[New from the Press] Lockdown and Lowdown: The Politics of COVID-19 Pandemic Response in the Philippines

HOT OFF THE PRESS—An anthology about the pandemic response in the Philippines is now available at the Ateneo University Press.

Titled Lockdown and Lowdown: The Politics of COVID-19 Pandemic Response in the Philippines, this compendium presents accounts of the COVID-19 pandemic response from the perspective of local governments within the frame of national-local political relations and exigent arrangements under a state of emergency. The specific measures pursued by the government—lockdowns, testing, isolation, emergency assistance, and vaccination—are discussed by examining how national guidelines set by the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases are carried out by local government units. Simultaneously, the roles of the military, police, and academic institutions present on the ground and the plight of overseas Filipino workers are highlighted to illustrate the pandemic’s sector-specific concerns.

These views from the ground elucidate what is political about the pandemic through the accounts of contestation and power play as local governments and agents calibrate responses and accommodate national government logic to their own imperatives. 

Lockdown and Lowdown is a modest attempt to make a mark on the written landscape by reviewing the pandemic and contributing versions of this watershed event from below. This book is edited by Rosalie Arcala Hall and published by Bughaw, an imprint of the Ateneo de Manila University Press.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction – Rosalie Arcala Hall
2. Pandemic and Politics in Metro Manila: Central-Local Relations Collide during a Health Crisis – Cleo Anne A. Calimbahin and Kevin Nielsen M. Agojo
3. The Emergence of Cebu City’s COVID-19 Response: Territorial Dimensions of Power and Authority in Pandemic – Weena S. Gera
4. Recentralization and Pushback in Pandemic Countermeasures: The Case of Iloilo City – Juhn Chris P. Espia and Rosalie Arcala Hall
5. Institutional Layering and Interjurisdictional COVID-19 Pandemic Response: The Metro Naga Experience – Mary Joyce B. Bulao and Rolan Jon G. Bulao
6. Don’t Let a “Good” Crisis Go to Waste: One-upmanship in Local Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic – Julian Thomas B. Alvarez, Jahm Mae E. Guinto, and Joseph J. Capuno
7. Emergency Powers and the Securitization of the Philippine Government’s COVID-19 Pandemic Response – Rosalie Arcala Hall and Duvince Zhalimar J. Dumpit
8. In the Vortex of a Wicked Problem: Repatriation of Overseas Filipino Workers in Pandemic Times – Francisco A. Magno and Anderson V. Villa
9. The Role of Academic Partners in Strengthening Local Health Systems to Address the COVID-19 Pandemic: The University of the Philippines’ Experience on the Bridging Leadership Framework – Philip Ian P. Padilla and Fernando B. Garcia Jr. 
10. Conclusion – Rosalie Arcala Hall

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Lockdown and Lowdown: The Politics of COVID-19 Pandemic Response in the Philippines edited by Rosalie Arcala Hall

Category: Politics & Society
Language: English
ISBN: 9786214482153
Price: P395.00

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About the Editor

Rosalie Arcala Hall is Professor of Political Science at the University of the Philippines Visayas. She completed her MA in Political Science (1998) and PhD in International and Public Affairs (2002) at Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA on a Fulbright-Hayes scholarship. She held visiting researcher appointments at Meiji University, University of Innsbruck, Loyola University Chicago, University of Vienna, and Australian National University. Her work deals with the localization, resistance, and competing narratives behind public policy contestations in the areas of traditional and human security. She is currently a member of the Philippine Commission on Higher Education Technical Committee on Political Science and is the immediate past President of the Philippine Political Science Association Board of Trustees.

About the Contributors

Kevin Nielsen M. Agojo is Assistant Professorial Lecturer in the Political Science Department, De La Salle University. He holds Master of Arts and Bachelor of Arts (magna cum laude) degrees in Political Science from the same university. His research interests include the politics of policing and human rights, particularly in Southeast Asia. He is currently a PhD student at the Department of Asian and International Studies, City University of Hong Kong.

Julian Thomas B. Alvarez earned both his master’s and bachelor’s degrees in economics from the University of the Philippines School of Economics. He was an economics instructor at the University of San Carlos from 2014 to 2017 and was a teaching fellow at UPSE from 2018 to 2020. His research interests include development economics and international trade.

Mary Joyce Borromeo-Bulao is a PhD student at the Coral Bell School, Australian National University. She has done extensive research on Camarines Sur and Naga City politics. She is recently part of the Urban Governance and Service Delivery in Southeast Asia Project funded by the Australian National University.

