AN informed citizenry is vital to a functioning democracy.

In this age of mis- and disinformation, the media, from where the public gets their information, plays an important role in the survival, or the flourishing, of a democracy. It is therefore important that the public knows who owns the media.

Based on that principle, VERA Files and the Germany-based NGO Global Media Registry, with funding provided by the German Embassy Manila, undertook the updating of the Philippine Media Ownership Monitor (MOM-PH) database compiled seven years ago in partnership with Reporters Without Borders-Germany.

The updated MOM-PH can be accessed here: https://philippines.mom-gmr.org/
MOM is an international effort to promote transparency and accountability in media ownership. The initiative seeks to advance media literacy among audiences through a publicly available and constantly updated database of media owners, but also to empower regulators, academia and civil society actors to address the issue of media concentration.

While the Philippine media landscape has remained the same in some parts over the past years, the shutdown of once-broadcast media giant ABS-CBN in 2020 brought about a vast change.

Significant findings of the MOM research, which covered online, TV, radio, and print media, include:

– Philippine mass media remain predominantly owned and controlled by a handful of conglomerates and influential families with an interest favorable to their political and economic interests;

– Media ownership concentration raises concerns about media diversity, freedom of expression, and democracy. While an antitrust body has been established by the Fair Competition Act (2014) – the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) – which monitors, prevents, and breaks up media monopolies, regulatory safeguards to prevent media ownership concentration remain scant;

– The existing regulatory safeguards do not prevent the practice of layering company structures to hide ultimate beneficial owners. While this complexity can be unraveled, it requires extensive investigative research, time, and resources.

The MOM-PH site will be updated as often as significant developments in Philippine media ownership occur.

VERA Files is a nonprofit media organization founded by veteran journalists committed to advancing excellence in journalism by engaging in research-intensive, high-impact reports in multiple formats, fact-checking and providing training and mentorship to journalists.

GMR is a non-profit social enterprise based in Germany that promotes transparency, accountability and diversity in the information space. It provides services, analysis and solutions for newsrooms, regulators and policymakers, and for all stakeholders that engage with the media industry. As one of its flagship programs, the GMR publishes the Media Ownership Monitor in more than 30 countries worldwide. New editions will be released in Germany and Moldova later this year.

By Tricia Zafra

VERA Files

VERA Files is partnering with Berlin-based Global Media Registry (GMR), with support from the German Embassy in Manila, to update the Philippine Media Ownership Monitor (MOM-PH) database compiled in 2016.

MOM is an international effort spearheaded by non-profit media organizations to promote transparency and accountability in media ownership. The initiative seeks to advance media literacy among audiences through a publicly available and constantly updated database of media owners.

Seven years ago, VERA Files and Reporters Without Borders-Germany conducted a study on media ownership in the country which showed that the Philippine media continue to be owned by and depend on the economic and political elite, which limits the media’s independence and affects the quality of the information the public gets.

“This is a much-needed update. The Philippine media landscape has vastly changed in the past seven years, the most impactful of which was the shutdown of the country’s No. 1 television network, ABS-CBN in 2020,” Ellen Tordesillas, VERA Files president, said.

Olaf Steenfadt, chief executive officer of the GMR, added: “In times of increasing geopolitical rivalry, the media sector is becoming a battleground of influence and power, more than ever. Transparency in this field is not an end in itself, but a prerequisite for building and sustaining a healthy public information space.”

Alexander Schmidt, first secretary for political affairs of the German Embassy in Manila, explained the support it is giving to MOM-PH: “Media freedom is a cornerstone of a flourishing democracy. We are happy to be able to fund the update of the Philippine Media Ownership Monitor, which enables the general public to gain a deeper understanding of the media landscape of the Philippines today.”

MOM-PH proceeds from the premise that the mass media influence the way the public makes decisions on matters that affect their daily lives and the country. It is, therefore, important that the public know who owns and controls the media.

The updating of MOM-PH is expected to be completed in December and will be published on the VERA Files and GMR websites.

VERA Files is a nonprofit media organization founded by veteran journalists committed to advancing excellence in journalism by engaging in research-intensive, high-impact reports in multiple formats, fact-checking and providing training and mentorship to journalists.

The GMR is a non-profit social enterprise based in Germany that promotes transparency, accountability and diversity in the information space. It provides services, analysis and solutions for newsrooms, regulators and policymakers, and for all stakeholders that engage with the media industry. As one of its flagship programs, the GMR publishes the Media Ownership Monitor in more than 20 countries.

By Reiven Pascasio,
VERA Files

THE furor over the 70-11 vote by the House committee on legislative franchises on July 10 to deny the franchise renewal of ABS-CBN broadcast network mirrors a recent survey result showing a majority of Filipinos giving importance to independent journalism and keeping politicians in check.

The 2020 Digital News Report (DNR), an annual project of Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, showed that 65 percent of Filipinos value independent media and 63 percent want politicians who lie to or mislead the public to be called out by reporting their inaccurate and dubious statements.

University of the Philippines (UP) professor Yvonne Chua presented the survey findings in a two-part webinar organized by the Philippine Press Institute (PPI) and the Philippines Communication Society (PCS) on July 3 and 10. Close to 100 journalists, journalism educators and students participated in the webinar, the second of which was timed as congressmen voted to deny ABS-CBN’s application for a new 25-year franchise to operate.

The survey was conducted online by international research and data analytics company YouGov from mid-January to later part of February, before the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The project began in 2012 and this was the first time the Philippines was included. The survey covered 40 media markets in Europe, Americas, Asia Pacific, and Africa, The Philippines placed 35th in overall trust in the news with a low rating of 27 percent.

A significant 44 percent of the Filipino respondents identified politicians as the leading source of misinformation.

The survey had 2,019 respondents from the Philippines. Chua said they represented only “those who are online, which is 72 percent of the population, according to Internet World Stats.”

Globally, more than half of the surveyed respondents (56 percent) are concerned over false or misleading information disseminated by politicians, or one percent lower than the perceived sentiments of the Filipinos.

In voting against granting the ABS-CBN franchise, several lawmakers allied with President Rodrigo Duterte complained of having been treated unfairly in the TV network’s news stories, disregarding statements from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) that the media giant has no violations of the laws and regulations.

According to Chua, for associate professor at the journalism department of the College of Mass Communication in UP Diliman, the chilling effect of closing down ABS-CBN is unimaginable.

“If they can do it to the biggest media conglomerate in the country, what more (can they do to) the smaller ones,” Chua said in closing the webinar minutes after the House vote was announced.

