On April 1, 28-year-old Darren Manaog Peñaredondo left his home in General Trias, a town in Cavite province under lockdown due to rising Covid-19 cases, to buy water, his family said. , according to CNN affiliate CNN Philippines.
But he was stopped by police and told to do “pumping exercises” 100 times, according to the report. The police made him repeat the exercises, which means that he finally did about 300 repetitions.
“He started convulsing on Saturday, but we managed to revive him at home. Then his body failed, so we revived him, but he was already in a coma,” his family said, according to the report. Peñaredondo died at 10 p.m., the family said.
The Philippines has one of the highest reported cases of Covid-19 in any Asian country – with more than 819,000 infections and 14,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. Last month, cases in the country rose sharply, prompting authorities to order the closure of more than 25 million people – including those in Cavite province.
According to the report, the Department of the Interior and Local Administration and the mayor of General Trias have ordered an investigation into Peñaredondo’s death.
“All police officers who are found to have violated the law will be prosecuted and sanctioned with criminal (administrative) and criminal sanctions,” Department Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya said in a written message to CNN Philippines.
Peñaredondo’s death follows a series of incidents involving brutal police techniques.
In a statement last month, the nonprofit Human Rights Watch (HRW) highlighted reports that officials had locked five youths in a dog cage for quarantine. They also allegedly forced people to sit in the midday sun as punishment for violating a fire.
Jose Manuel Diokno, a lawyer and founder of the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG), said it was not legal to lock people in cages or make people squat 300 times. “The only sanctions that can be imposed by law enforcement for any kind of violation are those found in local and national law and we have no law that allows people to be put in cages for dogs or be forced to exercise for long periods of time. of time, “he said.
A harsh approach to Covid restrictions
The Philippines has taken a tough approach to coronavirus content.
President Rodrigo Duterte applied the traditional tactic of the strong man, saying in April last year that the police would shoot dead anyone who violated the virus restrictions. “I will not hesitate. My orders are to the police, the army and the barangays: if they become undisciplined and fight you and your life is in danger, shoot them dead,” Duterte said during a speech.
A large number of people were detained for violating the restrictions in the last 12 months. Between March and August last year, nearly 290,000 people were warned, fined or charged with violating quarantine rules, CNN Philippines reported. Since Duterte closed the main Philippine island of Luzon on March 16 this year, hundreds of people have been arrested in Manila, HRW said in March.
The Philippine authorities say a tough approach is needed to control the country’s outbreak. But Carlos Conde, chief researcher at HRW, based in the Philippines, claims that the growing cases show that the measures did not work. Instead, he said the decision to arrest people en masse probably saw people “packed like sardines” in crowded prisons with no social distance.
Blocking orders have also affected people who have to leave their homes to work, he said, adding that the measures are “very anti-poor.”
In its annual report released this week, Amnesty International criticized the Philippine approach, saying that “measures taken by the government to reduce the spread of Covid-19 have led to numerous human rights abuses.”
Last month, Duterte defended the use of former military officers in the fight against Covid-19, saying, “You don’t have to be a doctor here,” according to a CNN Philippines report. CNN contacted the official Philippine Intelligence Agency for comments.
The decline of freedoms
Brutal police methods have been a problem for years in the Philippines. Since Duterte came to power in 2016, thousands have died in the “war on drugs” after the president ordered police to kill anyone he thought was linked to drug trafficking.
But activists say the pandemic has further degraded human freedoms and rights.
According to Conde, the key issue It is the government treats Covid-19 as a public safety issue – not a health issue. The oversized roles given to the military and police have only increased the prevalence of aggressive police tactics, he said.
“I think the police, the army and the local government were encouraged to commit human rights violations even more during the pandemic,” he said.
Lawyer Diokno said the authorities “just got a clue from their leader,” referring to Duterte.
There were effects beyond those who were arrested for violating the quarantine. According to HRW, there was a 50% increase in the number of people killed in the “war on drugs” from April to July 2020 compared to the previous four-month period.
Diokno said human rights had been “very clearly” degraded by the pandemic. “Apart from the lives lost, the first victims of the pandemic were democratic rights and freedoms,” he said.
