Prophylaxis

THE word “prophylaxis” derives from the Greek word “phylax,” which means “to guard.” In health care, it aims to either prevent or minimize disease and illness by arresting the progress of disease and reducing its ill effects. It covers a broad range of areas in medicine like dental cleaning, birth control, vaccines, etc., and is divided into the following types:

1. Primary prophylaxis: This is done to prevent or increase resistance to diseases that have not yet occurred. The procedures comprise routine medical checkups, vaccination, pap smears, mammograms, etc.

2. Secondary prophylaxis: This is done to prevent the recurrence of a disease. For example, taking a statin to prevent recurrent heart attack, or changing the work environment to stop re-injury.

3. Tertiary prophylaxis: This is done to reduce the impact of chronic diseases that might induce long-lasting effects. For example, disease management programs or stroke rehab programs for heart diseases.

The concept of prophylaxis likewise applies to public safety, national defense and internal security. Its various applications depend on situational awareness pertaining to the varying degrees of threats to the nation — immediate, medium-term, long-term. There are threats in our midst; there are lurking threats in the vicinity; and threats that may reach our gates. In that situation, where all the threats are present, the application of primary, secondary and tertiary prophylaxes would have to be concurrent, requiring a wholeof-nation effort to protect itself.

The most dangerous chronic disease is our intergenerational record of incompetent and corrupt governance. Treasonous collaboration has made it easy for transnational criminal syndicates, terrorist groups and scheming states to infiltrate our public and private institutions, and easily stage their harmful activities. To prevent arrest, they corrode our criminal justice system and pounce on our apathy and negligence. We’re crippled and desensitized because we failed to apply preventive (primary) and mitigating (secondary) prophylaxes long ago.

Take our compromised national grid, for instance, a strategic infrastructure. Its operations and maintenance are in the hands of a People’s Republic of China stateowned company. It can be shut down at crucial moments to either deliver a cryptic message or wage irregular warfare. Another example are dishonorable soldiers and law enforcers who serve as escorts/ enforcers of POGOs and smugglers; drug, firearms and gambling syndicates; and private armies. Scalawags throughout the criminal justice system routinely break the law to serve their benefactors.

Reforming the criminal justice system and the professionalization of the uniformed services are clear examples of secondary prophylaxis essential in preventing the recurrence of crime and corruption. Its cleanup must extend beyond the incumbency of an administration to prevent the diseases it’s meant to mitigate from becoming chronic. There have been previous efforts, but these failed to gain traction or momentum. Evidently, the discontinuity or inconsistency of secondary prophylaxis only favors the enemies of the people and the state.

Counterintelligence plays an important part in all that to weed out infiltrators, traitors and mercenaries in our midst. There are two types: “collective counterintelligence” to gain information about and identify an adversary’s intelligence collection capabilities; and “defensive counterintelligence” to thwart efforts by hostile intelligence services to penetrate our security nets such as Trojan horses, sleeper cells, lone wolves, and impostors such as vendors, media, students, tourists, technicians and businessmen.

Any failure to effectively apply secondary and tertiary prophylaxes hobbles primary prophylaxis, and vice-versa. Nowhere is this more evident than in our anemic state to detect, confront, dissuade and even subdue a hostile threat. Our penchant for self-gratification, placing self ahead of country, obstructs efforts to stop or slow down recurring and endemic problems. My fervent wish is for a “Damascus” moment at this point in our nation’s hapless life, one of great change, or reversal, of ideas and beliefs — from bad to good to great.

In the long run, we need to transform ourselves to become better Filipinos to build a better Philippines. In the short to medium term, we need a rapid and radical shift to good governance to ensure society’s safety and security. For instance, the administration’s moves to rectify its early mistakes in selecting key security officials is a prophylactic maneuver. It should enlarge the scope by trashing, amending or passing new laws, rules and regulations pertaining to the modernization of our uniformed services, or the transformation of the criminal justice system.

For example, the president should personally supervise the establishment of a national defense manufacturing and technology complex in joint venture with foreign conglomerates to focus on building strategic stockpiles of combat clothing and individual equipment (CCIE); petrol, oil and lubricants (POL), munitions, food rations, medicines, supplies and spare parts. He should also cause the revision or amendment of existing laws, rules and regulations on procurement and sustainment that cripple the Self-Reliance Defense Program and local producers.

Those who don’t care about our safety and security will always claim that there’s no money. That should no longer be tolerated. Many best practices abroad serve as role models for funding modernization — cutting down on corrupt and wasteful practices; raising internally generated funding to at least 2 percent of GDP; leasing government land; issuing long-term sovereign bonds. Having the right mix of assets to prevent the poaching and smuggling of our natural resources will produce significant returns on investment. If there’s a will, there’s a way.

Security analysts now see the plausibility of a kinetic conflict within the next three to five years among the great powers, now locked in hegemonic conflict in the Indo-Pacific region. The window to prepare and get ready is quickly narrowing. We need to accelerate defense procurement to ably protect ourselves, ranging from integrated combat information management systems; to long-range guided munitions; to cybersecurity; to manned and unmanned small, fast but lethal air-sea-land platforms for anti-air, anti-surface, anti-submarine and anti-mine warfare.

Geopolitical factors and poor governance are threatening the country’s national interest and overall security. If we don’t do what it takes to shape up and “condomize” ourselves, there goes our future. How do we explain that to our children?