ABS-CBN was the most used media brand accessed by Filipino respondents with 61 percent offline and 54 percent online. The network enjoys 61 percent trust rating, according to the 2020 DNR.

In the webinar, Chua also acknowledged the importance of media pluralism. “The more voices there are, the better it is for us,” she said.

“As we all know, the closure of ABS-CBN comes at a very bad time because they have the resources compared to (other) local media (companies) that are struggling. Even other big media (entities) are struggling or struggling to keep their operations going (because of the pandemic), ABS-CBN still manages to do that,” Chua said in the July 3 webinar.

Government-run People’s Television (PTV) News tied with ABS-CBN with 61 percent trust rating while online news Rappler has 49 percent. GMA remained as the top most media brand with 73 percent, the survey showed

With ABS-CBN shutting down, Chua raised concern on the reliability and credibility of the news Filipinos would have, saying it would bring “fierce implication” on journalism in the Philippines.

While this was happening to ABS-CBN, Rappler, an online publication critical to the Duterte administration, has been facing a string of court cases. While a Manila court has cleared Rappler, the publication’s chief executive officer Maria Ressa and former writer-researcher Reynaldo Santos Jr. were convicted of cyber libel.

How much will Filipinos miss local media?

While the same survey showed that interest in news is high and many Filipinos prefer news sources to be independent, almost half or 42 percent said they want to get news sources that share their point of view. The Filipino respondents were different compared to other media markets who prefer news with “no” point of view.

Also, users of Philippine newspapers and television would not miss local news sources as much as those in other countries will, the 2020 DNR showed.

The survey found that only 20 percent of newspaper users in the Philippines answered they will miss their local news source “a lot,” which is much lower compared to the other countries such as Germany with 54 percent, Norway with 49 percent, USA with 39 percent and UK with 25 percent of newspaper readers.

Only 25 percent of TV users in the Philippines answered they will miss their local TV “a lot” if it goes out of business. Again, this is incomparable to those in Germany, Norway, USA and UK with 56 percent, 45 percent, 48 percent and 33 percent, respectively.

The survey also showed that only 24 percent of local radio listeners and 20 percent of local news website visitors from the Philippines will miss such businesses if they stop operation.

The survey presented four possible answers to the question: would not miss it all, would not miss it very much, would miss it somewhat and would miss it a lot.

According to Chua, only the percentage of the respondents who answered that they get their news from local news sources are the basis of these percentages, and not the percentage of all the Filipino respondents which is 2,019.

“The answers on the following questions are based on the proportion of respondents who consume local news,” Chua said.

In her presentation in the first part of the webinar, on July 3, Chua said it will “tend to underrepresent traditional media habits,” and only “reflect urban, richer and more connected users.”

With few Filipinos missing their local news source, Ariel Sebellino, executive director and trustee of the PPI, attributed this to efforts discrediting Philippine media and curtailing press freedom.

“It is unfortunate (that) we are losing one of (our) media outlets as we speak of pluralism and I think that statement should be across all platforms,” Sebellino said.

For PCS president Kriztine Viray, the closure of ABS-CBN, which she described as a “historical tragedy,” will echo for a long time.

“The state has to remember that silencing impacts the entire profession. It should be more painful as the country is currently faced with an unprecedented crisis. The magnitude will be felt and reverberate for generations,” Viray said.

***

VERA Files is put out by veteran journalists taking a deeper look at current issues. Vera is Latin for “true.”)

Second of two parts

EARLY this month, a study went up on the pre-print server bioRxiv. In it, the research team builds the case for “the emergence of a more transmissible form” of SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind the COVID-19 pandemic. Mutations, essentially tiny changes to the virus’ genetic code, may reflect on the overall structure of the spike protein.

In turn, they argue, these may somehow make the spike a better key, able to more efficiently get the virus inside its target host.

The conclusions of the study shouldn’t be taken as final, at least not yet. Pre-prints, after all, are manuscripts that have yet to pass through the rigors of academic peer review, and are pending publication in scientific journals.

Nevertheless, the media took the soundbite and ran with it. Not long after, the internet was awash with alarming headlines. One writes that the virus “has mutated and appears to be more contagious now,” while another claims that “a now-dominant strain of the coronavirus could be more contagious than original.”

Could it be true that the world is now facing a supercharged strain of SARS-CoV-2?

“Coronaviruses like SARS-CoV-2 are mainly transmitted to susceptible individuals through infectious respiratory droplets,” according to Mary Grace Dacuma, PhD, a molecular epidemiologist specializing in Infectious and Tropical Diseases, from the Institute of Biological Sciences, University of the Philippines Los Baños.

“Respiratory droplets are greater than five to 10 micrometers in diameter and travel less than a meter. Any susceptible person who is less than a meter from an infected person can acquire the infection from respiratory droplets through the latter’s sneezing, coughing, or talking,” she says.

Five micrometers is tiny, far smaller than what the naked eye can see. The infected person’s sneeze or cough expels dozens, if not hundreds, of these droplets, putting around two people near them at risk, at least according to early estimates of SARS-CoV-2’s basic reproduction number, or Râ‚’. (The actual value is still contentious and is likely to be between one and seven new infections every four days or so).

Of course, in practice, this is not a static figure. The average number of possible infections changes according to circumstance. For example, at the height of the outbreak in Wuhan, the pandemic epicenter, one study reported that each sick individual would go on to infect almost four other people.

After the dramatic mobility control measures had taken effect, this number dropped to below one, marking the outbreak’s denouement.

At present, Dr. Dacuma continues, there is no consensus as to whether or not the virus is airborne. But it’s definitely a possibility, especially in hospitals, where affirmative evidence is slowly mounting.

Leslie Dalmacio, PhD, President of the Philippine Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and a professor at the UP College of Medicine, agrees. “There is no solid evidence yet that it is airborne,” she says. “It would be more problematic if it were airborne because it would be able to infect more people.”

It’s easy to stay away from someone that’s obviously sick. More and more, however, experts are seeing that even people who have the virus but seem fine may pass it on. This is a crucial distinction between SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV-1, its predecessor from the early 2000s and culprit behind the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS.

Once inside the body, the SARS virus makes a beeline for the lungs where, over the next week or two, it explodes in number. Recent evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t. Instead, it lingers unfelt in the throat. In under five days, the virus will have multiplied enough to make the patient infectious; towards the end of the disease, transmission appears to be very low. Unlike SARS, COVID-19 doesn’t take its time.

