National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) said the government’s program of Philippine National Police (PNP) personnel going house to house to find mild and asymptomatic COVID-19 patients is prone to abuse.
“Saying home quarantine has been prone to abuse, the PNP will escort those who will not be able to comply with the three requirements of home quarantine—own room, own bathroom, and not living with elderly or pregnant persons—to isolation facilities,” the group said in a statement.
“This move reveals the Duterte government’s continuing reliance on police and militaristic approaches to solve a public health emergency,” they added.
The NUPL was referring to Oplan Kalinga, the program of Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF), and the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19, which escorts infected patients from their homes to government isolation facilities.
Chief testing czar in the fight against COVID-19 Vince Dizon listed the three requirements for a COVID-19 patient to qualify for home quarantine: own room, own bathroom, and must not be living with an elderly, pregnant, or person with a pre-existing medical condition to qualify for home quarantine.
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Patients who would not meet even one of the requirements are not qualified for home quarantine and should be escorted to a government-run quarantine facility, Dizon added.
Interior Secretary Eduardo Año said in the same briefing that the national police and LGUs would lead the house to house visitation project.
The NUPL members are “calling on the government to apply the find, test, treat and isolate strategy.”
But they added that “arming law enforcers with another tool to sow fear in our communities and trample on our rights–with a draconian Terror Law in the horizon–is worrying and disturbing.”
“With a government that has emboldened its own uniformed personnel to violate human rights with impunity, how can we be sure that the police will not abuse this new power to intrude into the privacy of our homes and encroach upon our liberties, targeting those who have been vocal with their grievances and criticisms of the government’s callous neglect of the people’s livelihood, health and lives?,” the NUPL said.
“In reality, what is prone to abuse is not home quarantine but this unnecessary power of the police to conduct home visitations,” they added.