National-Local Dissonance and Exacerbated Vulnerabilities: COVID-19 and PH Governmental Response

Maria Elissa J. Lao; Pilar Preciousa P. Berse

Maria Elissa J. Lao Ateneo de Manila University
Pilar Preciousa P. Berse Ateneo de Manila University http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2053-7222

Abstract

The chasm between good and bad governance widens during times of prolonged crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic proved how wellgoverned countries could climb out of the initial waves of infection while others struggled or failed to provide substantial efforts to curb the disease. Vulnerable groups such as women, youth, children, the elderly, poor households, as well as communities that depend on the informal economy, with limited access to social and health services, are made even more vulnerable because of the uncertainties brought by the pandemic. Even non-traditional vulnerable groups such as migrant workers and locally stranded individuals have become vulnerable due to this unprecedented health crisis. This paper attempts to examine how the disease has affected the lives of ordinary Filipinos as they confronted not only an invisible enemy but also state-imposed COVID-19 measures that inadvertently left them in an even more precarious state. The authors argue that stateimposed COVID-19 measures increased the risk of already vulnerable groups rather than protect them. In doing so, the paper attempts to identify the effects of the pandemic and corresponding government responses to (1) the plight of locally stranded individuals (LSIs) and (2) community quarantines.

Author Biographies

Maria Elissa J. Lao, Ateneo de Manila University

Maria Elissa J. Lao, DPA is Associate Professor at the Political Science Department Ateneo de Manila University and currently the Director of the University Gender and Development. She is also currently a board member of the Women and Gender Studies Association of the Philippines (WSAP). She continues to write on gender, labor migration and democratization, participation and social change.

Pilar Preciousa P. Berse, Ateneo de Manila University

Pilar Preciousa P. Berse, Ph.D is Assistant Professor at the Political Science Department - Ateneo de Manila University. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Public Administration from the National College of Public Administration and Governance, University of the Philippines, and a Master in Public Administration from the National Graduate Institute of Policy Studies as a MEXT scholar. In 2019, she earned her Ph.D. in International Studies from the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Waseda University. She has written on the internationalization and democratization of higher education and on disaster policy/politics in relation to gender and education.