While a couple of small-scale, disjointed studies hardly qualify as a smoking gun, the findings, if true, fly in the face of prevailing control measures. Screening, testing, and isolating people with signs of COVID-19 may not cut it because the window to stop them from spreading the disease may have already closed.

It remains unclear why SARS-CoV-2 does this, though it’s likely that genetic mutations are at least partly responsible. But to definitively conclude that mutations cause this change in behavior”•or lead to a more efficient spike protein”•will require much more experimentation and evidence.

Mutations sound scarier than they really are. In the most basic sense, mutations pertain to permanent changes in the genetic sequence. Sometimes, as in some very aggressive breast cancers, these can lead to profound consequences on public health. But the vast majority of mutations stay silent and will go unnoticed. Others, still, prove detrimental to the organism and are edged out by natural selection.

Some mutations are triggered by environmental exposures, such as to ultraviolet radiation and to particularly strong chemicals, which can reach deep inside cells and mess with the genetic material. Others arise spontaneously, as products of a faulty replication machinery that fails to copy the genetic material perfectly.

In viruses, especially in RNA viruses like SARS-CoV-2, this process is notoriously sloppy. As a result, mutations, tiny errors in the genetic code, are not only normal, but expected.

This is why several other papers have also found mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 genome that, conceivably, could make it a more worrisome threat, as if it isn’t bad enough already. What’s lacking, however, is hard, conclusive evidence of such effects.

By and large, the authors of these papers themselves admit that, if anything, their findings underline the need for future, more aptly designed studies. One group writes that “further experiments are needed to determine the functional consequences” of the particular mutation they spotted.

Typically, these endeavors will entail well-controlled lab experiments that explicitly show, either in cells or in animal models, that one variant indeed trumps the other, be it in terms of faster replication, of easier virus-host binding, of stronger resistance to drugs, or of better overall fitness.

And even then, these results will still need to go through a slow and iterative process of verification and replication by other different labs before they pass as consensus. Good science, after all, takes time.

All of this, of course, is not to say that SARS-CoV-2 isn’t evolving. It is. All viruses do. But does this mean the world is now dealing with some eight different strains? Highly unlikely. A mutation does not a strain make.

But gradually and over time, it might. As the genetic mismatches pile up, a new and functionally distinct lineage of SARS-CoV-2 may emerge and branch off. This new group needs to be demonstrably different in significant ways”•in how it jumps from person to person, or in how it leads to sickness, or in how it responds to treatment.

This is what qualifies as a strain and is the reason why flu shots have to be updated yearly. The influenza virus changes at a such a rapid pace that it renders last year’s vaccines ineffective against this year’s strain.

Fortunately, this is shouldn’t be an urgent problem for COVID-19. While there’s still no consensus for SARS-CoV-2 specifically, coronaviruses, as a family, are relatively stable, genetically speaking.

According to early projections of Nextstrain, an online, open-source platform that provides “a real-time snapshot of evolving pathogen populations,” SARS-CoV-2 accrues around 25 substitutions per year. These refer to the mutations that stick and, despite the pressures of natural selection, persist in distinct lineages. The Nextstrain estimates were drawn using over 5,000 SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences that have been published online.

For context, the seasonal flu mutates around two to four times faster.

This could mean that vaccines, once available, may confer lasting protection against SARS-CoV-2. It might take a while for us to know for sure, though, because while more than a hundred are in the pipeline, most are still in the early stages of trials.

It may be difficult to hear, but, overall, it’s good that vaccines (and other therapeutics, in general) take a long time to develop. This makes sure that they actually work and that they don’t come with unwanted and severe side-effects.

No matter how promising or how ingenious a candidate may seem, it will have to clear all the safety, efficacy, and regulatory hurdles before it sees use in clinics. This could take several gruelling months, at the least.

Even so, it’s clear to Dr. Dalmacio that a vaccine is the best way out of this — but also, that other, more holistic lessons need to be learned, too.

“What we are experiencing now reiterates that ‘prevention is better than cure,’” she says. “Like for most diseases, keeping a healthy lifestyle also helps in battling the infection if there is exposure.”

“There is nothing wrong with having many facets in battling the infection. The world just has to ensure that whatever vaccine or drug or treatment strategy is recommended, it has to be backed up with robust and valid scientific studies,” she adds. “Now is one of those times when we don’t want to mess up with science.”

(VERA Files is put out by veteran journalists taking a deeper look at current issues. Vera is Latin for “true.”)

First of two parts

By Tristan Mañalac
VERA Files

IN late 2002, a then-undescribed virus crossed the species barrier in southern China and found a welcoming home in the lungs of humans. Over the next eight or so months, it spread, at first quietly across the region, and then explosively across the globe. The disease, what we have come to know as SARS or the severe acute respiratory syndrome, would infect more than 8,000 people and kill hundreds.

Now, nearly two decades later, another of its kin jumped that same chasm and has taken the world hostage.

Science is better now than it was then. Within days of detection, the genome sequence of the novel coronavirus (which eventually would be named SARS-CoV-2) was up online. Almost by the hour, solid scientific information about the virus is being published.

This has, in turn, powered large, cross-border collaborative efforts to cure and contain the disease, COVID-19.

But this may also prove to be too much, especially for almost everyone else who doesn’t have specialized, granular knowledge of infectious diseases. For the majority of people, even just a basic, fundamental understanding of how viruses work”•and how they kill”•should help in parsing through snake oil remedies and sensationalist headlines.

Technically, viruses aren’t even alive. They are tiny infectious particles that, like parasites, rely on other, actually living cells to survive and reproduce. Their bodies usually just consist of a hollow protein shell, sometimes also coated with fat, housing their genetic material. Coronaviruses “• a family of viruses to which the culprits behind SARS and COVID-19 belong “• are pretty much the same.

On its surface, coronaviruses are studded with protrusions called spike proteins. Under the microscope, they resemble “the solar corona,” according to the virologists who first documented them in 1968. Inside, the SARS-CoV-2 genome is a single-stranded RNA molecule around 30,000 bases long, just like its cousin from the early 2000s. For perspective, the human genome has approximately three billion base pairs.

Very broadly speaking, the virus contains the code to create two classes of proteins. Proteins in the first form the shape of the virus. This group includes the spike proteins, which make up the virus’ shell along with the envelope and membrane proteins. The nucleocapsid proteins, on the other hand, protect the viral genome, keeping it safe and stable inside.

The second class comprises the non-structural proteins (NSPs, for short). As the name suggests, this group fulfills roles beyond giving the virus its overall form. Mostly, they see use inside the infected cell, where they hijack the host’s own machinery for the virus’ own use. Some NSPs also help the virus hide from roving guards of the immune system.

