This compendium presents accounts of the COVID-19 pandemic response from the perspective of local governments within the frame of national-local political relations and exigent arrangements under a state of emergency. The specific measures pursued by the government—lockdowns, testing, isolation, emergency assistance, and vaccination—are discussed by examining how national guidelines set by the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases are carried out by local government units. Simultaneously, the roles of the military, police, and academic institutions present on the ground and the plight of overseas Filipino workers are highlighted to illustrate the pandemic’s sector-specific concerns. These views from the ground elucidate what is political about the pandemic through the accounts of contestation and power play as local governments and agents calibrate responses and accommodate national government logic to their own imperatives. Lockdown and Lowdown is a modest attempt to make a mark on the written landscape reviewing the pandemic and to contribute versions of this watershed event from below.

1. Covid 19 Pandemic, 2020 ? Philippines ? Social aspects. 2. Covid 19 Pandemic, 2020 ? Philippines ? Political aspects. 3. Co vid 19 Pandemic, 2020 ? Philippines ? Economic aspects. 4. Co vid 19 Pandemic, 2020 ? Government policy.