Philippines to use police in house-to-house searches for COVID-19 cases

By Karen Lema and Neil Jerome Morales
MANILA, July 14 (Reuters) - Philippine authorities and
police will carry out house-to-house searches for COVID-19
patients to prevent wider transmission, a minister said on
Tuesday, amid soaring death and infection numbers and some areas
returning to a stricter lockdown.
Interior Minister Eduardo Año urged the public to report
cases in their neighbourhoods, warning that anyone infected who
refused to cooperate faced imprisonment.
The tough approach comes during a week where the Philippines
recorded Southeast Asia biggest daily jump in coronavirus deaths
and saw hospital occupancy grow sharply, after a tripling of
infections since a tough lockdown was eased on June 1 to allow
more movement and commerce.
"We don't want positive patients to stay home in (self)
quarantine especially if their homes don't have the capacity,"
Ano told a news conference.
"So what we will do ... is to go house-to-house and we will
bring the positive cases to our COVID-19 isolation facilities."
The strategy is a departure from previous advice for
positive cases with mild symptoms to self-isolate.
Justifying the searches, Ano cited a 2019 law on disease
reporting and surveillance. Interior Undersecretary Jonathan
Malaya said tracking down positive cases was necessary because
some had absconded.
The plan will likely alarm human rights groups battling what
they say is impunity for abusive police who have systematically
targeted poor communities in a bloody war on drugs, as noted in
a recent United Nations report. Police have rejected that.
Police are accused of being heavy handed during the
pandemic, including arrests for minor infringements and reports
by activists of children killed while violating curfews.
"How is the government going to ensure that the rights of
Filipinos are respected and protected with this new approach?"
said Phil Robertson, Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director.
"Given that Philippine law enforcers have some of the most
checkered COVID responses in the world in terms of human rights,
this certainly raises fears."
Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
There have been 57,545 Philippine coronavirus infections, of
which 1,603 were deaths.

(Editing by Martin Petty)