/07/19/the-new-terror-bill-in-the-philippines-another-front-in-the-worldwide-struggle-against-tyranny][ prioritized]] increasing
policing powers, surveillance and warrantless arrests with an
“anti-terror” law that critics quickly labeled the “Terror Law.” The
militarized nature of the quarantine in the Philippines is already
a [[https://bandilangitim.noblogs.org/2020/04/03/against-a-quarantine-with-martial-law-characteristics/][ martial
law]] in fact, which has only been further entrenched with the passing
of the Terror Law.
Against the state treating the pandemic as a security issue, the popular
demands thunder:
*Ayuda, hindi bala!* — Aid, not bullets!
*Tulong, hindi kulong* — Help, not incarceration!
*Medikal solusyon, hindi militar!* — Medical solutions, not military
intervention!
It is in response to the militarization and securitization of the
quarantine that the demands for abolishing the police and prisons are
being voiced. Now, more than ever, we need medical solutions rather than
more militarized police violence and incarceration.
*** The Logic of Policing and Incarceration
It is becoming increasingly clear that a securitized response is not
alleviating the pandemic. No matter how much President Rodrigo Duterte
wishes to strong-man the issue, no matter how much more police violence
is authorized, or how much more people are threatened with violence and
incarceration, the logic of policing and incarceration provides no
solutions to the current public health crisis.
This logic shapes the minds of those in power to think and act with only
these blunt tools. The “law of the
instrument” [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument][ suggests
that when your only tool is a hammer,]] you treat everything as if it
were a nail. The violent and coercive institutions of police and
incarceration is that tool; it is that hammer that sees the pandemic as
simply another nail or, rather, as another security threat in need of
controlling.
Thus, when the pandemic is framed in terms of security and control,
there must naturally be an antagonist that is in need of securing and
controlling. We see this when state
agents [[https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2020/03/16/2001504/guevarra-quarantine-violators-may-face-arrest][ frame]] so-called
“quarantine violators” as *pasaway*, a Tagalog word connoting
stubbornness and disobedience. By framing people as *pasaway* and
disobedient, the nuance of *why* individuals are out of their homes or
not wearing a mask is lost. It matters not if these individuals are in
need of food or medicine, or if they are employed on a no-work-no-pay
basis, or whether they simply did not have a mask. They are *pasaway*,
disobedient, and are quarantine violators who are subjected to
warrantless arrests or arbitrary punishment.
The state implements rules and the police enforces them, with no regard
to actual pubic needs. We see this when the government recently required
the wearing of face shields in addition to face masks on public
transportation, yet it made no effort to distribute these. In another
case, the police harassed and arrested a homeless old woman for
“ [[https://web.archive.org/web/20200402020932/https://rappler.com/nation/254926-cops-arrest-homeless-lola-shouted-tanods-warning-about-curfew][disobedience]]”
simply because she did not have a home to return to. How easy it would
have been to just give her a bed to sleep in! Needs are not considered,
only compliance.
When you follow this logic though — framing the pandemic in terms of
security and control — you will end up with President Duterte and other
state
officials [[https://rappler.com/nation/quezon-city-official-ludovica-threatens-shoot-to-kill-mecq-violators][ threatening]] to
implement a
“ [[https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/04/philippines-president-duterte-shoot-to-kill-order-pandemic/][shoot-to-kill]]”
policy for so-called quarantine violators. As if (non-)compliance was
the biggest problem during the pandemic. Under the logic of control, a
needs-based nuance is soon lost. You simply obey or are disobedient.
However, even if we frame the Filipino public as *pasaway*, it would be
an inaccurate characterization. A
study [[https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/lifestyle/healthandwellness/747470/91-of-filipinos-always-wear-masks-whenever-they-go-out-says-study/story/][ shows]] that
91 percent of Filipinos wear face masks when they go out. Compliance
then
is [[https://www.philstar.com/business/2020/06/25/2023522/govt-said-filipinos-are-pasaway-and-violate-quarantine-data-show-otherwise][ not
the problem]], yet agents of the state continue to use this
characterization *because it allows them to justify their policing*.
