MILF SEES RENEWED ESCALATION OF CONFLICT WITH GRP
The MILF, which is fighting for an autonomous state in Mindanao and has been engaged in peace negotiations with the GRP since 1996, sees a renewed escalation of its conflict with the Philippine government following a number of encounters with the military in the last three weeks.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 23, July 13-19, 2008
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which is fighting for an autonomous state in Mindanao and has been engaged in peace negotiations with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) since 1996, sees a renewed escalation of its conflict with the Philippine government following a number of encounters with the military in the last three weeks.
Fighting broke out between MILF fighters and government troops in three villages in Maitum, Sarangani early on June 25. The fighting took place in the villages of Ticulab, Maguling, and Mindupok. Hundreds of residents fled to the town center.
That same day another armed encounter transpired between the MILF and government troops in Tugaig, Barira, Shariff Kabunsuan.
“Frustration with the dilatory tactics of the government in the peace talks mainly caused the fighting,” said MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal.
Contentious ancestral domain issue
The GRP-MILF peace negotiations have been stalled since December last year. Negotiations reached a deadlock over the ancestral domain issue.
The ancestral domain issue, which was first discussed only in 2004 or some eight years after the talks started, has turned out to be the most contentious issue in the GRP-MILF peace negotiations.
The MILF last year was proposing a Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE) that would be based on an ancestral domain claim of the Bangsa Moro over Mindanao, Sulu, and Palawan.
The GRP had insisted that areas to be covered by the BJE other than the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) should be subjected to a plebiscite. This repeatedly led to an impasse in the peace negotiations with the group.
The impasse was broken only in November last year, when the GRP and the MILF reached an agreement defining the land and maritime areas to be covered by the proposed BJE.
Things seemed to be looking up after that, prompting lawyer Eid Kabalu, then MILF spokesperson, to make media statements to the effect that they expected a final agreement to be signed by mid-2008.
But all hopes for forging a peace pact between the GRP and the MILF were dashed last December, when the peace talks hit a snag following the government’s insistence that the ancestral domain issue be settled through “constitutional processes” – a phrase which, according to Iqbal, had been inserted into the agreement without their consent.
Renewed armed clashes
On June 30, MILF fighters and government troops clashed in Aleosan, North Cotabato. The fighting caused some 200 families from the town’s Barangay (village) Paganan to flee, based on reports from the Philippine Army’s 6th Infantry Division.
Col. Julieto Ando, spokesperson of the 6th ID, said it was the MILF who started the fighting. “We were the ones being attacked here,” he said.
But Iqbal denied this. “Beyond all doubt, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) started the fighting; fighting took place 2.5 kilometers away from the Cotabato-Davao National Highway,” he said.
Iqbal said that coming as they did in quick succession, these skirmishes appear to indicate a renewed escalation of the conflict between the GRP and the MILF – a potential threat to the peace negotiations. “But the MILF flexed its muscle to make everyone in the organization toe the line by giving the peace talks every opportunity to continue,” Iqbal however added.
The MILF, meanwhile, has also been accused of attacking power transmission lines in North Cotabato. They have been accused of bombing a steel tower of the National transmission Corporation in Brgy. Bagontapay, M’lang; and of firing rocket-propelled grenades at a power facility of the Cotabato Electric Cooperative in Matalam.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita accused the MILF of perpetrating these bombings “to pressure the government into agreeing into a peace agreement that would violate the Constitution” –- an accusation Iqbal denied.
“Ermita has never appeared to be sincere in addressing the root causes of the conflict in Mindanao; he is always in favor of the counter-insurgency approach to the problem,” Iqbal said when asked to comment on Ermita’s statement.
“The MILF is not asking the government to violate its constitution; far from it,” Iqbal added. “But we say the government should not use the constitution to forego compliance with its commitment or signed documents.”
Iqbal also said Ermita could have made such statement to win “sympathy” from the people and the international community. “In short, he wants to picture the MILF as an unreasonable group,” he said.
Roots of the conflict
Moro historian Salah Jubair traces the roots of the present conflict in southern Philippines to the U.S. annexation of Mindanao and Sulu into the Philippine territory in 1946. Jubair argues that the Bangsa Moro is a people with a socio-political, economic, and cultural system distinct from that of the Filipino people.
The inclusion of Mindanao and Sulu in the scope of the 1946 “independence” granted to the Philippines paved the way for large-scale non-Muslim migration to the two islands. This large-scale migration, which began in the 1950s, brought with it the problem of land grabbing.
At some point the government even instituted a Mindanao Homestead Program, which involved giving land parcels seized from Moro peoples to landless peasants from the Visayas islands and Luzon and also to former communist guerrillas who availed of amnesty.
This was intended to defuse the peasant unrest and the revolutionary war that was staged in the late 1940s and early 1950s by the communist-led Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan (HMB or People’s Liberation Army), which was basically a peasant army.
The Jabidah Massacre triggered widespread outrage among the Moros and led to the formation of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) that same year. The MNLF, led by former University of the Philippines (UP) professor Nur Misuari, waged an armed revolutionary struggle against the GRP for an independent state in Mindanao.
The Marcos government, weighed down by the costs of the Mindanao war, negotiated for peace and signed an agreement with the MNLF in Tripoli, Libya in the mid-1970s. The pact involved the grant of autonomy to the Mindanao Muslims.
Conflicts on the issue of autonomy led to a breakdown of talks between the GRP and the MNLF in 1978, prompting a group led by Dr. Salamat Hashim to break away from the MNLF and form the MILF. Since then, the MILF has been fighting for Moro self-determination.
In 1996, the MNLF signed the Final Peace Agreement with the GRP, which created the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) as a concession to the group. That same year, the MILF began peace negotiations with the GRP.
While the peace agreement with the MNLF supposedly holds, armed skirmishes between the AFP and MNLF did not stop. On Nov. 19, 2001, Misuari declared war on the Arroyo government for allegedly reneging on its commitments to the Final Peace Agreement. The MNLF then attacked an Army headquarters in Jolo. Misuari was subsequently arrested in Sabah, Malaysia for illegal entry and was turned over to the Philippine government by Malaysian authorities. He is currently under house arrest.
Meanwhile, the GRP-MILF peace talks have repeatedly bogged down on the issue of ancestral domain, mainly because the GRP has frequently insisted on resolving it within “constitutional processes.” This does not sit well with the MILF.
MoA-AD
Still, the MILF is optimistic that a Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MoA-AD) may be signed sometime this year.
“As of today (July 9), only two points remain unresolved by the Parties namely, the word freedom and effectivity of those (provisions) in the MoA-AD that require legislation,” Iqbal shared. “We insist that if they decide to pass it through legislation it should not derogate prior agreements. If the government is serious, we can sign it before August this year.” Bulatlat
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Sunday, July 06, 2008
COURT STARTS HEARING TAGAYTAY 5 BAIL PETITION
After more than two years of being abducted and detained, the Tagaytay 5 finally had their day in court as the latter started hearing their petition for bail.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 22, July 6-12, 2008
The Tagaytay City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 18 has started hearing the Tagaytay 5’s petition for bail after more than two years of their being abducted and detained.
Judge Erwin Larida Jr. started hearing the case last July 4 and is expected to hold hearings in the succeeding Fridays of July. The Tagaytay 5 is composed of Axel Pinpin, a consultant of the Kalipunan ng mga Magsasaka sa Kabite (Kamagsasaka-Ka or Association of Peasants in Cavite) and a poet who was a fellow in the 1999 University of the Philippines (UP) National Writers’ Workshop; Riel Custodio, a Kamagsasaka-Ka member; Aristides Sarmiento, a freelance researcher for various non-government organizations; and Tagaytay City residents Enrico Ybañez and Michael Masayes.
