Covid-19 and Social Inequality: How Poor Filipinos Suffer More During Pandemics

Author: Regletto Aldrich Imbong

Summary
On social inequality and the Filipino government’s measures taken against the coronavirus

Excerpt
While the enhanced community quarantine seems to have an equalizing effect to all affected citizens, a closer look both at its content as well as at its application reveals a social inequality that has haunted the Philippine society for centuries already. First, the idea of a home quarantine would really be effective if and only if there were indeed a home for all citizens to stay quarantined inside in the first place. The Philippines has a record high of urban squatting, where 20-25 million Filipinos do not have decent housing. Urban squatting in the Philippines has deep historical roots, but the problem is essentially entangled with the lack of job opportunities in the urban areas and of affordable social housing for the poor working people.

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