And what of the people who
are [[https://www.businessinsider.co.za/trending/philippines-police-arrested-people-for-breaching-lockdown-2020-7][ incarcerated]] because
they allegedly violated the quarantine? The spectacle of arresting
scores of people on the street, forcing them to congregate and then mete
out arbitrary punishments or to lecture them are but another convenient
avenue for the virus to spread. Incarcerating so-called quarantine
violators risks killing them instead.
What of the people who were already incarcerated? The Philippines has
the
tenth [[https://prisonstudies.org/highest-to-lowest/prison-population-total?field_region_taxonomy_tid=All][ largest]] prison
population in the world with 215,000 people behind bars as of November
2019, and at 463.6 percent it has
the [[https://prisonstudies.org/highest-to-lowest/occupancy-level?field_region_taxonomy_tid=All][ second-highest]] prison
occupancy rate in the world, nearly five times above full capacity.
The [[https://prisonstudies.org/country/philippines][ vast majority]] —
around 75 percent — of the prison population in the Philippines are
pre-trial detainees who have not yet been found guilty of any crime.
During the pandemic, detainment is at risk of becoming
a [[https://bandilangitim.noblogs.org/2020/04/30/detainment-is-death-in-the-pandemic/][ death
sentence]] because there is no quarantine inside the prisons. The
state [[https://news.abs-cbn.com/spotlight/06/24/20/how-covid-19-cases-exploded-in-prisons-a-timeline][ dragged]] its
feet to release prisoners and now the virus
is [[https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/investigative/259317-concern-bilibid-deaths-mounts-coronavirus-pandemic][ ripping
through]] inmate populations with
scores [[https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/28/philippines-prison-deaths-unreported-amid-pandemic][ dying]].
The degradation the state inflicts on certain bodies over others
justifies the devaluation of their lives.
Let us also remember the state’s policing and incarceration has always
been selective and consistently targets dispossessed classes. Imelda
Marcos — the widow of the former dictator Ferdinand Marcos — remains a
free woman despite
being [[https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/11/12/18/may-edad-na-pnp-to-consider-imelda-marcos-age-health-in-looming-arrest][ convicted]] of
plunder, with her
age [[https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/11/12/18/may-edad-na-pnp-to-consider-imelda-marcos-age-health-in-looming-arrest][ cited]] as
the reason she is not incarcerated. People were quick
to [[https://www.interaksyon.com/politics-issues/2018/11/14/138041/justice-juxtaposed-imelda-marcos-elderly-suspects/][ juxtapose]] how
the police do not apply this logic to elderly poor.
In another example, while scores of people were arrested for supposedly
violating quarantine rules, sitting senator Koko Pimentel repeatedly and
publicly [[https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/731415/timeline-koko-pimentel-repeatedly-broke-quarantine-despite-symptoms-covid-19-test/story/][ broke]] quarantine
protocols by not quarantining himself while waiting for his COVID-19
test results — which, in fact, came back positive. He remains a free man
whose only “punishment” was to
face [[https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/731264/makati-med-denounces-reckless-action-by-covid-19-positive-koko-pimentel/story/][ public
outrage]] while thousands of so-called “quarantine violators” are
harassed by the police for the most basal reasons.
The same double standards were on display when a mere public apology was
enough for a Manila police chief to get away
with [[https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1274288/https-newsinfo-inquirer-net-1274225-gamboa-orders-ias-to-probe-sinas-for-disregarding-distancing-during-party][ throwing
a lavish birthday party]] that flouted quarantine regulations, while
just one month earlier a group of less than two dozen people from a poor
urban community
were [[https://rappler.com/nation/residents-quezon-city-protesting-help-coronavirus-lockdown-arrested-by-police-april-1-2020][ collectively
arrested]] when they were allegedly looking for food.