The series of hearings follow their June 16 arraignment for the crime of rebellion, to which the five entered a “Not Guilty” plea.
The five were abducted by a composite Philippine Navy and Philippine National Police (PNP) team on April 28, 2006 in Tagaytay City.
Pinpin, Custodio and Sarmiento had just come from a meeting with coffee farmers in the city and were on their way to Manila for the forthcoming Labor Day rally. They had hired Ybañez as their driver while Masayes accompanied Ybañez.
Three days after, they were presented to the media as “communist rebels” who were conspiring with “dissident soldiers” in an alleged plot to “destabilize” the Arroyo administration. They were subsequently charged with rebellion.
Pinpin, Custodio, and Sarmiento said that they expect the prosecution together with their PNP “abductors-torturers” to “demonize” them to secure a conviction –- which, under the Revised Penal Code, carries a penalty of reclusion perpetua (20 years and one day to 40 years in detention).
“The prosecution and the PNP will again publicly peddle their pack of lies and life-threatening intrigues,” they said. “They will again cover up the truth about the case of the Tagaytay 5 in order to get their much-awaited judicial victory against ‘bomb-wielding communists-terrorists out to destabilize’ the corrupt and fascist Arroyo regime. They will repeatedly gloss over substantive issues and matters of judicial principles such as the human rights violations committed by government authorities during our abduction, interrogation, incommunicado status, prolonged detention, and delays in the judicial process, in order to consign us to perpetual silence and public oblivion.”
They vowed, however, to assert “rigorously” the following “truth(s) and substantive issues”:
· That they were waylaid and abducted by more or less 60 heavily armed men without necessary warrants on April 28, 2006; hence violating their basic right against arbitrary arrest;
· That they were not carrying guns or explosives of any kind at the time of their abduction, yet the list of evidence showed that they were in possession of one handgun; but all their personal belongings (including dentures and flashlights) and money totaling almost P800,000 (or ¥1,904,700 or $18,300) were missing and never accounted to them, an act which they said is “tantamount to highway robbery by law enforcement agents” and which violates their right against unlawful search and seizures;
· That they were shuttled to various military camps and safe houses, where they were repeatedly interrogated against their will and without counsel –- acts which violate the basic rights of arrested persons under the Miranda Doctrine and judicial guarantees against illegal detention;
· That they were physically and psychologically tortured, having been hidden from their families, lawyers and friends for seven days and nights, to enable their abductors to extract extrajudicial confessions, again without the aid of counsel of their choice; thus violating their rights against torture and self-incrimination;
· That they were “persecuted” in a court after being held for more than 100 hours without charges, thus violating basic rights against illegal detention;
· That they we were detained and padlocked 24/7 in a police camp with no provisions for sunlight and outdoor exercises for 10 months, thus endangering their health and welfare; and that it took a 67-day fasting/hunger strike to gradually improve their detention conditions; and
· That their court hearings are few and far between, and are often postponed “for whatever flimsy reason,” thus prolonging their hardships, and “effectively silencing some critics and dissenters of the current regime.”
Pinpin, Custodio, and Sarmiento also said that on several occasions during the 26 months since their being charged with rebellion, the prosecution and the PNP were asked to present all necessary evidence and affidavits.
“But all the prosecution can show are three joint testimonies packed with lies and half-truths on what really happened on that fateful night of April 28, 2006 –- full of loopholes, self-serving alibis, pock-marked with hearsays and afterthoughts, and coached assertions,” they said. “The prosecutors haven’t produced in court any credible evidence to buttress their trumped-up rebellion charge –- for they have none, and have nothing to hold on to; for it is cardinal rule in criminal proceedings that any illegally obtained evidence is inadmissible in court, and that planting of evidence against any suspect is punishable by law as incriminatory machination.” Bulatlat
After more than two years of being abducted and detained, the Tagaytay 5 finally had their day in court as the latter started hearing their petition for bail.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 22, July 6-12, 2008
The Tagaytay City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 18 has started hearing the Tagaytay 5’s petition for bail after more than two years of their being abducted and detained.
Judge Erwin Larida Jr. started hearing the case last July 4 and is expected to hold hearings in the succeeding Fridays of July. The Tagaytay 5 is composed of Axel Pinpin, a consultant of the Kalipunan ng mga Magsasaka sa Kabite (Kamagsasaka-Ka or Association of Peasants in Cavite) and a poet who was a fellow in the 1999 University of the Philippines (UP) National Writers’ Workshop; Riel Custodio, a Kamagsasaka-Ka member; Aristides Sarmiento, a freelance researcher for various non-government organizations; and Tagaytay City residents Enrico Ybañez and Michael Masayes.
The series of hearings follow their June 16 arraignment for the crime of rebellion, to which the five entered a “Not Guilty” plea.
The five were abducted by a composite Philippine Navy and Philippine National Police (PNP) team on April 28, 2006 in Tagaytay City.
Pinpin, Custodio and Sarmiento had just come from a meeting with coffee farmers in the city and were on their way to Manila for the forthcoming Labor Day rally. They had hired Ybañez as their driver while Masayes accompanied Ybañez.
Three days after, they were presented to the media as “communist rebels” who were conspiring with “dissident soldiers” in an alleged plot to “destabilize” the Arroyo administration. They were subsequently charged with rebellion.
Pinpin, Custodio, and Sarmiento said that they expect the prosecution together with their PNP “abductors-torturers” to “demonize” them to secure a conviction –- which, under the Revised Penal Code, carries a penalty of reclusion perpetua (20 years and one day to 40 years in detention).
“The prosecution and the PNP will again publicly peddle their pack of lies and life-threatening intrigues,” they said. “They will again cover up the truth about the case of the Tagaytay 5 in order to get their much-awaited judicial victory against ‘bomb-wielding communists-terrorists out to destabilize’ the corrupt and fascist Arroyo regime. They will repeatedly gloss over substantive issues and matters of judicial principles such as the human rights violations committed by government authorities during our abduction, interrogation, incommunicado status, prolonged detention, and delays in the judicial process, in order to consign us to perpetual silence and public oblivion.”
They vowed, however, to assert “rigorously” the following “truth(s) and substantive issues”:
· That they were waylaid and abducted by more or less 60 heavily armed men without necessary warrants on April 28, 2006; hence violating their basic right against arbitrary arrest;
· That they were not carrying guns or explosives of any kind at the time of their abduction, yet the list of evidence showed that they were in possession of one handgun; but all their personal belongings (including dentures and flashlights) and money totaling almost P800,000 (or ¥1,904,700 or $18,300) were missing and never accounted to them, an act which they said is “tantamount to highway robbery by law enforcement agents” and which violates their right against unlawful search and seizures;
· That they were shuttled to various military camps and safe houses, where they were repeatedly interrogated against their will and without counsel –- acts which violate the basic rights of arrested persons under the Miranda Doctrine and judicial guarantees against illegal detention;
· That they were physically and psychologically tortured, having been hidden from their families, lawyers and friends for seven days and nights, to enable their abductors to extract extrajudicial confessions, again without the aid of counsel of their choice; thus violating their rights against torture and self-incrimination;
· That they were “persecuted” in a court after being held for more than 100 hours without charges, thus violating basic rights against illegal detention;
· That they we were detained and padlocked 24/7 in a police camp with no provisions for sunlight and outdoor exercises for 10 months, thus endangering their health and welfare; and that it took a 67-day fasting/hunger strike to gradually improve their detention conditions; and
· That their court hearings are few and far between, and are often postponed “for whatever flimsy reason,” thus prolonging their hardships, and “effectively silencing some critics and dissenters of the current regime.”