Even with a shallow arsenal, viruses are crafty and potent, often managing to stay ahead of their hosts in an evolutionary arms race.

Hitching a ride on tiny droplets, SARS-CoV-2 finds its way into the body through the mouth, the nose, or the eyes. As air blows through the throat, past the voice box, and down the windpipe, the virus latches on to and infects the cells it passes. In the days that follow, and through one way or another, the virus finds itself in the lungs.

Aside from giving SARS-CoV-2 its signature shape, the spike protein acts sort of like a key that allows the virus entry into a cell. The lock that it opens is a protein called the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE-2, for short). Among the many other roles it fulfils, ACE-2 is a transmembrane protein, which means it’s embedded in the cell membrane, so that one part of it is inside the cell while another is outside. This lets it relay external information internally”•a crucial function that SARS-CoV-2 exploits.

As it turns out, the airway is full of cells that bear ACE-2. As the virus arrives, it’s not going to have much trouble finding a target to infect.

Inside an infected cell, the virus sheds its protein coat and frees its genetic material. Then, through the work of the different NSPs, the coronavirus slowly commandeers the host, uses its native resources and apparatus, and turns it almost into a factory. Simultaneously, the viral genome is copied many times over and the structural proteins are produced. These are then assembled into new virions that exit the host to go on and infect other cells.

“Millions of new viruses can be released from infected cells,” says Leslie Dalmacio, PhD, President of the Philippine Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and a professor at the UP College of Medicine. “So, one can imagine that if the virus dose upon infection is high, there will really be a high viral load in an infected person.”

At a certain point, likely when its value has run out, the virus orders the host to kill itself. The cell then dismantles its infrastructure, packs everything up in bags of cell membrane, and dissolves away. As the infection progresses, this process repeats itself over and over, sweeping across the lungs and killing thousands of cells along the way.

The body, of course, does not just sit idly and let the destruction happen unchecked. According to Denise Bascos, PhD, Associate Professor at the UP Diliman National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, the fight begins almost immediately.

“[T]he immune response starts once the virus enters your nose, mouth, or eyes,” she says. In the earliest stages, the airway coats itself with mucus, making it tough for the virus to hook onto ACE-2. The body, in an attempt to mechanically expel the virus, also starts coughing and sneezing.

“This initial response is similar for all viruses and bacteria that enter through the oral and nasal cavities, which is why the symptoms are so generic,” Dr Bascos explains. In a lot of cases, though, this initial response isn’t enough.

To fight off infections, the body routinely resorts to a complex physiological safeguard called inflammation. As SARS-CoV-2 destroys scores of cells in the lungs, the cells cry out for help, sending out a stew of chemical distress signals, very broadly classified as cytokines.

Different cytokines will have different roles to play, but the overall effect is that a nearby blood vessel dilates and its walls become leaky. In turn, blood and other fluids stream into the area. This explains the redness, swelling, and heat in the moments after sustaining a wound.

“When the cytokines reach the brain, this may cause fevers that help control and fight off the infection,” Dr Bascos adds.

More importantly, the blood brings with it cells of the immune system, which then swarm the infected tissues, killing and devouring the invading pathogens. The ensuing war leaves a mess of dead cells and fluid in its wake, which clogs the lungs and makes breathing difficult.

In most patients, this is enough to clear the virus. Under proper supportive care, the inflammation recedes and the patient recovers shortly thereafter.

But in critical and extreme cases of COVID-19, “the immune system responds drastically with what we call a cytokine storm,” Dr. Dalmacio says. “The cytokines keep on being released from cells of the immune system, and so inflammation ensues.”

How exactly SARS-CoV-2 throws the immune response into disarray is still mostly unknown, but, over time, the inflammation goes haywire and turns against the body, producing some very abrasive chemicals that further compromise the lungs and make it vulnerable to other, opportunistic infections seeking to cash in on the catastrophe.

At this point, the patient will have already fallen deeper into the disease, developing some of COVID-19’s most lethal and terminal symptoms”•such as acute respiratory distress syndrome and respiratory failure”•and will need invasive ventilation to stay alive. According to one early study, more than 90 percent never recover.

Editor’s Note: The situation continues to unfold at a rapid pace, and scientific findings cited in the article should be viewed accordingly.

(VERA Files is put out by veteran journalists taking a deeper look at current issues. Vera is Latin for “true.”)

by Tristan Mañalac
VERA Files

FOR a couple of weeks two months ago, even as SARS-CoV-2 rampaged across the globe, all seemed right in the Philippines. Today, easily more than 5,000 people have tested positive for the virus all over the country and at least 300 have lost their lives. The tallies are expected to worsen in the coming weeks.

As anxiety and frustration mount, widespread testing for COVID-19 has, almost overnight, become the common call of online political commentary, a bellwether of how well (or not) a government is dealing with the crisis.

After all, as Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus, Director General of the World Health Organization, has put it, “You cannot fight a fire blindfolded.”

Last March 22, people took to the internet to echo this sentiment. Under the banner of #MassTestingNowPH, the online rally called on the government to expand its testing capacity greatly and to make the kits free. The mainstream media, too, is awash with an almost daily accounting of these kits: how many are coming in and from where, which is cheaper than which, and have we been duped into accepting substandard donations.

But testing for COVID-19 will need much more than the kits. The entire process involves so many other elements”•reagents, machines, infrastructure, human resource”•without which the test kits will be useless.

The clock starts ticking the moment the swabs are collected. Viruses can survive only for so long in open air before their genetic material starts to degrade. At refrigerator temperatures, shelf life can be stretched to about a week. Beyond that, however, the specimens will have to be stored at sub-zero conditions”•at least —70^oC, to be precise.

And so, in a race against time, a technician collects the samples”•one from the throat and another from deep inside the nose, at the farthest rear wall”•and dunks them into sterile tubes of a liquid called the viral transport medium. Inside a cooler full of ice, and under layers of packaging, the virus is sustained for the rest of the trip.

Back at the lab, before anything else is done to the samples, the viruses will have to be inactivated to keep the technicians safe. Heat is one way to accomplish this, according to Dr Neil Andrew Bascos, PhD, Assistant Professor at the University of the Philippines Diliman National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology. Some chemicals, particularly those involved the next step, work, too.

Viruses keep their genetic material (ribonucleic acid, in this case, instead of the typical deoxyribonucleic acid in humans and animals) sealed inside their protein-and-fat coats. These need to be cracked open before the SARS-CoV-2 testing kits can hope to detect anything.