It is not just that policing and incarceration is selectively
implemented, it also upholds a fundamentally unjust system which
protects capital and the state. We see this in the violent breaking up
of strikes and pickets and the warrantless arrests of picketers like
the [[https://www.philstar.com/nation/2020/02/06/1990862/labor-groups-slam-violent-dispersal-detention-striking-workers-caloocan][ Cosmic
10]], who defended their picket from police aggression, and
in [[https://www.bulatlat.com/?s=strike+disperse+&submit=&tztc=1][ innumerable
other cases]] where police attacked workers.
The police do not protect people, much less protect people from the
pandemic. The track record of police violence shows a consistent
targeting of the dispossessed and working classes and a clear double
standard in policing. The function of the police is to protect capital
and the state; these are not socially useful functions.
At this historical moment, when the Philippine
police [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_by_country][ killed]] almost
ten times more people in its anti-drug operations alone than the racist
police in the United States did last year, the cry for abolition becomes
a matter of life and death. The logic of policing and incarceration that
frames problems in terms of security and control has
already [[https://rappler.com/newsbreak/iq/minors-college-students-victims-war-on-drugs-duterte][ killed]] so
many in the bloody anti-drug operations and continues to kill people
today by overwhelming force and the over-investment in policing over
public health.
Just as drug use ought to be seen as a health issue rather than a
security issue, so does the current pandemic. Because the Philippine
state — embodied by the demagogue-in-chief Duterte — values its security
apparatus above all other social functions, it uses these as the main
tool for a plethora of social and public health issues, like illegal
drugs and the COVID-19 pandemic.
The only solution the agents of the state can conceive of is more and
more policing. Instead of mass testing and expanding contact tracing,
the Philippine
government [[https://esquiremag.ph/politics/news/covid-tokhang-a00293-20200715][ suggested]] house-to-house
searches for anyone who might be sick. This is reminiscent
of *tokhang,* or the policy of police going door-to-door to arrest or
shoot drug users, a policy that is responsible for
the [[https://globalnation.inquirer.net/188186/unhrc-report-near-impunity-in-ph-drug-war-killings-tokhang-must-end][ deaths
of thousands]]. Thankfully, the public outcry against a
“COVID tokhang” and the obvious
potential [[http://www.pnp.gov.ph/index.php/news-and-information/3665-covid-19-cases-in-pnp][ vector
of transmission]] by the police going door-to-door prevented the
implementation of this policy.
The logic of policing and incarceration offers no solution to the
pandemic but is used instead to manage and control the dispossessed
classes. In a way, the pandemic has given force and validity to demands
for police and prison abolition and to replace the logic of policing and
incarceration with the logic of care and accountability.
*** A Pandemic Response Without Police and Prisons
The popular demand “*Solusyon medikal*, *hindi militar!*” fits neatly
with demands for the abolition of police and prisons. Now, more than
ever, we need medical solutions and not securitization and military
intervention. Abolitionist demands and practices aim to remove coercion
from the toolkit of the state because it is clearly not working. Police
and prison abolition is the seed of a better society founded on consent
and collaboration rather than coercion and compliance.
Imagine a pandemic response without police and prisons, a pandemic
response predicated on care instead of coercion. Without its hammer of
coercion, the state would have to rely on other avenues to address the
pandemic. Without committing a bloated amount of resources for
maintaining a country-wide military occupation, we would have resources
for mass testing and free personal protective equipment for all. Instead
of spending resources to police, surveil and incarcerate, we can instead
spend it on proven pandemic policies and then some.
An abolitionist pandemic response would fulfill peoples’ needs instead
of simply mandating policy after policy. Instead of mandating that
people *must* wear masks and face shields or else face the violence of
the state, we can instead invest in providing masks and face shields to
the public. Arresting people who do not wear masks does not help stem
the tide of the pandemic and turns prisons into vectors of transmission.
It would be easier and simpler to simply hand out masks, a strategy that
has very much worked in other countries.
Instead of implementing a curfew and arresting everyone who is breaking
the quarantine for one reason or another, we can instead deliver
groceries to all homes and mitigate the need to leave homes. In several
countries, necessities were
simply [[https://www.smh.com.au/world/oceania/countries-in-pacific-unite-to-guarantee-food-medicine-in-pandemic-20200806-p55ja5.html][ provided]] to
people under quarantine to prevent them from leaving their houses.