Pinpin, Custodio, and Sarmiento also said that on several occasions during the 26 months since their being charged with rebellion, the prosecution and the PNP were asked to present all necessary evidence and affidavits.
“But all the prosecution can show are three joint testimonies packed with lies and half-truths on what really happened on that fateful night of April 28, 2006 –- full of loopholes, self-serving alibis, pock-marked with hearsays and afterthoughts, and coached assertions,” they said. “The prosecutors haven’t produced in court any credible evidence to buttress their trumped-up rebellion charge –- for they have none, and have nothing to hold on to; for it is cardinal rule in criminal proceedings that any illegally obtained evidence is inadmissible in court, and that planting of evidence against any suspect is punishable by law as incriminatory machination.” Bulatlat
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
TO A WARRIOR DYING OLD
Alexander Martin Remollino
You were one of a kind as a warrior,
one who dared to venture
where even the fearless feared to tread.
You marched to the Devil's den
for the cause of the heavens.
Without hesitation you courted the wrath
of the false gods, the usurpers of power:
you fought for the right "without question or pause,"
ever resting your faith
on the God of justice fighting by your side.
Alexander Martin Remollino
You were one of a kind as a warrior,
one who dared to venture
where even the fearless feared to tread.
You marched to the Devil's den
for the cause of the heavens.
Without hesitation you courted the wrath
of the false gods, the usurpers of power:
you fought for the right "without question or pause,"
ever resting your faith
on the God of justice fighting by your side.
In memoriam: Danilo Poblete Vizmanos
(24 November 1928-23 June 2008)
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
MGA MANHID
Alexander Martin Remollino
Habang binabagtas ng sinakyan kong dyip kanina
ang isang lansangan sa Quezon City,
tinawag ang aking pansin
ng isang higanteng karatulang may nakangiting mukha ni GMA
na nagsasabing,
"Ramdam ang kaunlaran."
Siguro,
ramdam na ramdam nga ang kaunlaran
kaya kailangang ipagsigawang nararamdaman ito –-
parang sinasabing mga manhid tayo
kaya hindi natin nararamdaman.
Pero sino ba ang talagang mga manhid?
Ano ang pagiging manhid?
Ang pagiging manhid
ay ang pagsasabing "ramdam ang kaunlaran"
kahit na pinagtitiyagaang pilahan ng mga tao
ang kakapurit na murang bigas na mabuhangin at mabato
habang kayraming palayan sa Pilipinas
na nagiging mga golf course o taniman ng export crops.
Ang pagiging manhid
ay ang pagsasabing "ramdam ang kaunlaran"
kahit na nag-uunahan patungong kalawakan
ang mga presyo ng inangkat na produktong petrolyo
habang mga korporasyong dayuhan ang nagpapasasa sa Malampaya't Sulu.
Ang pagiging manhid
ay ang pagsasabing "ramdam ang kaunlaran"
kahit na nagtitiis na kumain ng darak ang karamihan
habang dalawa sa malalaking negosyante ng Pilipinas
ang nasa talaan ng 500 pinakamayayaman sa buong mundo.
Silang nagsasabing "ramdam ang kaunlaran" –-
sila ang mga manhid:
mga may kalyo sa tiyan
mga may kalyo sa mata
mga may kalyo sa utak.
Sila ang mga manhid at hindi tayo.
Alexander Martin Remollino
Habang binabagtas ng sinakyan kong dyip kanina
ang isang lansangan sa Quezon City,
tinawag ang aking pansin
ng isang higanteng karatulang may nakangiting mukha ni GMA
na nagsasabing,
"Ramdam ang kaunlaran."
Siguro,
ramdam na ramdam nga ang kaunlaran
kaya kailangang ipagsigawang nararamdaman ito –-
parang sinasabing mga manhid tayo
kaya hindi natin nararamdaman.
Pero sino ba ang talagang mga manhid?
Ano ang pagiging manhid?
Ang pagiging manhid
ay ang pagsasabing "ramdam ang kaunlaran"
kahit na pinagtitiyagaang pilahan ng mga tao
ang kakapurit na murang bigas na mabuhangin at mabato
habang kayraming palayan sa Pilipinas
na nagiging mga golf course o taniman ng export crops.
Ang pagiging manhid
ay ang pagsasabing "ramdam ang kaunlaran"
kahit na nag-uunahan patungong kalawakan
ang mga presyo ng inangkat na produktong petrolyo
habang mga korporasyong dayuhan ang nagpapasasa sa Malampaya't Sulu.
Ang pagiging manhid
ay ang pagsasabing "ramdam ang kaunlaran"
kahit na nagtitiis na kumain ng darak ang karamihan
habang dalawa sa malalaking negosyante ng Pilipinas
ang nasa talaan ng 500 pinakamayayaman sa buong mundo.
Silang nagsasabing "ramdam ang kaunlaran" –-
sila ang mga manhid:
mga may kalyo sa tiyan
mga may kalyo sa mata
mga may kalyo sa utak.
Sila ang mga manhid at hindi tayo.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
WATCHDOG SAYS GOV’T IN DENIAL OF RIGHTS VIOLATIONS’ CAUSES, SOLUTIONS
The Philippine UPR (Universal Periodic Review) Watch has assailed the Arroyo administration for being “in denial” about the causes of human rights violations in the Philippines. It also criticized the government for adamantly refusing to heed the recommendations of UNHRC members, which could have helped improve the human rights situation in the Philippines.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 19, June 15-21, 2008
The Philippine UPR (Universal Periodic Review) Watch has assailed the Arroyo administration for being “in denial” about the causes of and solutions to human rights violations in the Philippines. This was in response to the Philippine government representative’s statements at the eight session of the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which began last June 2 and is set to conclude on June 18.
The Philippine UPR Watch delegation to Geneva is composed of Fr. Rex Reyes, National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) general secretary; Marie Hilao-Enriquez, Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights) secretary-general; Trisha Garvida of Karapatan; Edre Olalia, International Association of People’s Lawyers (IAPL) president; Dr. Edita Burgos, mother of missing activist Jonas Burgos; Donnie Mapanao of Migrante-Switzerland; and Ed Cubelo of the Toyota-Philippines union.
The UNHRC is holding the session to tackle the reports of its 47 member-countries to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), which held its first session on April 7-18, 2008. The Philippine government’s human rights record was discussed in that session.
The UPR is a new mechanism that was established under General Assembly Resolution 60/251, which established the UNHRC on March 15, 2006. The said resolution provides that the UNHRC shall “undertake a universal periodic review, based on objective and reliable information, of the fulfillment by each State of its human rights obligations and commitments in a manner which ensures universality of coverage and equal treatment with respect to all States; the review shall be a cooperative mechanism, based on an interactive dialogue, with the full involvement of the country concerned and with consideration given to its capacity-building needs; such a mechanism shall complement and not duplicate the work of treaty bodies…”
The Arroyo administration has in recent years reaped international outrage over the spate of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances under its watch.
