March 27, 2020

Kenneth Hartigan-Go, Ronald U. Mendoza, Madeline Ong

Balancing the national and local level responses to the COVID-19 health crisis is one of the principal challenges of crisis managers. This discussion note analyzes the present state of COVID-19 crisis response in the Philippines, to explore how it might be possible to improve by enhancing this to a more robustly coordinated and resourced phase. In particular this note explores some of the possible issues related to the public-private balance and further centralization on handling COVID-19. The review of issues and areas for consideration is intended to provoke and expedite the evidence-based decision-making in the whole-of-government and whole-of-nation fight against COVID-19.