Camouflage in the Streets: Emergency Powers, the Military, and the Philippines’ COVID-19 Pandemic Response

What is it about?

Granted emergency powers by Philippine Congress, President Rodrigo Duterte authorized the mobilization and deployment of the military and police to enforce lockdown measures in Metro Manila and Cebu City. Uniformed personnel ran checkpoints in borders and city wards, and enforced curfew and liquor bans for several months. The military's ubiquity in these urban settings and involvement in law enforcement operations broadened its reach into civilian sphere and posed risks in being instrumentalized for the President's authoritarian designs. The deployment introduced civil-military asymmetry at the local level, with local chief executives and opposition forces at the receiving end of the national government's coercive approach to address the pandemic.

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