Based on data from Karapatan, there have been a total of 903 extrajudicial killings and 193 enforced disappearances from 2001 –- when President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was catapulted to power through a popular uprising –- to March 31, 2008.
The three regions with the highest number of extrajudicial killings are Southern Tagalog with 163, Central Luzon with 137, and the Bicol Region with 127. Most of the victims are peasants (numbering 419) and indigenous people (85). Among political organizations, the party-list group Bayan Muna (People First) and the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP or Peasant Movement of the Philippines) have the highest number of victims, with 132 and 104, respectively.
Meanwhile, the three regions with the highest numbers of enforced disappearances are Central Luzon with 64, Southern Tagalog with 28, and Eastern Visayas with 24.
Southern Tagalog, Central Luzon, the Bicol Region, and Eastern Samar are all marked as “priority areas” in the government’s counter-insurgency operations dubbed as Oplan Bantay Laya (OBL or Operation Freedom Watch).
UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions Philip Alston went on a mission to the Philippines in 2007 to investigate the spate of extrajudicial killings and came up with a report specifically pointing to the military’s involvement in these. “In some parts of the country, the armed forces have followed a deliberate strategy of systematically hunting down the leaders of leftist organizations,” Alston, who is also a professor at New York University (NYU), said.
During the eight UNHRC session this June, Philippine Permanent Representative to the UN Erlinda Basilio disputed Alston’s findings.
“The Philippines finds that the report and the recommendations of Professor Alston are inaccurate, highly selective, and biased,” Basilio said in her statement to the UNHRC on June 7. “The report neither provides a complete picture nor a fair assessment of the situation in the Philippines. Nevertheless, the Philippines remains committed to its state responsibility to resolve verifiable and legitimate cases of extrajudicial killings whoever may be the perpetrators, whether members of rebel groups or members of the military and police.”
Alston, however, said he stood by his findings. “I am simply being faithful in playing my role as an honest broker,” he said.
Repeated denials
At the interactive dialogue during the consideration of the report of the UPR’s working group on the Philippines, Philippine Permanent Representative to the UN Erlinda Basilio said that the government cannot “provide follow-up reports on efforts and measures to address extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, taking into account the recommendations of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.”
Basilio also rejected outright the Swiss representative’s recommendation last April to strengthen the government’s Witness Protection Program “in the context of the reform of the judiciary and the armed forces.” Basilio was quoted as saying during the eight UNHRC session that the Philippine government does not support this recommendation. This contradicted the claim of the government as contained in the Philippine National Report submitted to the UNHRC that “the President has certified as urgent legislation to strengthen the Witness Protection Program.”
Basilio was also cold to the recommendation of the representatives of Slovenia and Mexico for the Philippines to ratify the International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances. Basilio’s response to this during the eighth UNHRC session was that this recommendation is noted and would be “studied further.”
“This speaks so eloquently of the insincerity of the government to address issues of killings, disappearances and other human rights violations in the Philippines,” said Reyes, who heads the Philippine UPR Watch delegation. “First it paints a glossy picture of the Philippine Government as a ‘rights-based’ State that has signed the UN core documents and has enacted laws that supposedly protect the rights of its citizens; and then in the same breath, they refuse to accept the recommendations of the UNHRC that would help resolve the killings and disappearances and stop the impunity.
“Killings and disappearances continue in a climate of impunity and the Philippine government’s Report hypocritically trumpets its ‘commitment, constructive and consultative approach.’ We urge the Filipino people to remain resolute in exposing human rights abuses and be steadfast in denouncing falsehood and hypocrisy. Let us continue the struggle for peace and justice in our country.” Bulatlat
The Philippine UPR (Universal Periodic Review) Watch has assailed the Arroyo administration for being “in denial” about the causes of human rights violations in the Philippines. It also criticized the government for adamantly refusing to heed the recommendations of UNHRC members, which could have helped improve the human rights situation in the Philippines.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 19, June 15-21, 2008
The Philippine UPR (Universal Periodic Review) Watch has assailed the Arroyo administration for being “in denial” about the causes of and solutions to human rights violations in the Philippines. This was in response to the Philippine government representative’s statements at the eight session of the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which began last June 2 and is set to conclude on June 18.
The Philippine UPR Watch delegation to Geneva is composed of Fr. Rex Reyes, National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) general secretary; Marie Hilao-Enriquez, Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights) secretary-general; Trisha Garvida of Karapatan; Edre Olalia, International Association of People’s Lawyers (IAPL) president; Dr. Edita Burgos, mother of missing activist Jonas Burgos; Donnie Mapanao of Migrante-Switzerland; and Ed Cubelo of the Toyota-Philippines union.
The UNHRC is holding the session to tackle the reports of its 47 member-countries to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), which held its first session on April 7-18, 2008. The Philippine government’s human rights record was discussed in that session.
The UPR is a new mechanism that was established under General Assembly Resolution 60/251, which established the UNHRC on March 15, 2006. The said resolution provides that the UNHRC shall “undertake a universal periodic review, based on objective and reliable information, of the fulfillment by each State of its human rights obligations and commitments in a manner which ensures universality of coverage and equal treatment with respect to all States; the review shall be a cooperative mechanism, based on an interactive dialogue, with the full involvement of the country concerned and with consideration given to its capacity-building needs; such a mechanism shall complement and not duplicate the work of treaty bodies…”
The Arroyo administration has in recent years reaped international outrage over the spate of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances under its watch.
Based on data from Karapatan, there have been a total of 903 extrajudicial killings and 193 enforced disappearances from 2001 –- when President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was catapulted to power through a popular uprising –- to March 31, 2008.
The three regions with the highest number of extrajudicial killings are Southern Tagalog with 163, Central Luzon with 137, and the Bicol Region with 127. Most of the victims are peasants (numbering 419) and indigenous people (85). Among political organizations, the party-list group Bayan Muna (People First) and the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP or Peasant Movement of the Philippines) have the highest number of victims, with 132 and 104, respectively.
Meanwhile, the three regions with the highest numbers of enforced disappearances are Central Luzon with 64, Southern Tagalog with 28, and Eastern Visayas with 24.
Southern Tagalog, Central Luzon, the Bicol Region, and Eastern Samar are all marked as “priority areas” in the government’s counter-insurgency operations dubbed as Oplan Bantay Laya (OBL or Operation Freedom Watch).
UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions Philip Alston went on a mission to the Philippines in 2007 to investigate the spate of extrajudicial killings and came up with a report specifically pointing to the military’s involvement in these. “In some parts of the country, the armed forces have followed a deliberate strategy of systematically hunting down the leaders of leftist organizations,” Alston, who is also a professor at New York University (NYU), said.
During the eight UNHRC session this June, Philippine Permanent Representative to the UN Erlinda Basilio disputed Alston’s findings.
“The Philippines finds that the report and the recommendations of Professor Alston are inaccurate, highly selective, and biased,” Basilio said in her statement to the UNHRC on June 7. “The report neither provides a complete picture nor a fair assessment of the situation in the Philippines. Nevertheless, the Philippines remains committed to its state responsibility to resolve verifiable and legitimate cases of extrajudicial killings whoever may be the perpetrators, whether members of rebel groups or members of the military and police.”
Alston, however, said he stood by his findings. “I am simply being faithful in playing my role as an honest broker,” he said.
Repeated denials
At the interactive dialogue during the consideration of the report of the UPR’s working group on the Philippines, Philippine Permanent Representative to the UN Erlinda Basilio said that the government cannot “provide follow-up reports on efforts and measures to address extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, taking into account the recommendations of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.”
