More people have been accosted for supposedly violating quarantine protocols than the number of individuals tested for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) during the height of the pandemic in 2020, a coalition of medical groups said.
Dr. Joshua San Pedro, co-convenor of the Coalition for People's Rights to Health (CPRH), said the government seemed to have focused on the crackdown against violators instead of improving the healthcare system when the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) was first imposed.
"The ugly face of the lockdowns we saw during the early part of the ECQ... Many forms of physical and emotional violence on quarantine violators," San Pedro said in an online forum organized by opposition coalition 1Sambayan on Thursday, Feb. 17.
Citing data from the Department of Health and the Philippine National Police, San Pedro said more people were actually warned, fined, and arrested than the number of COVID tests conducted from March 17 to May 2, 2020.
During this period, San Pedro said a total of 158,353 violators were either warned or nabbed, while 120,736 COVID-19 tests were completed.
"Instead of being a matter of public health, now it seems to be a matter of national security," he added.
San Pedro reiterated the coalition's call to focus on flattening the curve and raising the bar of the country's public health system as "waves after waves" of infections have been observed since the start of the government's COVID-19 response.
"We always call for a more ground and a more holistic approach of our COVID-19 response which involves aiding communities not just making them follow or adhere to policies and restrictions," he added.
"The state shall protect and promote the right to health of the people and instill health consciousness among them," San Pedro said citing the Philippine Constitution.