The process of isolating RNA from the samples is itself facilitated by dedicated kits. Specific details vary from kit to kit, but, generally, the goal is to open up the cells and the viral particles they contain, shut down molecules that may destroy genetic material, and sequester the RNA, away from all the other intracellular gunk.

(Kits pertain to sets of reagents that have been calibrated to work analytically well with each other. They also include inserts with directions for use. Some RNA extraction kits, for example, will have five tubes of reagents. This is also the case with the homegrown SARS-CoV-2 test kits, which contain three tubes.)

Unfortunately, getting to this viral motherlode is arguably the toughest step of the entire testing flowchart, and is a major bottleneck in the process, Dr. Bascos says. Each batch of samples up for RNA extraction, some 20 tubes or so, can take hours of work and a bagful of supplies. Even before the actual testing for SARS-CoV-2 begins, the lab will have already dug deep into its inventories.

Up until this point, the testing facility has just been preparing the samples for the actual virus detection. What results is a solution that is, in a word, messy. It will contain RNA from the virus, if present, but also from cells, from bacteria, and from whatever else was in the subjects’ throats when the swabs were collected. This is where the SARS-CoV-2 test kits come in.

These kits are based on a mainstay technique in molecular biology called polymerase chain reaction (PCR, for short), which targets a specific stretch of DNA and puts it through 30 or so cycles of DNA replication, copying it over and over. If present in the sample, PCR will have amplified the target sequence, allowing for easy detection.

But not just any PCR machine will do. SARS-CoV-2’s genetic material is RNA, not the typical DNA that the regular PCR machines usually handle. Testing centers need to use kits and machines that first reverse-transcribe the virus’ RNA into DNA, and then measure the amount of copies produced in real-time, after every PCR cycle.

This process is called quantitative, reverse transcription PCR, and while the basic PCR machines are a dime a dozen in labs across the country, the machines that can pull off this more advanced technique are scarce.

It should go without saying that, at every step of the way, handlers and technicians have to be extra careful”•and extra liberal with their use of disinfectants. These are highly infective viruses, after all, and the threat of contamination will always be present.

Improper handling and opening of sample tubes after heat inactivation may lead to aerosol formation, risking the infection of lab technicians, Dr. Bascos points out. The risks persist throughout the entire process, which is why testing is done in labs that are of biosafety level 2+.

These facilities are built with the special purpose of containing threats inside. Air flow in labs, for instance, should be inward to keep aerosols and droplets from leaking out into adjacent hallways and non-lab rooms. Labs should also come fitted with sterilization equipment and biosafety cabinets, which allow technicians to safely handle potentially infectious samples.

As of even date, the Department of Health has cleared 16 labs as testing facilities. These labs have proven that they can reliably detect SARS-CoV-2 in patient samples without putting their own people at risk.

At present, while the scope of testing remains limited, the threat of a broken pipeline remains far off. Labs still have their RNA extraction kits from before the health crisis, and the reserves of supplies (plates, pipettor tips, all the different kinds of tubes, among others) should still be fine.

But because demand is soaring all over the world, it may become more and more difficult for the country to maintain a secure supply chain for these essential, but often unseen, parts of the testing process. Proceeding thoughtlessly may suffocate efforts to contain the outbreak.

Dr. Bascos knows this. And so do a lot of other experts and authorities who understand COVID-19 testing holistically. On their own and in quiet collaborations, these people are trying to prepare what they can, helping the country contain a problem before it explodes into a disaster.

(VERA Files is put out by veteran journalists taking a deeper look at current issues. Vera is Latin for “true.”)

by Joel F. Ariate Jr. and Miguel Paolo P. Reyes
VERA Files

Nutribun. Kadiwa. Research Institute for Tropical Medicine. These are “brands” associated with the ousted dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos that the COVID-19 crisis has brought to the forefront again.

On March 19, 2020 San Miguel Corporation announced it will start producing nutribun “for the hardest-hit families facing hunger as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.” The Department of Agriculture secured PHP 1 billion from the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases for the upscaling of its Kadiwa program. And Senator Imee Marcos reminded us that it was her dictator-father who built RITM, where almost all testing was done in the first weeks of the coronavirus outbreak in the country.

This is not to disparage these efforts and institutions, especially in this time of crisis. But as with all things Marcos, when history is brought to bear on nutribun, Kadiwa, and RITM, we are bound to learn of their flawed, if not failed execution during the dictatorship. This is what the current propaganda effort erases. 

Nutribun

It was also during a time of crisis that the Marcoses tried to make nutribun their own. Fifty years later, Imelda’s daughter, now Senator Imee Marcos continues to tout this piece of bread as Marcos manna.

On July 12, 1972, then President Ferdinand Marcos placed the entire island of Luzon under “a state of public calamity.” He immediately ordered a price freeze in response to the intense flooding that Typhoon Gloring (international name Rita) unleashed in the country from July 10—25, 1972. Up to 543 people were killed according to a report by the United Press International (UPI).

It was during this period of calamity that Imelda made her move to turn foreign assistance into a branded Marcos largesse. A 2016 report in the Philippine Star quoted Nancy Dammann’s memoir, My 17 Years With USAID, on what exactly Imelda did: “the nutribun bags were being stamped with the slogan ‘Courtesy of Imelda Marcos–Tulungan project’.” Lee Lescaze in an August 4, 1972 syndicated column, made a similar observation. “Plastic bags stamped with her name were being widely used at one time for relief grain distributed in central Luzon’s most-damaged villages.”

From these days of disaster, the one product that borrowed deep in the collective memory was nutribun. Not only was it present in relief packages during disasters since 1970, it was a staple in the AID’s fight against hunger and malnutrition in the Philippines.

AID described the bread as a “complete ready-to-eat meal” with more than 500 calories and over half an ounce of protein each. Major ingredients are wheat flour, nonfat dry milk and vegetable oil supplied under the Food for Peace program, combined with lesser amounts of sugar, salt and yeast. All principal nutrients, except VitaminC, are furnished in each bun.

Discussing the origin of nutribun, Paul E. Johnson, wrote in the July 1973 issue of War on Hunger that “the testing and development of soy fortified bread flour was undertaken primarily by Dr. C.C.Tsen and Dr. William J. Hoover of the Food and Feed Grain Institute of Kansas State University. Working under an AID contract, begun in 1967, to improve the nutritive value of cereal-based foods.” Their objective was to develop a bread “with 12 percent soy flour [that] is virtually indistinguishable from white flour bread—in texture, color, taste, loaf volume, or other traits. It is high in total protein, has well balanced protein, and it is relatively inexpensive to produce.”