Basilio also rejected outright the Swiss representative’s recommendation last April to strengthen the government’s Witness Protection Program “in the context of the reform of the judiciary and the armed forces.” Basilio was quoted as saying during the eight UNHRC session that the Philippine government does not support this recommendation. This contradicted the claim of the government as contained in the Philippine National Report submitted to the UNHRC that “the President has certified as urgent legislation to strengthen the Witness Protection Program.”
Basilio was also cold to the recommendation of the representatives of Slovenia and Mexico for the Philippines to ratify the International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances. Basilio’s response to this during the eighth UNHRC session was that this recommendation is noted and would be “studied further.”
“This speaks so eloquently of the insincerity of the government to address issues of killings, disappearances and other human rights violations in the Philippines,” said Reyes, who heads the Philippine UPR Watch delegation. “First it paints a glossy picture of the Philippine Government as a ‘rights-based’ State that has signed the UN core documents and has enacted laws that supposedly protect the rights of its citizens; and then in the same breath, they refuse to accept the recommendations of the UNHRC that would help resolve the killings and disappearances and stop the impunity.
“Killings and disappearances continue in a climate of impunity and the Philippine government’s Report hypocritically trumpets its ‘commitment, constructive and consultative approach.’ We urge the Filipino people to remain resolute in exposing human rights abuses and be steadfast in denouncing falsehood and hypocrisy. Let us continue the struggle for peace and justice in our country.” Bulatlat
Sunday, June 08, 2008
CARTEL, GATT-WTO, GOV’T POLICIES TO BLAME FOR RICE CRISIS
The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP or Peasant Movement of the Philippines) said that the current rice crisis is a result of hoarding by the rice cartel, loopholes in the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988, and the government’s policy of liberalization, deregulation, and privatization, which is in line with its commitment to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade-World Trade Organization (GATT-WTO).
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 18, June 8-14, 2008
The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP or Peasant Movement of the Philippines) said that the current rice crisis is a result of hoarding by the rice cartel, loopholes in the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988, and the government’s policy of liberalization, deregulation, and privatization, which is in line with its commitment to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade-World Trade Organization (GATT-WTO).
This crisis, KMP said, cannot be solved neither by the government’s aggressive importation of rice nor by the extension of the CARP.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, early last week, certified as urgent House Bill No. 4077, which provides for a five-year extension for CARP. HB 4077 provides for an allocation of P100 million ($2.27 million at the June 6 exchange rate of $1:P44.14).
The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law was signed in 1988 and was intended to be in force until 1998. CARP expired in 1998 but was extended for another 10 years. It expires again on June 10 this year.
Based on DAR data, only 3.96 million hectares out of the target 5.16 million hectares, or 77 percent, under CARP have been redistributed.
Usec. Gerundio Madueño of the Department of Agrarian Reform supported the extension of CARP saying that extending CARP will help improve the country’s rice production.
“By completing CARP, it will help in the increase in the production of rice ‘cause the farmers will be given the basic rural infrastructure, technology, the training and support for their cooperatives and training for themselves,” Gerundio said.
But Madueño’s claim was belied by KMP secretary-general Danilo Ramos. He pointed out that the country had experienced rice crises under CARP. This, he said, does not give a promising picture of CARP’s supposed ability to solve the rice crisis.
“When did we first experience a rice crisis?” Ramos said. “That was during FVR’s (Fidel V. Ramos) time (as President). 1994-1995. CARP ended only in 1998, before it was extended for another 10 years. That means that experience shows that CARP is not a solution to rice crises.”
The rice cartel
“In fact, during FVR’s time, rice supply increased by 350 percent, but prices nevertheless soared,” he added. “Why? Because of the cartel.”
The rice crisis of 1994-1995 was largely a result of the partial privatization of the National Food Authority (NFA), which then procured only 0.5 percent of total palay (unhusked rice) production. Private traders took advantage of the situation, creating an artificial rice shortage by hoarding supplies. This caused rice prices to jump by 90-100 percent.
The present rice crisis is also largely traceable to the activities of a rice cartel, known as the Big Seven, whose members, aside from being able to channel production to itself through a network of traders, are also allowed to import heavily.
The members of the Big Seven have been identified in Senate investigations as Joaquin Go Soliman (JOMERCO Trading), Pio Sy Lato (PNS Grains Center), Ramon Ang Syson (Family Native Supply), Gil Go (Jocardo Merchandising), Leoncio Tan/Janet Tiu (Leoneco Merchandising), Santos See (Manila Goodyear), and Teofredo Co (Teofredo Trading).
CARP and GATT-WTO
The depredations wrought by the rice cartel are aggravated by CARP’s loopholes and the government’s implementation of liberalization, deregulation, and privatization policies in accordance with the GATT-WTO (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade-World Trade Organization) framework.
The Philippines is now the world’s top importer of rice, according to the socio-economic think tank IBON Foundation –- a far cry from its status as a self-sufficient, rice-exporting country in the 1980s. IBON Foundation’s research also shows that the Philippines devotes only 4 million hectares to rice production -– contrasting sharply with Vietnam, with more than 7 million hectares planted to rice, and Thailand which devotes more than 10 million hectares.
Lands planted to cash crops are exempted from CARP. The owners of lands planted to rice and corn, which are subject to CARP, have found a way out of the government’s agrarian reform program through crop conversion. This contributed to the decrease in rice production.
Under the WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), which the Senate ratified in 1995, the Philippines has been forced to meet a minimum rice importation requirement, whether or not the country has sufficient rice yields. The Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA), which Ramos signed into law in 1997, aims for further privatization of the NFA and increased private-sector participation in rice importation.
The NFA is mandated by law to procure at least 12 percent of palay production. From an average of 7.95 percent of palay production in 1977-1983, the NFA’s procurement dropped to 3.63 percent in 1984-2000 and from 2001-2006 was only 0.05 percent of total production.
Rice imports have increased from 257,260 metric tons (MT) in 1995 to 1.7 million MT in 2006. This year, the government has secured the importation of some 2.2 million MT of rice from Vietnam, Thailand, and the U.S. –- the country’s largest volume of rice importation since 1998.
“The government’s ratification to the GATT meant full liberalization of Philippine agriculture, particularly the emphasis on export crops and, on the other hand, rice importation,” Ramos said. “That is why in 1994, when the GATT was being deliberated upon in the Senate, we put forward a position urging them to reject it.”
The government’s Medium-Term Agriculture Development Plan (MTDAP) aims to reduce rice and corn production from 5 million MT to 3.1 million MT. Meanwhile, the Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP) for 2004-2010 aims for “the development of 2 million hectares of new agribusiness lands through multi-cropping, the cultivation of idle and marginal lands, the expansion of fishery production in unutilized offshore and inland waters, and expansion of the product mix through high value crops and value-adding through innovative packaging and agro-processing.”
The reduction of rice production and the country’s increased dependence on rice importation have placed the people more and more at the mercy of private traders, who control rice prices.
HB 3059
The KMP is calling for the passage of House Bill No. 3059, or the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill. Principally authored by the late Anakpawis (Toiling Masses) Rep. Crispin Beltran, the bill provides for free distribution of land to farmers, the expansion of agrarian reform coverage to include all agricultural lands, and government support services for beneficiaries. Bulatlat
The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP or Peasant Movement of the Philippines) said that the current rice crisis is a result of hoarding by the rice cartel, loopholes in the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988, and the government’s policy of liberalization, deregulation, and privatization, which is in line with its commitment to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade-World Trade Organization (GATT-WTO).
