In June 2020, news reports told the story of how Stay Safe became the “official” contact tracing app of the government, and therefore the country: it was purportedly the hand of retired Hello Garci general Hermogenes Esperon (one of those accused of helping rig the 2004 elections for GMA) who scheduled a presentation of StaySafe before the IATF.
On June 8, former DICT Secretary Rio recounted what a friend had told him straight from someone in the IATF: “I am also open to other apps for contact tracing. Marami lang kasing kakilala si Staysafe na members ng IATF.”
MultiSys, the developer of the StaySafe app, insisted that Rio was politicizing the decision that the IATF had made. But here’s the thing: it is obviously a political decision when: (1) the app will not work for a majority of the population who are not on 3G phones, (2) the app will not work for a majority of the population who cannot afford to be online all the time, and (3) the app, despite its uselessness and violation of privacy requirements still remains as the official contact tracing app of the IATF.
Patronage politics is obviously at the heart of this decision, and the makers of StaySafe and the IATF are just banking on us not seeing it as clearly as we should have last year.
After all we were busy surviving this pandemic, a task made more difficult by the fact that the Duterte government itself has refused to give us credible and reliable contact tracing.
Very few good men
The most important part of this story—other than the fact that it reveals a blatant disregard for what the public has a right to in a Covid-19 pandemic—is the fact that there were actually people in government who wanted to do things right by us.
Early in the pandemic, then DICT Undersecretary Rio had proposed a “Covid-19 Central Platform” that would “integrate all Covid-19 data then being generated in Silos, specially contact tracing apps, into a single platform, at no cost to the government.”
Secretary Rio’s proposal was simple: use a common platform “powered by Pintig Lab <which> will integrate all apps collecting Covid-19 data, to include StaySafe and telco’s CDRs for 2G phones owned by people positively tested with the virus.”
These men knew what we needed in April 2020. They knew we didn’t have the luxury of time that StaySafe needed to even gather at least 60% of users in the Philippines. They might have also agreed with Secretary Rio that StaySafe by itself was not going to work because “1. It is more of a surveillance app 2. It lacks the certification of DICT that it is ‘feasible and secure.’”
In mid-June 2020, with over 24,000 positive Covid cases, Secretary Rio detailed what could have been as far as his proposed contact tracing platform was concerned early in the pandemic:
“Had this been approved, I would have incorporated all available vetted apps in this common central platform. I would have asked permission from the 24,787 people with Covid-19 cases to allow me to get their phone’s locations in the past 7 days from the Call Details Recording (CDR) of the telcos. From there I can get the numbers of other phones that may have close contact with those having virus cases, and send them text messages to have themself tested in a scheduled place, date and time. Absolutely no apps needed, no privacy issues, it will work with any phone, and I could have results within a week.”
Instead, at that point, we had zero contact tracing through the StaySafe app. The same app declared by the IATF as the official contact-tracing app one month into the pandemic, in April 2020.
Mostly bad men—Duterte, included
The StaySafe app’s inefficiency as a contact-tracing app is no surprise when one considers that what it really is, is a surveillance app. It is nothing more than an app that wants access to citizens’ private information and track our every move. None of it is Covid- or public-health related.
All of it is connected to the government’s consistent and constant violation of our rights, its insistence that citizens are enemies that must be controlled and silenced, and surveilled. Choosing the StaySafe app reveals that in a public health emergency, what this government was thinking about was how to further violate our rights and control us through fear, instead of actually addressing the Covid spread. Esperon being named by Secretary Rio in relation to the StaySafe app is important, as it is also a reminder that when the pandemic response is run by military officials, very little of it will be about prioritizing public health—all of it will be seen as an opportunity to control us.
But this particular case of corruption where government chooses a contact tracing app that was sure to fail—and is still a failure 18 months into this pandemic—goes all the way to Duterte. Not just because of basic command responsibility. But because instead of doing what was right, which was to follow the recommendations of both DICT Secretary Honasan and Task Force head Galvez about the proposed Central Covid-19 Platform, Duterte instead “fired” Usec Rio.
“Fired,” because Duterte couldn’t even do it properly. He decided to accept a pre-pandemic letter of resignation of Usec Rio, one that had nothing to do with the issue of contact-tracing or of the pandemic, one that was about a totally different DICT issue altogether. Duterte refused to move on that resignation in February. In May, it became an excuse to remove the person who was making sense.
And here we are in 2021, 18 months in this Covid pandemic, in a massive surge, with over 30,000 dead and always over 100,000 positive cases, and no functional, reliable, credible contact-tracing app and database that connects all of us across our cities and provinces.
This also tells us that while they are going to offer up Duque as sacrificial lamb—and yes, he deserves to be on the chopping block—so many other heads should roll. The president’s included. ***