The chastisement of our leaders and our nation

You duped me, O Lord, and I let myself be duped; You were too strong for me, and You triumphed. All the day I am an object of laughter; everyone mocks me. Whenever I speak, I must cry out, violence and outrage is my message; the word of the Lord has brought me derision and reproach all the day. 
– The Book of Jeremiah, 20:7-8

Today’s first Mass reading, quoted above, shows the futility of opposing God. The Prophet Jeremiah did not want to speak Heaven’s message of divine displeasure and disaster for Israel and its leaders, but Heaven had its way. Eventually, according to tradition, Jeremiah’s reproachful preaching led to his stoning to death by Jews in Egypt, exasperated with his exhortations.

If that can happen to a holy prophet resisting God, Who also punished His wayward chosen people with division into two rival kingdoms and decades of exile in Assyria and Babylon, chastisement can certainly happen to our nation and our leaders if we too disdain and displease the Divine.

Do we? And are we being chastised?

Just before the March 15 lockdown in Metro Manila, this column asked, “Are quakes, Taal and Covid-19 Duterte’s punishment?” (https://ift.tt/3hIb41k). After recounting debacles and disasters that brought down the Aquino regime after acts of sacrilege and defiance of God, the article noted:
“Is President [Rodrigo] Duterte facing the same chastisement from above? Most Filipinos, even his opponents and critics, should hope not, for calamities and controversies hitting his government do immense harm to ordinary people, as they did during Aquino’s chastisement.

“Take the Davao del Sur quake. Last Christmas Eve, just nine days after mid-December tremors, some 380,000 people were affected, including an estimated 108,000 also hit by tremors in October. More than 200 were injured, and 13 died.

“Taal’s eruption killed 39 in two weeks and displaced more than 400,000. And the volcano still records tremors, prompting warnings that the ash and steam expelled in January could be followed by deadlier and more destructive lava.

“The global coronavirus epidemic has just begun rearing its deadly head in the country. For a long time, we had only three Covid-19 cases, all foreigners, until 30 victims, nearly all locals with no known overseas travel, were confirmed in recent days.

“Will events under Duterte follow the course that eventually brought down the Aquino regime? That may depend on whether there is repentance and reform.”

Eroding Duterte’s agenda

From those 33 cases in mid-March, we now have some 209,544 as of Friday, with 71,745 active (34.2 percent of the total), and 3,325 deaths. That’s still far below the worst disaster under Aquino: Super Typhoon “Yolanda” killed an estimated 15,000, though the disaster agency stopped counting corpses at around 6,000.

But Covid-19 casualties could escalate, possibly to appalling levels seen in America, Italy and Spain. With infections doubling every 10 days or so, and similar increases in serious and critical cases, there could well be as many as 5,000 patients a month from now needing beds in hospital wards or intensive care units or ICUs.

Such numbers would overwhelm the 3,500 ward and ICU beds available now, forcing medical centers to refuse patients as some of Metro Manila’s packed hospitals are reportedly already doing.

Moreover, the coronavirus toll on the nation and the economy far outstrips the impact of all calamities under Aquino combined, including Yolanda, Bohol’s earthquake, the Zamboanga siege and the Mamasapano massacre of 44 police commandos.

Indeed, the pandemic has reversed much economic progress under Duterte. The World Bank projects that gross domestic product, or GDP, the annual value of all goods and services produced in the country, would shrink by 1.9 percent this year — the first decline since 1998.

Two leading job-generating dollar-earners, overseas labor and tourism, are immensely eroded, though remittances have slightly recovered. And countless businesses, especially restaurants, shops and private schools, have closed. That has idled a record 45.5 percent of the workforce, as polled by Social Weather Stations (SWS).

With jobs and incomes slashed, poverty has worsened, probably to the level before Duterte’s time. The World Bank forecasts that poverty incidence would rise 3.3 percentage points from the record-low 16.7 percent in 2018.

This pandemic-driven projection could add more than 3 million to indigent ranks, about the same number as the increase in the number of Filipinos who suffered severe hunger during the enhanced community quarantine, or ECQ, between March and June hunger surveys, according to SWS.

Drugs, crime and graft surge

Other major Duterte agenda are being eroded. On graft, the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) scandal, already grave in the Aquino era, ballooned during the contagion, with P10 billion or more in Covid-19 outlays allegedly scammed. And this happened under the President’s own appointee from Davao, resigned PhilHealth chief Ricardo Morales, tasked to clean up the health insurance agency last year.

Now, PhilHealth looks much like the Bureau of Customs, or BoC, where another Duterte appointee, disgraced Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon, got embroiled in a P6-billion drug smuggling controversy two years ago.

Both Faeldon and Morales got off without charges, with Duterte insisting they were upright.
Faeldon even got the top Bureau of Corrections, or BuCor, post afterward, where he then presided over the even bigger anomaly of countless heinous crimes convicts being freed for purported good behavior.

What about narcotics and crime? Three pandemic impacts would tend to worsen these problems. First, the Philippine National Police has to redeploy massive forces from cracking down on lawlessness to enforcing lockdown, facemasks, and distancing.

Second, economic distress is driving many jobless people to criminal activities just to survive.

And third, contagion and lockdown stress, seen in rising suicide help calls, cannot but jack up narcotics use.

Despite all of the above problems, however, President Duterte may still maintain his high ratings, with the great majority of Filipinos continuing to support rather than blame him.

The same thing happened in Israel during Jeremiah’s time, with the Israelites largely backing their rulers, even those displeasing God.

Precisely why chastisement may fall upon both the leaders and the led.

Source: TheManila Times