A ‘bulldog of dictatorship’

“After all it really is all of humanity that is under threat during a pandemic.”

—Margaret Chan

By Alex P. Vidal

THE National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) should refrain from using the Cybercrime Law (Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, officially recorded as Republic Act No. 10175) to run after critics of the Duterte administration.

The law was created to address legal issues concerning online interactions and the Internet in the Philippines, not as a weapon to curtail the freedom of the press and expression.

Manuelito, a supporter of ousted Iloilo City Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog, told us “I had to deactivate my Facebook accounts and create another account using a fictitious identity because I have been warned I could be arrested for cybercrime by the NBI which has been monitoring my anti-Duterte sentiments since last year.”

Based on what has been happening in the Philippines these past weeks, it’s not only Manuelito who should have the reason to worry nowadays. 

Running after critics and threatening them with arrest for “violation of cybercrime law” is alarming and dangerous.

If a powerful state agency can be used as a tool against those who voice out their sentiments against the government even without resorting to violence, it’s a portent of things to come for those who adhere to the basic and sacred principles of democracy while trying exercise their rights to seek redress for their legitimate grievances.

Has the NBI become a “bulldog of dictatorship”? Is what happening right now a prelude to Martial Law?

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IF the most powerful man in the world today believes that hydroxychloroquine, known for its brand name Plaquenil and used to prevent or treat malaria infections caused by mosquito bites, can possibly cure the novel coronavirus, can ordinary folks now also take the drug and trust it can protect them from being included in the statistics of those who have died of the COVID-19?

Is this “magic” drug available in the Philippines?

The Department of Health should say something about this issue especially now that the world is talking about it. 

The debate whether hydroxychloroquine can cure the coronavirus has been raging these past weeks but it was only when U.S. President Donald Trump announced May 18 he was taking daily doses of hydroxychloroquine that some people started to take the pill seriously in as far as its potential magic to cure the virus that has killed hundreds of thousands of people worldwide.  

President Trump and some of his followers have actually long touted hydroxychloroquine as a potential coronavirus cure even as medical experts and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration question its efficacy and warn of potentially harmful side effects.

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Mr. Trump declared at a meeting of restaurant executives he began taking the antimalarial drug after consulting the White House doctor, though stopped short of saying his physician had actually recommended the drug.

Mr. Trump confirmed: "A couple of weeks ago, I started taking it." 

The president had been taking it every day for a week and a half now, he later said.

The president’s admission immediately caused a furor among those who weren’t yet convinced of the drug’s effectiveness against the coronavirus  Even as they viewed it as a dramatic development in Mr. Trump's attempts to promote hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for coronavirus, which began earlier in the outbreak and has been met with resistance from established medical professionals.

Mr. Trump has cast the drug as “safe” and suggested “coronavirus patients have little to lose by trying it” because the drug is prescribed to treat malaria and other conditions.

It was reported that at least one study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), has shown the drug does not work against COVID-19 and could cause heart problems. 

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It follows a study reportedly published in the New England Journal of Medicine that also showed the drug doesn't fight the virus.

The FDA and the National Institutes of Health have reportedly issued warnings about using the drug for coronavirus patients even before these reports were published.

The President admitted “he hadn't been exposed”, and that he started taking the drug because he had heard from frontline responders who sent him letters saying they were taking it preventatively.

Hydroxychloroquine, classified as an anti-malarial drug, and its sister drug chloroquine (Aralen) are under investigation for treatment of the COVID-19 coronavirus disease and Korean doctors have used these anti- malaria drugs to treat COVID-19 with some success, according to a paper filed with Elsevier in March 2020, but effectiveness is unproven.

In a CNN report, Navy Commodore Sean Conley, the President’s physician, alluded in a memo released May 18 night to Trump's personal valet testing positive two weeks ago for coronavirus. While Conley didn't say directly that Trump started taking hydroxychloroquine in response to the valet testing positive, the timing mentioned by Trump and the positive test match up.

"After numerous discussions, he and I had regarding the evidence for and against the use of hydroxychloroquine, we concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks," CNN quoted Conley writing, adding “that Mr. Trump has taken multiple tests for coronavirus—all negative—and remains symptom free.”

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo)