My RØDE Reel 2020 Yawyaw (Murmurs of Discontent)

#myrodereel2020
My RØDE Reel 2020
Yawyaw (Murmurs of Discontent)
As early as January 2020, militant members of the Philippine House of Representatives were already asking the national government about their concrete medical plans if ever the threat of COVID-19 reaches the country. As expected from a state machinery, representatives of the Department of Health assured members of congress and the Philippine citizenry that everything is in order. President Rodrigo Duterte even guaranteed the public that there is nothing to worry about the “veerus” called COVID-19.
By February 2020 the first case of COVID-19 was recorded in the Philippines. It was during the second week of March 2020 when the World Health Organization, declared the outbreak of the virus as a global pandemic. Having no concrete medical strategy and institutional road map, the Philippine government declared the longest lockdown in the world starting the 16th of March up to the 31st of May 2020.
Instead of providing medical solutions to curve the spread of the virus across the Philippine archipelago, the national government favored a militaristic strategy and authoritarian approach. The recourse to policing and disciplinary tactics resulted to rampant human rights violations, corruption of pandemic funds, and the further proliferation of the virus.
Yawyaw (Murmurs of Discontent) encapsulates the lamentations, rants, and bewilderment of the commons and dominated class, enmeshed through the narrative voice of its central character JP. Through JP’s narration, we get a glimpse of the collective histories and experiences of the voiceless that are struggling to survive the onslaught caused by both the pandemic and a nation state that is indifferent to the people’s collective sufferance. In a society where freedom of expression is suppressed and the culture of impunity thrives, acts of murmuring serve a social purpose-an act that would lead the disenfranchised and disembodied towards liberation and social emancipation.
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#myrodereel2020