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 18, June 8-14, 2008
The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP or Peasant Movement of the Philippines) said that the current rice crisis is a result of hoarding by the rice cartel, loopholes in the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988, and the government’s policy of liberalization, deregulation, and privatization, which is in line with its commitment to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade-World Trade Organization (GATT-WTO).
This crisis, KMP said, cannot be solved neither by the government’s aggressive importation of rice nor by the extension of the CARP.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, early last week, certified as urgent House Bill No. 4077, which provides for a five-year extension for CARP. HB 4077 provides for an allocation of P100 million ($2.27 million at the June 6 exchange rate of $1:P44.14).
The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law was signed in 1988 and was intended to be in force until 1998. CARP expired in 1998 but was extended for another 10 years. It expires again on June 10 this year.
Based on DAR data, only 3.96 million hectares out of the target 5.16 million hectares, or 77 percent, under CARP have been redistributed.
Usec. Gerundio Madueño of the Department of Agrarian Reform supported the extension of CARP saying that extending CARP will help improve the country’s rice production.
“By completing CARP, it will help in the increase in the production of rice ‘cause the farmers will be given the basic rural infrastructure, technology, the training and support for their cooperatives and training for themselves,” Gerundio said.
But Madueño’s claim was belied by KMP secretary-general Danilo Ramos. He pointed out that the country had experienced rice crises under CARP. This, he said, does not give a promising picture of CARP’s supposed ability to solve the rice crisis.
“When did we first experience a rice crisis?” Ramos said. “That was during FVR’s (Fidel V. Ramos) time (as President). 1994-1995. CARP ended only in 1998, before it was extended for another 10 years. That means that experience shows that CARP is not a solution to rice crises.”
The rice cartel
“In fact, during FVR’s time, rice supply increased by 350 percent, but prices nevertheless soared,” he added. “Why? Because of the cartel.”
The rice crisis of 1994-1995 was largely a result of the partial privatization of the National Food Authority (NFA), which then procured only 0.5 percent of total palay (unhusked rice) production. Private traders took advantage of the situation, creating an artificial rice shortage by hoarding supplies. This caused rice prices to jump by 90-100 percent.
The present rice crisis is also largely traceable to the activities of a rice cartel, known as the Big Seven, whose members, aside from being able to channel production to itself through a network of traders, are also allowed to import heavily.
The members of the Big Seven have been identified in Senate investigations as Joaquin Go Soliman (JOMERCO Trading), Pio Sy Lato (PNS Grains Center), Ramon Ang Syson (Family Native Supply), Gil Go (Jocardo Merchandising), Leoncio Tan/Janet Tiu (Leoneco Merchandising), Santos See (Manila Goodyear), and Teofredo Co (Teofredo Trading).
CARP and GATT-WTO
The depredations wrought by the rice cartel are aggravated by CARP’s loopholes and the government’s implementation of liberalization, deregulation, and privatization policies in accordance with the GATT-WTO (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade-World Trade Organization) framework.
The Philippines is now the world’s top importer of rice, according to the socio-economic think tank IBON Foundation –- a far cry from its status as a self-sufficient, rice-exporting country in the 1980s. IBON Foundation’s research also shows that the Philippines devotes only 4 million hectares to rice production -– contrasting sharply with Vietnam, with more than 7 million hectares planted to rice, and Thailand which devotes more than 10 million hectares.
Lands planted to cash crops are exempted from CARP. The owners of lands planted to rice and corn, which are subject to CARP, have found a way out of the government’s agrarian reform program through crop conversion. This contributed to the decrease in rice production.
Under the WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), which the Senate ratified in 1995, the Philippines has been forced to meet a minimum rice importation requirement, whether or not the country has sufficient rice yields. The Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA), which Ramos signed into law in 1997, aims for further privatization of the NFA and increased private-sector participation in rice importation.
The NFA is mandated by law to procure at least 12 percent of palay production. From an average of 7.95 percent of palay production in 1977-1983, the NFA’s procurement dropped to 3.63 percent in 1984-2000 and from 2001-2006 was only 0.05 percent of total production.
Rice imports have increased from 257,260 metric tons (MT) in 1995 to 1.7 million MT in 2006. This year, the government has secured the importation of some 2.2 million MT of rice from Vietnam, Thailand, and the U.S. –- the country’s largest volume of rice importation since 1998.
“The government’s ratification to the GATT meant full liberalization of Philippine agriculture, particularly the emphasis on export crops and, on the other hand, rice importation,” Ramos said. “That is why in 1994, when the GATT was being deliberated upon in the Senate, we put forward a position urging them to reject it.”
The government’s Medium-Term Agriculture Development Plan (MTDAP) aims to reduce rice and corn production from 5 million MT to 3.1 million MT. Meanwhile, the Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP) for 2004-2010 aims for “the development of 2 million hectares of new agribusiness lands through multi-cropping, the cultivation of idle and marginal lands, the expansion of fishery production in unutilized offshore and inland waters, and expansion of the product mix through high value crops and value-adding through innovative packaging and agro-processing.”
The reduction of rice production and the country’s increased dependence on rice importation have placed the people more and more at the mercy of private traders, who control rice prices.
HB 3059
The KMP is calling for the passage of House Bill No. 3059, or the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill. Principally authored by the late Anakpawis (Toiling Masses) Rep. Crispin Beltran, the bill provides for free distribution of land to farmers, the expansion of agrarian reform coverage to include all agricultural lands, and government support services for beneficiaries. Bulatlat
Saturday, June 07, 2008
CRISPIN BELTRAN: THE PEOPLE’S STATESMAN
By Alexander Martin Remollino
Column: Centerstage
Published: June 06, 2008
Laguna, Philippines — In life, Philippine Congressman Crispin Beltran frequently clashed with the powers that be –- whether they were leaders of big business or politicians representing elite interests. But in death, Beltran earned only praise, even from those he could not see eye-to-eye with. This is because of the kind of life he lived and the rich symbolism his death showed.
There have been few people in Philippine history who deserved to be called statesmen, and fewer who can rightfully be called people’s statesmen. The recently deceased representative from the Anakpawis, or “toiling masses” party, Crispin Beltran, was one of them.
Beltran died May 20 from head injuries sustained after a fall from the roof of his house in Bulacan, a province north of Manila. He was fixing the roof of his house -– a bungalow for which he was paying 5,000 pesos (US$112) a month -– in preparation for the rainy season when he suffered a fall that led to a coma and, later, death. At the time of his death, his total assets amounted to less than 60,000 pesos (US$1,350) and included two barong Tagalog (the Philippine national attire for males) and a pair of eyeglasses –- making him the poorest member of the House of Representatives, which is known as a bastion of the Philippines’ landlord class.
Thus was the conclusion of his colorful life as a labor leader, and –- later on -– as head of a multi-sectoral activist alliance and, at the time of his death, a representative of a progressive party-list group in Congress. Thus was the end of life for a man who never for a moment wavered from his pursuit of the cause of freedom and justice, even as two governments –- the Marcos and Arroyo regimes -– made him pay for it with his liberty.
Therein lies the symbolism in his death. Here was a leader who literally sprang from the toiling masses, who –- to his very last breath –- lived simply, “so that others may simply live,” in the words of Mohandas K. Gandhi. He came across but rejected many opportunities to enrich himself –- which included a 2-million-peso bribe intended to win his support for a weak impeachment complaint that administration allies were trying to initiate to protect President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo from a stronger one that could lead to conviction.