Rolan Jon G. Bulao is an Assistant Professor and Director of Partido Institute of Economics, College of Business and Management, Partido State University. He is the founding president of the Council of Program Heads and Educators of Economics Bicol Region. His research areas include migration, agricultural economics, and Bicol economy.

Cleo Anne A. Calimbahin is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science De La Salle University (DLSU). She completed her PhD at the University of Wisconsin–Madison as a Fulbright Fellow and her MSc in International Politics of Asia and Africa at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Before joining DLSU, she was the Global South Scholar in Residence at the Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute for Developing Economies (IDE-Jetro) in Japan. Dr. Calimbahin is a Fellow with the Social Weather Stations (SWS) and a Research Fellow at the Asia Pacific Pathways to Progress Foundation, Inc. Her publication and research interests include elections, corruption, and democracy studies.

Joseph J. Capuno is Professor at the School of Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman. He specializes in public economics, development economics, and health economics.

Duvince Zhalimar J. Dumpit is Assistant Professor at the College of Management of the University of the Philippines Visayas. She completed her bachelor’s degree in Computer Science at the University of St. La Salle and her master’s degree in Management at the University of the Philippines Visayas. Her latest publication is on the operational experiences of military officers in overseas non-combat missions, co-authored with Dr. Rosalie Arcala Hall. Her areas of research interest include social media usage and preferences, information management and technology use, and workplace studies.

Juhn Chris P. Espia is a PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Canterbury, and a recipient of the New Zealand Scholarships from the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He is also Assistant Professor at the Division of Social Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences, University of the Philippines Visayas. His research interests include state-civil society relations, disaster risk management, local governance, policymaking, and elections.

Fernando B. Garcia Jr. is Professor of Public Health at the University of the Philippines Manila. He previously served as the Chair of the Department of Health Policy and Administration at the College of Public Health, UP Manila (2016–2019), and he was recently appointed the College’s Dean for the period 2022–2025. He completed his masters in Public Administration at UP Diliman and PhD in Public Health (Health Economics) at Queensland University of Technology, Australia. He has co-authored research articles in the areas of public health policy and economics. He has been involved in various public service programs on Bridging Leadership, including Health Leadership and Governance Program (with the Department of Health), Angat Buhay (with the Office of the Vice President of the Philippines), and Leadership for Convergence (with the Department of Social Welfare and Development).

Weena Gera is Associate Professor of Political Science at the College of Social Sciences, University of the Philippines Cebu. Her research projects include governance for sustainable development and urban resilience in Southeast Asia, civil society consolidation, bureaucratic representation, and central-local relations in the Philippines.

Jahm Mae E. Guinto holds an MA degree in Economics from the University of the Philippines and is currently a PhD in Economics candidate from the same university. Bearing experience in tax audit from her accounting background, she developed a keen interest in public economics research, particularly in public finance. Currently, she is involved in research related to political economy, taxation, digital economy, and global value chains.

Francisco A. Magno is Professor of Political Science and Development Studies at De La Salle University, where he previously served as Director of the Jesse M. Robredo Institute of Governance, Director of the Social Development Research Center, and Chair of the Political Science Department. He has conducted teaching and research at various universities, including Osaka University, Florida State University, Waseda University, Hiroshima University, University of Reading, University of Hawaiʻi, and University of the Philippines.

Philip Ian P. Padilla is Professor of Public Health at the University of the Philippines Visayas. He is the current UP Visayas Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and former UP Faculty Regent (2016–2017). He earned his medical degree from UP Manila and his PhD in Medical Science from Nagasaki University, Japan on a Monbusho Scholarship. He was also a post-doctoral fellow at the US National Institutes of Health, Maryland. He has co-authored various research articles on bacteriology, molecular biology, and public health. He is also a multi-awarded faculty for public service with his numerous engagements in strengthening local health systems across the Philippines.

Anderson V. Villa is Professor of Political Science at the College of Social Sciences and Humanities of Mindanao State University–General Santos Campus (MSU-GSC). Concurrently, he is designated as the Director for International Affairs under the Office of the Chancellor at the Center for International Relations, Peace, and Development (CIRPD). He completed his PhD in Asia Pacific Studies at the Ritsumeikan Asian Pacific University, Japan in 2015. He was a Visiting Scholar at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University in California, USA. His research interests include contemporary migration and public policies, migration history and citizenship studies, Asian and Japan studies, as well as ethnicity and peace-development studies in Mindanao, southern Philippines. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Philippine Political Science Association (PPSA) and the First National Vice President (External VP) of the Philippine Association of Japanese Government Scholars (PHILAJAMES 2021–2022).

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