"I feel for the people in Wuhan. It must be terrible to be there at this point."
"I feel for the people in Wuhan. It must be terrible to be there at this point."
It is easy to be racist these days particularly for Filipinos. There is reason to be upset against the Chinese government for the ways it has been abusing the Philippines courtesy of the Duterte administration’s over-friendliness with it. Filipinos’ distrust of China has never been stronger than it is now.
In the last three years, we have witnessed China claiming Philippine territories and building military facilities on our land despite our country’s victory over China in the West Philippine Sea case. Chinese ships have been stealing our natural resources and destroying our marine life in the process.
Filipino fisherfolk have been, and continue to be deprived of their livelihood from the country’s waters because they are prevented by China’s military patrolling our seas. A Chinese ship went as far as crashing a small fishing ship of Filipinos that almost cost our citizens’ lives.
Chinese mainlanders come to the Philippines by the hundreds of thousands through questionable means depriving Filipino workers of jobs that can help poor families earn much needed income.
Discrimination against Filipinos by Chinese-owned establishments that rejected Filipinos and catered only to Chinese customers was reported. A number of Chinese tourists have been reported displaying abusive and rude behavior against Filipinos. Some defecate in public areas including beaches and parks. The most recent case was that of a Chinese guy who spit on the policeman who accosted him for suspicion of shabu possession.
It did not help that the Philippine president himself “jokingly” referred to the Philippines as a province of China and continues to publicly favor China over other countries that the Philippines has ties with. It did not help that when the novel coronavirus outbreak happened in Wuhan and rapidly spread to other countries, the Philippine government’s response was at best very slow and inadequate. To begin with, many Filipinos already distrust the Philippine health system, and the capacity of government to responsively address a health crisis like the nCoV.
The virus outbreak happened as the country was not yet over Taal Volcano’s eruption and the continuing threat of more destructive eruptions. The people were worried, distressed, and in a state of panic. Since the country accepts a big number of Chinese daily, there was a strong call from the public to temporarily ban flights from China from entering the Philippines. It did not help that in response, the Health Secretary seemed to care more for China’s feelings than the welfare of the Filipinos as he rejected such call despite the fact that other countries have already issued similar orders.
Prior to the nCoV outbreak, demand for face masks was quite high because of Taal’s eruption. Overpricing was reported and eventually, stores were already running out of stock of face masks. With the nCoV, the demand spiked dramatically partially because of conflicting information about the need for face masks as protection against nCoV coupled with people’s state of mind. Even the government said that there were no more facemasks in the market. It was not surprising then that not a few Filipinos questioned the move of Sen. Richard Gordon to send millions of the coveted commodity to China to help Wuhan in dealing with nCoV.
As of this writing, there are more than 28,000 people infected by the nCoV in 26 countries with at least 564 fatalities (563 in China and one in the Philippines). The virus continues to spread and the Philippines remains threatened with three confirmed cases (including the one who died), and 215 persons under investigation.
The good thing is that nCoV has a mortality rate of around 2 percent. This is much less than for instance, the 60 percent rate of the bird flu (H5N1) when it infects humans. There really is no need to panic if we only follow the simple guidelines released by authorities like the World Health Organization. Sadly, Filipinos have been saddled with too many problems that it has become difficult to act more rationally.
The hysteria against the virus AND against China and the Chinese people continues. It has become easy to be more racist. Media reports now call nCoV as the ‘China virus’ when clearly, it has a name. There are angry social media posts against China and the Chinese people. On the one hand, this is understandable as I, myself has repeatedly criticized the Chinese government for its abusive actions against our country. These acts are decided by the government, not the Chinese people.
It is true that we have seen abusive Chinese citizens in our country. These individuals must answer for their actions but to generalize and condemn the Chinese people for the actions of a few is racism.
Considering everything that happened and continue to happen, coupled with people’s distrust with this administration’s capacity to effectively address the Filipino people’s welfare and its pro-China posturings, it is but right to be critical of the Chinese government and individual Chinese people (or any persons) that abuse or violate our laws especially as they are in our country.
BUT, racism is unacceptable. I feel for the people in Wuhan. It must be terrible to be there at this point. I hope that the people stay strong and that this crisis will soon be over. They are victims here.
We should check how we express things. Let us condemn wrong and illegal actions because they are wrong or illegal and not because they were done by China or the Chinese. At this point, let us send the Chinese and all nCoV-affected populations good will.
@bethangsioco on Twitter Elizabeth Angsioco on Facebook