The nutribun was first introduced in the Philippines in 1970. Mainly as part of relief efforts. The nutribuns that reached the schools as part of a nutrition program, were developed by Albert S. Fraleigh, an AID Food for Peace officer, and Dr. Ruben W. Engel, an AID contract officer and professor at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, who worked together in the field of child nutrition and the fostering of school and pre-school child-feeding programs.

In 1971, as reported by AID in the December 1977 issue of War on Hunger, the Philippine government launched a four-year Philippine Food and Nutrition Program.

A central part of the government’s nutrition scheme was the school feeding program whose target was to reach 2.7 million underweight or malnourished children, particularly in public elementary schools.

But that goal seems to have been ambitious. AID reports from 1971 to 1982 (the last year when there was a formal assessment of the program) showed the top number reached was in 1973 with 1.7 million recipients. In 1982, recipients stalled at 1.25 million. From 1970 until the Marcoses were ousted in 1986, the number of public elementary school students rose from 6.9 to 8.8 million.

Also, the nutribun was not given free. At the start, an elementary school pupil paid PHP 0.10 for each nutribun; by the mid-1980s, PHP 0.25. The very poor students were provided sponsors.

It was not only the price of nutribun that changed over the years. From 500 calories, content was eventually halved to 250 calories (the same caloric count as today’s SMC nutribun).

There were also doubts on its impact in curbing malnutrition. Barry M. Popkin and Marisol Lim-Ybanez wrote in the journal Social Science and Medicine in 1982: “There is little evidence . . . that present school feeding programs have significantly enhanced the physiological capacity of students.” The 1982 national survey on nutrition also showed 40 percent of some four million households in the bottom half of the economic scale, or 1.6 million households, experienced hunger almost daily.

More than three decades later, on October 8, 2018, the siblings Bongbong and Imee Marcos started circulating in their various social media platforms a short video clip titled “Edukasyon at Palakasan” (Education and Sports) ostensibly to celebrate the 101st birth anniversary of Ferdinand Marcos. It made a straightforward claim: that nutribun solved the problem of malnutrition in schools.

Kadiwa

On March 29, 2020, Senator Imee Marcos posted about Kadiwa on her Facebook page. The text was largely lifted from the history of the Food Terminal, Inc (FTI). The short history of FTI correctly attributed the emergence of Kadiwa stores to the oil crisis of 1973, when prices of many commodities soared and scarcity of food was felt. “It was during this time that the concept of retailing the seven basic commodities at government-controlled rates was systematized. On April 14, 1980, the first KADIWA Center was put up at the FTI Complex,” it said.

But even before the first Kadiwa store was put up, another oil price shock rippled through the country in 1979. Transport, water and power rates rose and commodity prices spiked.

Jí¼rgen Rí¼land, in a 1986 article in the Asian Journal of Public Administration, pointed to a pre-Kadiwa effort of the Imelda Marcos-led Metropolitan Manila Commission (MMC) — the so-called “rolling stores” project in 1979 that sold food and essential items in depressed areas at subsidized prices.

The actual legal basis for the Kadiwa stores was the 1981 Presidential Decree (PD) 1770 which placed FTI, and with it the incipient Kadiwa, under the National Food Authority (NFA). PD 1770 also designated Imelda as the head of the council that ran the NFA.

Ramon L. Clarete, in the 2008 book From Parastatals to Private Trade: Lessons from Asian Agriculture, described how NFA responded to this particular mandate by launching the Kadiwa program, operating mobile and retail stores in urban and depressed areas. The stores sold at subsidized prices basic food items like rice, sugar, cooking oil, coffee, milk, and noodles.

Imelda proved to be the controlling presence behind Kadiwa. As minister of human settlements and head of the MMC, she also led the NFA.

But the public money that went into subsidizing Kadiwa was not just for the commodities it sold. Gerardo P. Sicat, Marcos’ former minister of Economic Planning, explained in a December 1984 speech that to set up and support Kadiwa stores, the NFA, through FTI, had to invest in new buildings, transport equipment as well as raise its working capital to hold inventory and hire additional manpower.

Even during its heyday, reception to Kadiwa by Manila’s poor was not as enthusiastic as now recalled. A perception study on poverty and programs to redress it among Manila’s poor published by Leandro A. Viloria and Dolores A. Endriga in the October 1984 issue of Philippine Planning Journal found that people were discouraged by the queues, the distance of the stores and some irritable service personnel.

By 1983, in the face of ballooning foreign debt obligations, another peso devaluation, and a drought, the promise of cheap prime commodities from Kadiwa became as scant as the goods on its shelves. In June and July of that year, there was a sugar and rice shortage, and the price of cooking oil spiked. All these were before the economic and political tailspin that the assassination of Ninoy Aquino triggered in August that year.

Hoarding and overpricing became common. Raids on stores and warehouses became a news staple. By May 1984, the scarcity of consumer goods accompanied by rising prices, remained an unsolved problem for Marcos. The best he could do was to impose price control on basic commodities.

By November 1984, a kilo of rice cost PHP 5.35 in Kadiwa outlets; it was PHP 4.25 in May. The average minimum daily wage dipped from PHP 20.00 in 1983 to PHP 16.00.

On May 31, 1985 Marcos issued Executive Order (EO) 1028 instructing the NFA to transfer “all Kadiwa and other non-grain operations of the [NFA] to [FTI], and subsequently (b) the transfer or divestment of the operations of [FTI], including the Kadiwa operations, as a joint venture between the government and the private sector, without prejudice to the possibility of a full transfer to the private sector immediately or ultimately.”

Clarete argued that Marcos’s epiphany was more of buckling to pressure from the Asian Development Bank. “In 1985, in need of foreign exchange to manage its foreign debt, the government agreed . . . to end both the Kadiwa program and the wheat import monopoly of NFA. Political support for the program weakened as the Marcos government became increasingly isolated.”

For Sicat, it was a costly and losing operation from the start. And in the end, he said, Kadiwa lost to “the small sari-sari neighborhood store and the medium-sized grocery.” Viloria and Endriga’s study supported Sicat’s conclusion. Instead of going to Kadiwa, respondents went to nearby markets, spending less on transportation, it said.

Rí¼land also expressed skepticism that Kadiwa actually helped the poor. He pointed out that by government’s own claim, it spent within two years 18 million pesos for the rolling stores and the Kadiwa project, reaching some 247,000 families in 542 depressed and semi-depressed areas. “In actual fact, this means that the government spent 24,658 pesos per day for these prime commodities or 0.10 peso per family per day. It goes without saying that given these allocations the project’s effect on the living conditions of the poor was virtually nil.”

