PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte’s order on Thursday night to “lock down” Metro Manila — a term the Department of the Interior and Local Government doesn’t like us using, but we call it as we see it — was an ill-considered move. The only rationale offered or implied was, “that’s what China did,” and “do you have any better ideas?,” neither of which is a sound basis for crisis policy.

The decision amounts to killing the patient to stop the disease, and if the responsible parties in government would only pay attention to what other organizations are effectively doing, instead of presuming their positions of leadership confer some sort of omniscience on them, they would discover that there are, in fact, better ideas.