The Philippines in 2020: Exposed Deficiencies and Aggravated Backsliding in a Year of Crises

Abstract

While the COVID-19 pandemic presented itself as a global challenge that greatly hampered progress everywhere, its combination with other national emergencies and political developments in the country made 2020 a year of crises for the Philippines. The year of crises presented itself as a litmus test for the effectiveness of Rodrigo Duterte’s populist leadership and for the resilience of Philippine democracy. It was a year of reckoning that unmasked the government’s misplaced priorities and exposed systemic deficiencies in various areas of governance. Likewise, the year of crises also provided an effective rationale for greater executive aggrandizement, aggravating the continued trend of democratic backsliding since 2016. This year-end review outlines how the government has managed the year of crises, and how its responses led to these two thematic developments that define 2020 for the Philippines. The essay provides local contextualization in terms of how democratic backsliding is aggravated by situations of crises, and how these crises unmask systemic deficiencies in weak democracies such as the Philippines.