Kadiwa’s failure despite being backed by four government agencies–the MMC, the FTI, the MHS, and the NFA, all ruled by Imelda–points only to the bureaucratic drag that sunk it and the broader economic and political malaise then afflicting the nation.

The Research Institute for Tropical Medicine

With RITM continuously in the news due to COVID-19, Imee Marcos’s Facebook pageshowcased the medical facility on March 14, 2020. The text of the post was largely lifted from the Wikipedia entry on RITM, which cites Ricardo Manapat’s Some are Smarter than Others: The History of Marcos’s Crony Capitalism as a source. Imee’s page was careful, however, not to include criticism of RITM from Manapat’s book, which discusses the intricate web of Marcos plunder as it was understood back in 1991.

Manapat described RITM as “[one] of the relatively unknown projects of Imelda Marcos.” He highlighted how it was organized in cooperation with the Japanese government and funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency. He said Executive Order No. 674, dated 25 March 1981, defined it “as an institute for the development of basic and applied research [programs] for tropical medicine in the Philippines.” After such factual declarations, Manapat then casts doubt on the value of RITM during the Marcos regime:

[The] impression created by the RITM is that it was organized to benefit Japanese research rather than Philippine health. Of the 1030 admissions in the hospital, 815 or 79.1% were treated as research patients. It claimed that the institute’s research program was supervised by the Ministry of Health, but results of the five years of studies made by local scientists were never published. Instead, the research was merely turned over to the Japanese in return for aid grants. It is not certain that the indigent patients of this institution were ever informed that they were not receiving standard and tested treatment but were being subjected to experiments commissioned by the Japanese.

Most of Manapat’s claims can be checked against various sources. It is difficult to prove the Japanese did benefit more from RITM than Filipinos. However, based on a 1985 JICA report, the original name of the proposed institute was the Philippine Japan Research Institute for Tropical Diseases. This initial proposal made clear it was a joint Philippine-Japanese effort, with the proposed institute having a Japanese co-chairman.

The Technical Cooperation Agreement between the Philippines and Japan for the RITM project entailed an exchange of scientists. According to the institute’s 1985 annual report, by that year, 15 Filipino scientists had been posted in various research centers in Japan for training, while 16 Japanese scientists had been sent to RITM as consultants.

The admissions figures cited by Manapat are from RITM’s 1985 annual report, which covers January 1 to December 31, 1985. RITM’s earlier annual reports did not indicate such data. In any case, that majority of admitted patients became research subjects should not be seen as unusual, given RITM’s mandate.

On the publication of research findings, annual reports of RITM from 1981 to 1985 show a lot of the outputs by the institute’s researchers were published in academic and professional journals and presented in conferences even if they were not popularized.

Finally, it seems likely, given the global standards of medical research ethics at the time that patients who participated in RITM research studies did so with their consent. From 1981 to 1985, RITM had Institutional Review and Ethical Review boards.

Indeed, what Imee Marcos and Marcos supporters have failed to emphasize is how dependent RITM was on the Japanese government’s funding. Financial statements in the RITM’s annual reports from 1981 to 1985, showed hardly any capital or equipment outlay from the national government. Its allocation during that period, averaging about PHP 7 million annually, was mostly for personnel services and operating expenses.

RITM’s 1984 annual report indicated JICA had provided USD 1 million (about PHP 18 million) to the institute since 1981. In 1985, the year RITM’s experimental animal laboratory was inaugurated, JICA provided another PHP 3.2 million worth of equipment

Clearly, RITM thrived because of external support and excellent researchers. Without foreign funding, it seems unlikely that RITM would have become a performing asset.

Moreover, the country’s current crisis emphasizes the fact that RITM and other government hospitals with advanced capabilities are in Metro Manila.

Even Imee Marcos acknowledged the issue of Manila centralization when she filed Senate Bill No. 1407 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which sought to establish RITMs in regions outside the capital. The explanatory note in her bill mentions Ferdinand Marcos’ executive order establishing RITM, but nothing about Japan’s primary role in designing, building, and supporting it for eight years.

The Filipinos who remember with fondness nutribun and Kadiwa, or to have availed of RITM’s services were the very same ones whose lives were reduced to penury by the kleptocratic Marcos regime. Whatever small measure of service they have received from the conjugal dictatorship, they have treasured it as one of those rare instances then when the government appeared in their midst — like the perfumed and bejeweled Imelda sauntering in the slums of Tondo. Such uncritical sentimentalism is the fertile ground for the subsequent Marcos propaganda.

(Joel F. Ariate Jr. and Miguel Paolo P. Reyes are researchers at the Third World Studies Center, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of the Philippines Diliman. Larah Vinda Del Mundo provided research assistance. This piece is part of their on-going research program, the Marcos Regime Research.)

(VERA Files is put out by veteran journalists taking a deeper look at current issues. Vera is Latin for “true.”)

By Diana G. Mendoza

MANILA — Leila, a logistics nurse in a government hospital, went to pick up donations from a private company after her duty. When she arrived there, she saw the boxes stacked neatly at the lobby ready for pick up.

As soon as they saw her, the staff started moving away from her, instead of helping her carry the boxes outside, even after she asked for assistance. Only the ambulance driver gave her a hand. After all the boxed were loaded, Leila removed her face mask and turned to the staff, smiled and waved to say thank you. “I waved at them again as I boarded the ambulance, but deep inside, I was hurting,” she said.

Annalyn, also a nurse, lives in a friendly community and is used to people greeting her. One day, she noticed that her neighbors, who knew she was a nurse attending to COVID-19 patients, were keeping a distance. “They’re observing social distancing. This is good,” she said to herself.

Later she realized that they actually moved away every time they saw her. “I was wrong. It wasn’t social distancing. They stayed as far away from me as possible. I don’t feel good about it.”

Dr. Reyes, a long- time infectious disease specialist, is part of a COVID-19 response team. In February, before a Luzon-wide quarantine was imposed, he and his fellow doctors decided to rent an apartment near the hospital.

But the landlady they approached, after finding out they were all doctors, refused them a place to stay. “We had to stay in the hospital because no apartment or condominium wanted us,” he said.

There are more repulsive, violent and life-threatening attacks on health workers and other front-liners over the past several days: an ambulance driver was shot and a hospital utility worker splattered with bleach because of the public’s fear of infection stemming from ignorance.

