The Militaristic Pandemic Response of Duterte: How Did It Affect Social Movements?

This article is based on extensive original research that aims to examine how the oppositionmovement against Duterte employed various mechanisms of political engagement, shaped by theadministration’s lockdown-centric response amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the pandemicimpacted individual social mobility, motivations and forms of political participation were stillobserved both physically and in the digital world. The study employs a qualitative approach, drawingon data from secondary sources to analyze the interplay between the administration’s governancestrategies and the actions of political interest groups during the COVID-19 pandemic. By usingrational choice theory, we gain a clearer understanding of Duterte's perceived interests and goals,as well as the costs and benefits of resistance during the pandemic lockdown. The findings showthat the Duterte administration's policies curtailed physical forms of political engagement, oftendescribed as “militarized” and “police-centric,” thus shaping opposition dynamics and forms ofdissent. Despite this, the civil society fostered alternative spaces for resistance, such as communitypantries and digital activism. While existing literature has largely focused on democratic backslidingin the context of combating COVID-19, the novelty of this study is its nuanced exploration of thepracticality of militaristic measures. Although the Duterte administration’s militarized response didnot achieve the expected outcomes in terms of managing the health crisis and suppressingopposition, it still represented the most practical strategy for controlling pandemic dissent. Theseinsights contribute to understanding how government responses to the COVID-19 crisis influencethe behavior of both the state and civil society.