🇵🇭 Can we switch nurses for vaccines?

Hello friends!

Today’s premium newsletter is open to all! A whole lot of people have joined us in recent weeks for, I’m guessing, the Myanmar updates. So I thought it best to show off what the premium region-wide look is all about.

If you’re keen to join, do so here for $6 a month or $60 for the year:

Asean and Timorese nationals under 30 can get a free sub though, so just hit that reply.See you Wednesday for the Myanmar special.

Erin Cook

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Vaccinations are underway in the Philippines after the first 600,000 of the donated CoronaVac arrived in Manila today. The expected delivery of the AstraZeneca vaccine has been delayed. “With this very important shipment, I am confident that more batches of vaccines will be available with great dispatch until every Filipino will be given the chance to be vaccinated at the earliest possible opportunity,” President Rodrigo Duterte said. 

Many government officials, including Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, will not be receiving the vaccine immediately with healthcare workers the priority. This would be much more impressive if it weren’t for these rich and connected people bragging they already had smuggled vaccines. 

The Philippines will send healthcare workers (largely nurses) to the UK and Germany if they agree to send over vaccines. Okay, this one is complicated. Around the world, Filipino nurses have borne much of the brunt of the pandemic — in the US, nearly a third of nurses who have died after contracting COVID-19 have been from the Philippines despite being just 4 percent of the nursing workforce. BUT for the last year, Foreign Secretary Teddy Locsin has been in very public talks with nurses who hoped to expatriate but couldn’t due to travel restrictions. BUT how much of that desperation is caused by a lack of financial and caring support at home which necessitates finding work abroad? And is that an ok thing to trade for vaccines? Let’s ask someone smarter about all of this. I’ll be back. 

President Rodrigo Durterte is very keen to show his thanks to China’s Xi Jinping. “Towards, maybe at the end of the year, when everything has settled down, I intend to make a short visit to China to just shake hands with President Xi Jinping and to personally thank him for his donations,” he said at the arrival event. 

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It’s been a big week for Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi who had an unusually high profile across the region after wading into the Myanmar crisis. We’ll be focusing on that on Wednesday. 

As of Saturday, public health workers have administered 2.6 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine since rolling out January 13. This figure accounts for most registered health workers across the country, according to the Jakarta Globe. Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin says the second stage of the roll-out will be much wider and targeting 38 million people — or 76 million doses! 

I think we always KNOW Indonesia is the biggest population in the region but the figures for the vaccine programme is going to demonstrate this in a whole new way. The second stage, for instance, would be enough to vaccinate the entire country of Malaysia but isn’t even a third of Indonesia! A very long road ahead for the archipelago. 

The long road is likely to entrench inequality between the haves and have-nots after a government regulation will allow private vaccination programmes. Firms will be allowed to purchase vaccines produced by state-owned Bio Farma to be administered privately to employees and their families. Which is all well and good if papa works on Sudirman, but if he doesn’t? Wait. 

The private scheme will work alongside the public roll-out and will have no impact on it, Health Ministry officials have said.  

Well, this is nasty. South Sulawesi Governor Nurdin Abdullah has previously been celebrated and awarded for his anti-corruption stance and guess what! He’s now a suspect. The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) arrested him Saturday over allegations he accepted bribes worth more than US$130,000 for construction projects in the province. 

"We are truly concerned about this corruption case, which does not only violate the law but also harms the country's finances and economy and the rights of the people, especially now that we are all facing the COVID-19 pandemic," KPK chairman Firli Bahuri said. 

Not even a pandemic will stop my favourite game: presidential election predictions. A new survey suggests former candidate and now Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto and Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan are the top picks for Jokowi successor. We’re still uh, three years out but I haven’t yelled at a Jakarta bar in a year now so let me just personally say: Java governors!! 

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Global Times has a very odd, longer-piece about the Chinese expat community in Phnom Penh which is believed to be the centre of the current COVID-19 outbreak. It features comments from an expat in the capital with the surname Lu, who talks about distrust of the community due to the outbreak as well as exacerbating factors including the government being unclear in how COVID-19 came into the community. 

