Life under COVID-19 in the Philippines - A/Prof Nicole Curato

The Philippines has taken some of the most hardline measures in the world to contain the spread of COVID-19. Yet President Duterte’s highly militarised approach to the crisis has proven controversial. The enforcement of the strict curfew and quarantine restrictions has led to some excesses, with concerns being raised over police brutality during the lockdown, whilst living conditions for the poor have worsened dramatically, as more than a quarter of the Philippines' population live in dire poverty. Associate Professor Nicole Curato chats with Dr Natali Pearson about life in the Philippines amid one of the world's toughest coronavirus lockdowns, unpacking the Duterte government’s policies, the impact of the pandemic on Filipino diasporic communities, community responses to the crisis, and how COVID-19 has exacerbated human rights issues in a vastly unequal country. About Nicole Curato: Nicole is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Canberra’s Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. She is the author of the book Democracy in a Time of Misery: From Spectacular Tragedies to Deliberative Action (2019, Oxford University Press) and Power in Deliberative Democracy: Norms, Forums, Systems (2019, Palgrave, with Marit Hammond and John Min). She is the recipient of Australian Research Council’s Discovery Early Career Research Award (2015-2018) for her work on democratic innovations in post-disaster situations. Prior to her appointment at the University of Canberra, she was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Australian National University (ANU). She has held visiting fellowships at the University of Uppsala (Sweden), University of Turku (Finland), and the University of Stuttgart (Germany). She is currently an Associate Editor of the journal Political Studies, and an Associate of the Sydney Democracy Network. You can follow Nicole on Twitter @NicoleCurato. View the transcript here: https://bit.ly/2ZKvT4I Photo credit: Asian Development Bank