The Philippine government enacted the Anti-terrorism Act of 2020 amidst the COVID-19 outbreak, raising the question of how a non-health and likewise controversial legislation was made possible during a pandemic. Using the Multiple Streams Framework analytical tools, this single-case qualitative study analyzed relevant speeches, press releases, and online interview transcripts to shed light on the question. The findings suggest two processes that are critical in understanding the passage of the new law. The first is the repositioning of terrorism within the immediate and pressing problem of COVID-19 pandemic, which brought urgency and legitimacy to the problem of terrorism despite it being a non-health issue. The second process is the securitizing of the pandemic and the government’s response to this, which eventually provided the favorable political environment for the enactment of the new law. As these two critical processes were fostered by President Duterte himself, this study calls attention to how the state’s most powerful political actor can usher in a shift in state policy by actively intervening to define the problem, reinforce a proposed policy option, and cultivate a favorable political landscape for the enactment of the desired policy option.
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