Giving Compass' Take:

• In the Philippines, the government is using heavy-handed force to address the COVID-19 health crisis. 

• How does this approach impact the most vulnerable during the lockdown? What are alternative practices for addressing the pandemic? 

• Read about how to support global response and coordination to COVID-19. 

Manila, Philippines - On the day her husband was arrested, Bernadeth Caboboy had 200 Philippine pesos (about $4) in her pocket and her fidgety three-year-old daughter in her arms. The toddler needed milk and they needed food,

It had been three weeks since the lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19 was declared, and 21 long days since operations at the construction site where her husband worked had stopped.

Their neighbourhood of San Roque in Quezon City, the country's largest metropolis, got neither food nor aid from the government. Caboboy's husband, Jek-Jek, decided to meet his foreman to see if he could get his salary.

"Someone shouted that a charity was going to give away a half-sack of rice," Jek-Jek recalled. "People started lining up on the side of the road. The next thing I knew, the police came, telling us to get on the ground."

Jek-Jek and 20 other residents of San Roque were arrested on April 1 and charged with violating quarantine protocol, disobedience and illegal assembly.

Critics warn that the Philippine government's heavy-handed approach to the public health emergency is criminalising the poor for violating quarantine protocols that are impossible for them to follow, quashing their legitimate pleas for food and economic aid, and putting them at risk of infection in cramped detention centres.

"While they were in police custody, there was no social distancing. There were no proper hygiene facilities or supplies. Doesn't their arrest defeat the purpose of stopping the spread of the virus?" said Kristina Conti of the National Union of People's Lawyers (NUPL) and lawyer for the San Roque 21.

Read the full article about government approach to COVID-19 in the Philippines by Ana Santos at Aljazeera.