I feel like this is an important and interesting story that has been given a total disservice by the GT! If anyone has come across a similar piece that is a bit more coherent, please forward it on. 

Nikkei Asia has a closer look at how corruption may be the biggest fault in Cambodia’s response, which has been fantastic throughout 2020. Quoting the Khmer Times, Chinese nationals had been sprung from mandatory quarantine after paying bribes to security guards. "Poor monitoring is leading to possible corruption," anti-corruption campaigner San Chey told the paper. It also reports expensive smuggling operations to get people into the country and dodge quarantine restrictions. 

The Washington Post’s editorial board turned its attention to the incoming draconian internet law. It argues that a ‘free internet may be lost if democracies don’t band together to fight for it’ which is a very funny thing for a US-based publication to say, but still! Haven’t seen much against the law so good for them. 

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Vietnam’s pre-Tet COVID-19 outbreak continues, but with remarkably widespread random testing and community measures to keep it in check as much as possible. As of the weekend, there are 533 active cases, with new cases typically imported or known-contacts of previously identified cases. 

East Asia Forum has not one but TWO new analysis pieces following the Party Congress last month. Hung Nguyen is curious about how the unresolved successor question will play out while Alexander L Vuving takes the macro view.

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Parliament can still sit, King Al-Sultan Abdullah declared Wednesday. Parliament has been on hold since the Emergency order was passed in January prompting speculation from watchers that the government was desperate to hold on to power (and critics declaring a coup in all but name). Nevermind that, says the King, “the view by certain parties that the emergency proclamation stops parliament from convening is not accurate.” 

Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin is on the move to make sure he doesn’t lose any more stray MPs to threaten his government, reports Malaysiakini. The politicking of recent months saw Muhyiddin lose his majority in parliament and, according to some, prompted the Emergency call. Sure, it doesn’t look great but don’t rule out how fractured the opposition remains, Malaysiakini reminds. 

Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, a UMNO member, says an election can be held when half the country is vaccinated. He’s thinking around September might be good. 

Okay, but in more pressing matters, why were over 1,000 Myanmar nationals deported from the country after a court had put a stay on the matter? Rights groups and opposition MPs are demanding answers from the government. “We believe that the government owes an explanation to the people of Malaysia as to why they chose to defy the court order,” Amnesty’s Malaysia director Katrina Maliamauv said, as reported by Reuters. 

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Brunei has extended its border closure with Malaysia until at least the 10th of this month. That’s all I’ve got this week! 

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It’s always a treat to read Michael Leach on Timor Leste. Here he is on the settled(ish) dust of the last few years of tumultuous politics. Maritime borders are still a political flashpoint, but I’m particularly interested in the shifting generations here as we move towards a country whose leadership politically came of age after independence and an economy in desperate need of diversification. 

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We had a big chat about Singapore in last week’s Myanmar special so we’re going light this week.

This one is interesting. The Hindu Endowments Board, a statutory agency that oversees the management of Hindu holidays and temples in the city, will reform its gold movement auditing system after a former chief priest was charged with misappropriating and pawning gold jewellery. Kandasamy Senapathi was the chief priest at the iconic Sri Mariamman Temple where he allegedly misappropriated 172 pieces of jewellery, which he allegedly pawned for SGD 2 million much of which he is believed to have transferred to India. 

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Thailand has a fascinating relationship with Myanmar, and with the prominence of the Milk Tea Alliance and the weekend’s protests in Bangkok, it’s worth its own look in the Wednesday special. 

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These China infrastructure stories are weekly now. Which I think reflects that the projects are finally in development and wider interest in Chinese investment in the region. Which is good, but I can’t talk about railways and bridges every week. 

So let’s go back to our old favourite: dam news. And this time it’s kinda good? Hydropower firms will from this month be required to notify authorities when dams reach maximum or river levels downstream fall, according to Vientiane Times and picked up by Bangkok Post.