The Philippines and Indonesia have fared far worse than the rest of South-East Asia. Known coronavirus cases are rising fast
of covid-19, world leaders have fallen into four camps. The first group denies there is a problem: think of Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov of Turkmenistan, who fined his subjects for wearing face masks before ordering everyone to don them as a protection against “dust”. The second group recognises the threat and counters it with maximum coercion, regardless of civil liberties: think of Xi Jinping in China.
Yet the simple-sounding approach crumpled at the first encounter with the virus. As cases rose, Jokowi dithered and flip-flopped over lockdown and distancing measures. Partly that was pandering to conservative Muslim leaders who have long accused him of insufficient piety. In April he faced pressure to allow the, Muslim migrants’ annual return home to mark the end of Ramadan. Its eventual ban came too late to staunch covid-19’s spread.
As it happens, local police and village watchmen armed with staves have often been as heavy-handed as the president could have wished. But that is pure coincidence. In practice, the local power-brokers in the periphery of the Philippines—mayors, plantation owners, armed insurgents or drug gangs with friends in the police—do what they like for their own benefit, regardless of what anybody in Manila, including Mr Duterte, instructs.
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