He was a workingman to his very last breath -– climbing a ladder to fix his own roof, something many have said he shouldn’t have done at his age of 75 years, but which he did anyway -– insisting on doing something he could very well do himself. To the end of his life, he was a “people’s (leader),” as described by the think tank Center for People Empowerment in Governance.
The kind of life he lived and the manner by which it ended struck chords in many a heart in the Philippines, where it is easy to be cynical about the possibility of integrity in public office. Transparency International has recently rated the Philippines as the eighth most corrupt country in the world and the most corrupt in Asia, but Beltran by his life –- and death -– showed that “honorable” and “congressman” need not be antonyms even in such a country.
With that, Beltran’s death moved multitudes. Profuse were the praises for him -– including from several of his political opponents who derided him in life but who clearly wanted to bask in his posthumous glory.
“Our condolences to the family of the late Congressman Beltran,” said deputy presidential spokesperson Lorelei Fajardo. “We share their grief in this time of great personal loss. While Congressman Beltran and the Armed Forces may have stood at opposite poles in the pursuit of our respective missions, we regarded him with respect. Like many of our soldier-heroes, he stood for what he believed in. And in my personal view, he is a true Filipino.”
The president -– whose issuance of Presidential Proclamation No. 1017 which declared a “state of emergency” in the country led to his arrest and prolonged detention –- sent flowers to his wake at the main chapel of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente, or Philippine Independent Church.
Speaker Prospero Nograles, a staunch administration ally, said the House of Representatives was “greatly diminished” by Beltran’s death.
“Poverty did not rob him of the fortitude of his convictions to dedicate his life to the uplift of the poor,” Nograles said. “And yet, when he spoke, whether among groups of colleagues or in debates in this chamber, one cannot help but listen, because his ideas resonated with the integrity of convictions.”
In life, Beltran was often criticized by defenders of the status quo for clinging to a supposedly “outmoded” ideology. In death, he is vindicated by the fact that even his political opponents could not help but pay him the highest respects -– thus conveying a sort of message that he was one of their own even as he differed from them.
Still, the record begs to be set straight for posterity. Beltran did not belong to the ruling political clique which made the Philippines slide into having the distinction of being one of the most corrupt countries in the world. He did not belong to the big capitalists who refuse their workers the basic right of getting a decent wage. He did not belong to the big landlords who dominate the House of Representatives. He belonged, first and last, to the people -– the toiling masses from whom he sprang and for whom he fought all his life.
By this, he was a real people’s statesman.
--
(Alexander Martin Remollino is a senior writer for the online news weekly Bulatlat -– www.bulatlat.com. He is also associate editor and columnist for the opinion website Tinig.com. He is a member of the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines, and was active in the Media for Peace campaign. ©Copyright Alexander Martin Remollino)
By Alexander Martin Remollino
Column: Centerstage
Published: June 06, 2008
Laguna, Philippines — In life, Philippine Congressman Crispin Beltran frequently clashed with the powers that be –- whether they were leaders of big business or politicians representing elite interests. But in death, Beltran earned only praise, even from those he could not see eye-to-eye with. This is because of the kind of life he lived and the rich symbolism his death showed.
There have been few people in Philippine history who deserved to be called statesmen, and fewer who can rightfully be called people’s statesmen. The recently deceased representative from the Anakpawis, or “toiling masses” party, Crispin Beltran, was one of them.
Beltran died May 20 from head injuries sustained after a fall from the roof of his house in Bulacan, a province north of Manila. He was fixing the roof of his house -– a bungalow for which he was paying 5,000 pesos (US$112) a month -– in preparation for the rainy season when he suffered a fall that led to a coma and, later, death. At the time of his death, his total assets amounted to less than 60,000 pesos (US$1,350) and included two barong Tagalog (the Philippine national attire for males) and a pair of eyeglasses –- making him the poorest member of the House of Representatives, which is known as a bastion of the Philippines’ landlord class.
Thus was the conclusion of his colorful life as a labor leader, and –- later on -– as head of a multi-sectoral activist alliance and, at the time of his death, a representative of a progressive party-list group in Congress. Thus was the end of life for a man who never for a moment wavered from his pursuit of the cause of freedom and justice, even as two governments –- the Marcos and Arroyo regimes -– made him pay for it with his liberty.
Therein lies the symbolism in his death. Here was a leader who literally sprang from the toiling masses, who –- to his very last breath –- lived simply, “so that others may simply live,” in the words of Mohandas K. Gandhi. He came across but rejected many opportunities to enrich himself –- which included a 2-million-peso bribe intended to win his support for a weak impeachment complaint that administration allies were trying to initiate to protect President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo from a stronger one that could lead to conviction.
He was a workingman to his very last breath -– climbing a ladder to fix his own roof, something many have said he shouldn’t have done at his age of 75 years, but which he did anyway -– insisting on doing something he could very well do himself. To the end of his life, he was a “people’s (leader),” as described by the think tank Center for People Empowerment in Governance.
The kind of life he lived and the manner by which it ended struck chords in many a heart in the Philippines, where it is easy to be cynical about the possibility of integrity in public office. Transparency International has recently rated the Philippines as the eighth most corrupt country in the world and the most corrupt in Asia, but Beltran by his life –- and death -– showed that “honorable” and “congressman” need not be antonyms even in such a country.
With that, Beltran’s death moved multitudes. Profuse were the praises for him -– including from several of his political opponents who derided him in life but who clearly wanted to bask in his posthumous glory.
“Our condolences to the family of the late Congressman Beltran,” said deputy presidential spokesperson Lorelei Fajardo. “We share their grief in this time of great personal loss. While Congressman Beltran and the Armed Forces may have stood at opposite poles in the pursuit of our respective missions, we regarded him with respect. Like many of our soldier-heroes, he stood for what he believed in. And in my personal view, he is a true Filipino.”
The president -– whose issuance of Presidential Proclamation No. 1017 which declared a “state of emergency” in the country led to his arrest and prolonged detention –- sent flowers to his wake at the main chapel of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente, or Philippine Independent Church.
Speaker Prospero Nograles, a staunch administration ally, said the House of Representatives was “greatly diminished” by Beltran’s death.
“Poverty did not rob him of the fortitude of his convictions to dedicate his life to the uplift of the poor,” Nograles said. “And yet, when he spoke, whether among groups of colleagues or in debates in this chamber, one cannot help but listen, because his ideas resonated with the integrity of convictions.”
In life, Beltran was often criticized by defenders of the status quo for clinging to a supposedly “outmoded” ideology. In death, he is vindicated by the fact that even his political opponents could not help but pay him the highest respects -– thus conveying a sort of message that he was one of their own even as he differed from them.
Still, the record begs to be set straight for posterity. Beltran did not belong to the ruling political clique which made the Philippines slide into having the distinction of being one of the most corrupt countries in the world. He did not belong to the big capitalists who refuse their workers the basic right of getting a decent wage. He did not belong to the big landlords who dominate the House of Representatives. He belonged, first and last, to the people -– the toiling masses from whom he sprang and for whom he fought all his life.
By this, he was a real people’s statesman.