Instead of harassing and arresting the unhoused for breaking quarantine
as the
police [[https://web.archive.org/web/20200402020932/https://rappler.com/nation/254926-cops-arrest-homeless-lola-shouted-tanods-warning-about-curfew][ did]],
we can instead give unhoused individuals homes and a bed to sleep in.
An abolitionist pandemic response would be a solution that treats people
with dignity and respect and addresses needs rather than simply using a
brute tool like coercion. Whatever positive work is done by the police
during the quarantine could be done instead by unarmed frontline medics.
Instead of leaving the incarcerated to die horrible deaths in prison
during the pandemic, we can just free them. Punishment as a paradigm is
deeply flawed. So many so-called criminals commit crimes out of poverty.
Incarceration does nothing to solve poverty and instead exacerbates it.
By imprisoning people who could potentially be breadwinners, the state
deprives families out of incomes and exacerbates their poverty. Other
crimes are committed because these individuals have mental illness or
personality disorders. Incarceration does nothing to help such people in
their condition nor does it allow them space to improve themselves.
We have to face the fact that incarceration is used disproportionately
against the poor and dispossessed classes. Incarceration is not for
criminals in power like Imelda Marcos and to advocate for doing so does
little to actually break the power of the plunderers while reproducing
the harmful logic of coercion and violence.
In cases of drug addiction and violence related to drugs, the caging of
drug users does little to help them overcome addiction and get clean. So
many thousands were
needlessly [[https://theaseanpost.com/article/packed-prisons-philippines][ incarcerated]] or [[https://www.businessinsider.com.au/children-have-been-killed-philippines-war-on-drugs-2020-6?r=US&IR=TIR=T][ executed]] by
the police and vigilantes due to Duterte’s bloody anti-drug operations.
Those incarcerated risk dying of COVID-19 now that the pandemic has
spread inside the prison walls. Those suffering drug addiction do not
deserve to die, neither by extrajudicial police killings or a slow and
painful death by COVID-19 in prisons. It would be less harmful to help
those with drug addiction with care instead of inflicting violence.
If real harms are committed by individuals, it would be better if such
harms were dealt with using the principles
of [[http://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/7831/1/Ruggiero-_Abolitionist_View_of_Restorative_Justice.pdf][ restorative
justice]] and [[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9353ky/what-is-transformative-justice-police-abolition][ transformative
justice]], undoing what harms can be undone and working on correcting
violent tendencies.
Before colonization, the people of the archipelago did not have police
and prisons and security was the responsibility of the community. In
this regard, abolition is decolonization, especially in the context
where policing and incarceration were instituted by the Spanish and
later American colonial governments and retained by the post-colonial
state. Through concepts such as restorative justice and transformative
justice, we can bring back security as the responsibility of the
community instead of the state. Harms can be addressed in communal
manner and perpetrators can be reformed instead of simply caged.
It is in this context that in lieu of abolishing, defunding the police
becomes an urgent first demand in the pandemic. Defunding police and
prisons and redirecting funds towards public health policies that have
proven to stem the spread of the virus, along with restorative and
transformative justice initiatives are some important concrete steps
towards abolition and eroding the institutions of the police and
prisons.
Defunding should not be the end goal as that risks only entrenching the
logic of coercion in a mitigated form. Abolition works by thinking
outside the logic of coercion and in building consent and collaboration
instead.
The defunding of the police as a popular demand in the Philippines is
just beginning to grow. Committed abolitionists must seize upon this
opportunity to nurture that demand for defunding towards the complete
abolition of policing and incarceration and in investing in care.
To add to the thunderous demands of “aid, not bullets,” “help, not
detention,” and “medical solutions, not military intervention,” perhaps
we can also demand:
*Buwagin ang Kapulisan!* — Abolish the police!
*Gibain ang mga kulungan!* — Tear down the prisons!