How the Philippines’ President Duterte weaponized a Filipino custom during COVID-19

How the Philippines’ President Duterte weaponized a Filipino custom during COVID-19

By Yvonne Su
Assistant Professor in the Department of Equity Studies, York University. Canada

Bayanihan, the Indigenous Filipino custom of group work, has been weaponized by President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines to advance his own power.

Historically, bayanihan refers to the Filipino tradition of a community coming together to help families physically lift their wooden houses from one location to another. Now the term refers more to volunteering.

But amid a global pandemic, when gathering is the main source of infection, historian Greg Bankoff argues that bayanihan no longer works to help Filipinos overcome challenges. Instead, the traditional practices of bayanihan put people at risk of infection. So it was surprising when Duterte announced the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, a legislation granting him additional authority to combat COVID-19 in the Philippines.

The Act grants Duterte rare and special powers to combat COVID-19 such as the ability to intervene in the daily functions of civil society, interfere in the operations of private businesses and even take over companies that refuse to comply with his orders.

Given how much more power this act grants him, many are concerned that this is just a move to “weaponize” the virus to impose his own authoritarian visions.

Read the full article in The Conversation