But the front-liners are not the only ones struggling to survive the discrimination and harassment as a result of the health scare during this pandemic.

Persons diagnosed as positive for COVID-19 experience worse stigma. Even with efforts to protect their identities, they are ostracized once their medical conditions are revealed.

COVID-19 patients are ostracized

“I’ve never shown my face to neighbors ever since I came home. I never attempt to wave from the window,” said Jonathan, an office worker who was discharged from the hospital after he recovered from the illness. “They will only berate me for not telling them earlier that I tested positive.”

Marko, whose father is being treated in a hospital for the respiratory illness, said some neighbors call him down for not informing them about his father’s condition. “They said if they get sick too, it’s my father’s, and our family’s fault,” he said. “They used to be nice neighbors; now they dread us.” His family was forced to close its convenience store because people don’t want to buy from them anymore.

The public’s dread towards people who contracted the coronavirus is similar to the stigma and discrimination associated with the early cases of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) and AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) more than three decades ago, doctors say.

Dr. Jose Narciso Melchor Sescon, Medical Specialist IV and team leader for quality assurance of Sta. Ana Hospital, a hospital dedicated for COVID-19 patients in the city of Manila, sees parallels between the current COVID-19 setting and the scenario during the early years of HIV in the Philippines, which recorded its first HIV case in 1984.

The stigma attached to COVID-19 occurred as soon as the first patient was wheeled into the emergency room, he said. While the coronavirus presented itself immediately as a pathogen that exempts no one, HIV was associated initially with gay men before it was revealed that it can infect any individual, he added.

“The similarity is in the fear of the unknown — here’s a new virus that can kill. It’s a new disease and an evolving one and just like HIV, we have to learn fast as we move along,” Dr Secon said.

“Both HIV and COVID-19 can be prevented,” he said, while emphasizing the differing infective abilities of the viruses.

HIV is transmitted through sex, blood transfusion, injecting drug use and from an infected pregnant mother to her child, while COVID-19, whose characteristics are still being studied, he said, can be transmitted through micro-droplets from the nose and mouth of an infected person to another.

“There was no social media when HIV started its first outbreaks, but information about COVID-19 is everywhere on the internet,” said Dr. Sescon. “People, however, need to go to the accurate sources of information,” he said, citing the Department of Health (DOH), the World Health Organization and relevant published scientific journals.

Accurate information, right messaging necessary

“Wrong and unverified information are the ones that fuel discrimination,” he said. “It is now more complicated and challenging to filter, distill information in order to craft messages to improve the health response.”

Public health consultant Dr. Troy Gepte shares Dr. Sescon’s views. “I think both Covid-19 and HIV emerged as outbreaks and epidemics that have dramatically captured the public’s attention.”

“In the early 80s, people unfortunately attributed the spread (of HIV) solely among the gay community,” he explained, “when it was actually primarily through blood-borne transmission by unprotected sex, transfusion with contaminated blood and vertical transmission of an infected mother to her born child during pregnancy, labor, delivery and even during breastfeeding.”

“I think we might be experiencing the same thing with COVID-19 as we are dealing with a new virus of which the nature of its actual transmission is still being firmly established. Early advisories have focused on having precautions against respiratory droplet infection with and spread of the virus. But the observations of spread from asymptomatic infected individuals is something we have not really encountered in a massive scale like this,” Dr Gepte pointed out.

 “The dread of getting infected gives way to a stigma especially against patients and health care workers,” he added.

This same fear played out in different ways when HIV cases were first reported in the Philippines in the mid-80s. Persons were shunned by their families and friends when they tested HIV-positive. Many were harassed and assaulted. Some had their houses stoned or burned down by neighbors, DOH records showed.

As a positive test was tantamount to a death sentence, suicides were high among persons living with HIV (PLHIV), who chose to end their life rather than face the stigma, the agency said. Many PLHIVs lost their jobs or were expelled from school.

All of these still happen today even with an amended HIV Law, improved policies in place and a network of treatment facilities and services that include counseling.

A former president of the professional civil society organization AIDS Society of the Philippines, Dr. Sescon says that like in the case of HIV-AIDS information campaign, there should be clear, positive, inclusive and compassionate messages relayed across audiences.

He appealed to Filipinos to rethink their attitude towards COVID patients and survivors. “We all said before in HIV – PLHIVs are not the problem, they are part of the solution. Now, I say COVID survivors are part of the solutions. Let’s do our share,” he said.

Dr. Sescon first encountered HIV 25 years ago as a resident-in-training at a hospital prior to becoming a volunteer AIDS hotline counsellor, where he worked alongside the first PLHIVs who used assumed names while doing testimonials for the health department to calm down an increasingly hostile public that dreaded a new life-threatening disease.

A 2019 HIV stigma index study by the UP Population Institute-Demographic Research and Development Foundation (UPPI-DRDF) found that fear, shame and experiencing discrimination as the reasons why PLHIVs hide their status, which can worsen their condition that in the long-term, can further the spread of the virus to the population.

The study said “stigma is prevalent; it is the silent killer that fuels the spread of HIV.

Dr. Sescon said the lessons learned from the government’s HIV response are visible in the current health crisis. It took 14 years before an AIDS law was crafted in 1998, and amended in 2018. Now, government actions are swift — it took just over a month from the first local COVID-19 transmission was reported on January 30 till the time a national health emergency was declared on March 8.

Will the stigma go away just as swift? Dr. Sescon says it would be faster with COVID 19, as it hits everyone so fast whereas HIV takes a long journey and the virus continues to be weighed down by prejudice.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) urges people to act with kindness, not stigma and discrimination, towards people affected by COVID-19, adding that the experiences learned from the HIV epidemic can be applied to the fight against COVID-19.

“As in the AIDS response, governments should work with communities to find local solutions. Key populations must not bear the brunt of increased stigma and discrimination as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Shortly after attacks against health workers, other front-liners as well as people with the disease were reported, the Manila city government passed Anti COVID-19 Discrimination Ordinance 2020 that prohibits acts that cause stigma, disgrace, shame, humiliation, harassment or discriminate against COVID-19 patients, persons under investigation and persons under monitoring, and will penalize violators.

Other local government units later issued similar ordinances to protect front-liners and people infected with the disease from discrimination.

The Philippines was the first country in the world to report a death from COVID-19 outside of China, where the virus first emerged in December 2019. As of April 11, 2020, the DOH has recorded 4,428 cases and 247 deaths.

(VERA Files is put out by veteran journalists taking a deeper look at current issues. Vera is Latin for “true.”)