Joining a growing list of corona-dictators determined to exploit the COVID pandemic to sure-up their support and raze liberal-democratic freedoms, Rodrigo Duterte, notorious president of the Philippines, has successfully fast-tracked human-rights compromising legislation through congress, effectively removing legal protections guaranteed in a liberal-democracy.

Exploiting his government’s failure to respond effectively to the pandemic, Duterte now has the power to conduct surveillance without judicial oversight on anyone deemed to be dissenting of the regime. The door is now wedged wide open for arbitrary arrest and protracted prison sentences for anyone who might displease the president.

The draft law makes ‘incitement of others by means of speech, writings, emblem’ a criminal offence despite failing to define ‘incitement’ in the bill’s text. The track record of the Duterte administration in the past years (war on drugs, persecution of the opposition etc.) does not inspire confidence that it will not abuse the law to serve partisan or personal interests.