An assessment of the Philippines government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic based on policy response indices

Abstract

COVD-19 has resulted in governments worldwide implementing policies for pandemic suppression or containment. The Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) global database of pandemic policy responses provide open access data to allow for national assessments of pandemic response policies. Using OxCGRT data for the Philippines, we assessed the temporal trends of pandemic response indices and indicators. Using principal components and principal coordinate analyses, OLS and logistic regression on the ordinal policy response variables, composite policy response indices, and epidemiological estimates of pandemic spread, we assess which policy response is most significant in pandemic management. Stringency and Restrictions to Internal Movement are most significant and this reflects on the primary policing and securitizing strategy used by the Philippines government in the pandemic response. This has limited effective outcomes based on its relationships with health, economic and vaccination policy categories. We contextualize these findings with the outcomes of the government’s vaccination policy.