--
(Alexander Martin Remollino is a senior writer for the online news weekly Bulatlat -– www.bulatlat.com. He is also associate editor and columnist for the opinion website Tinig.com. He is a member of the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines, and was active in the Media for Peace campaign. ©Copyright Alexander Martin Remollino)
Thursday, May 22, 2008
HUWAG MONG ISIPING ANG IYONG PAGYAO'Y DI PAGLISAN NG ISANG BAYANI
Alexander Martin Remollino
Maramot sa liwanag ang araw
at siya'y nagtatago sa likod ng mga abuhing ulap
nang ikaw ay iwan ng huli mong hininga.
Hindi ka nasawi sa larangan,
di-gaya ng siya mong nais.
Ngunit huwag mo sanang isiping ang iyong pagyao
ay hindi paglisan ng isang bayani,
sapagkat hanggang sa huli mong hininga,
may ligtas na pahingahan sa iyong puso't isip
silang nagpapagal
upang bigyan ang bansa't ang buong daigdig
ng bubong na masisilungan, kalasag
laban sa dahas ng unos at lupit ng araw.
Hanggang sa kahuli-hulihang sandali,
ang bawat tibok ng iyong puso ay laan
sa kanilang nagbabaon ng mga pako sa kahoy at kongkreto
upang itindig sa lupa ang mga tahanan.
Ikaw ay bayani,
kaya't nauukol na mabuhay nang walang hanggan
sa pambansang alaala
upang maging tanglaw sa umagang makulimlim
at sa gabing walang buwan at bituin.
Alexander Martin Remollino
Sa alaala ni Crispin "Ka Bel" Beltran, lider-manggagawa, 1933-2008
Maramot sa liwanag ang araw
at siya'y nagtatago sa likod ng mga abuhing ulap
nang ikaw ay iwan ng huli mong hininga.
Hindi ka nasawi sa larangan,
di-gaya ng siya mong nais.
Ngunit huwag mo sanang isiping ang iyong pagyao
ay hindi paglisan ng isang bayani,
sapagkat hanggang sa huli mong hininga,
may ligtas na pahingahan sa iyong puso't isip
silang nagpapagal
upang bigyan ang bansa't ang buong daigdig
ng bubong na masisilungan, kalasag
laban sa dahas ng unos at lupit ng araw.
Hanggang sa kahuli-hulihang sandali,
ang bawat tibok ng iyong puso ay laan
sa kanilang nagbabaon ng mga pako sa kahoy at kongkreto
upang itindig sa lupa ang mga tahanan.
Ikaw ay bayani,
kaya't nauukol na mabuhay nang walang hanggan
sa pambansang alaala
upang maging tanglaw sa umagang makulimlim
at sa gabing walang buwan at bituin.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
REPS OF AID DONOR COUNTRIES, 13 OTHERS QUESTION RP RIGHTS RECORD IN GENEVA
Representatives of 17 countries raised questions on the Philippine human rights record as Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita delivered the government’s presentation before the 47-member UNHRC.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 10, April 13-19, 2008
Representatives of 17 countries –- including four of the country’s main aid donors -– raised questions on the Philippine government’s human rights record in Geneva, Switzerland on April 11 as Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, who also chairs the Presidential Human Rights Committee (PHRC), led a 44-man delegation in delivering a presentation on the human rights situation in the Philippines before the 47-member United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
Ermita delivered his presentation during the deliberations of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on the Philippines.
The UPR is a new mechanism that was established under General Assembly Resolution 60/251, which established the UNHRC on March 15, 2006. The said resolution provides that the UNHRC shall “undertake a universal periodic review, based on objective and reliable information, of the fulfillment by each State of its human rights obligations and commitments in a manner which ensures universality of coverage and equal treatment with respect to all States; the review shall be a cooperative mechanism, based on an interactive dialogue, with the full involvement of the country concerned and with consideration given to its capacity-building needs; such a mechanism shall complement and not duplicate the work of treaty bodies...”
Ermita drew the material for his 38-minute presentation from the Philippine National Report (PNR) submitted to the UNHRC.
The PNR emphasizes the creation of the Commission of Human Rights under the 1987 Philippine Constitution, which Ermita noted antedates the Paris Principles on Human Rights. Ermita also stressed the creation of the Office of the Ombudsman, also under the 1987 Constitution, which is tasked to investigate high government officials. He noted that both chambers of Congress have Committees on Human Rights; and that the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) all have Human Rights Offices.
Ermita also talked about the existence of inter-agency councils tackling various human rights issues. He was referring to agencies like the Inter-agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT), Inter-agency Council on Violence Against Women and Children (IAC-VAWC), Inter-agency Council on Children Involved in Armed Conflict (IAC-CIAC) and the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Council (JJWC).
“The Philippine report, presented by no less than Secretary Ermita with his extraordinarily large contingent of bureaucrats flown in from Manila, was a self-serving, selective and totally one-sided depiction of the Philippine human rights situation,” said Bayan Muna (People First) Rep. Teddy Casiño in a statement sent to media.
Casiño is a member of the six-man Philippine UPR Watch delegation observing the proceedings in Geneva –- together with Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights) secretary-general Marie Hilao-Enriquez; National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) general secretary Fr. Rex Reyes; Jonathan Sta. Rosa, brother of slain Methodist pastor Isaias Sta. Rosa; International Association of People’s Lawyers (IAPL) president Edre Olalia; and Dr. Edita Burgos, mother of missing activist Jonas Burgos.
Representatives of 17 states – France, Norway, Slovenia, Japan, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Canada, Latvia, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Algeria, North Korea, Australia, Switzerland, Netherlands, Mexico, and the U.S. – questioned the 44-man team led by Ermita on the issues of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.
“This sizable number of states sends a strong message that the GRP human rights record is both in the microscope and within the radar of the international community,” Olalia said in a message received by Bulatlat.
Four of these states –- Japan, Canada, Australia, and the U.S. -– are among the Philippines’ major aid donors, based on data from the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID). Also identified by AusAID as major aid donors to the Philippines are the European Union and Germany.
The questions particularly focused on the recommendations of UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions Philip Alston, who went on a mission to the Philippines in late 2007 to investigate extrajudicial killings and came up with a report specifically pointing to the military’s involvement in these. “In some parts of the country, the armed forces have followed a deliberate strategy of systematically hunting down the leaders of leftist organizations,” Alston, who is also a professor at New York University (NYU), said.
Karapatan has documented 902 cases of extrajudicial killings and 180 enforced disappearances from January 2001 -– when President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was catapulted to power through a popular uprising –- to March 2008.
“Canada is encouraged that the Philippine authorities have expressed their commitment to end extrajudicial killings, but remains concerned that there may have been few convictions,” Canada’s Terry Cormier said.
“What is the Philippine government doing to address extrajudicial killings and ensure the prosecution and conviction of perpetrators?” asked Anna Chambers of the U.S. “How is the Philippine government ensuring human rights compliance among the police and security forces?”
Australia’s Jihan Mirza asked for specific updates on the Philippine government’s compliance with Alston’s recommendations.
The Ermita-led delegation was also questioned on the rights of migrant workers, women and children; and the Philippine government’s non-signing of international instruments against torture and enforced disappearances.
In a press statement, the members of the Philippine UPR Watch delegation said of Ermita’s presentation:
“His statement that ‘there is an open and vibrant democracy in the Philippines’ and that the government is “a human rights defender” is the height of distortion and sends a chilling indication that impunity will continue to be the policy of the Arroyo regime.
“Ermita’s statements were a callous disregard to the fact that more than a dozen countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, took the Philippine government to task for its failure to address the extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, especially in the prosecution of perpetrators. His statements ignored the fact that several countries also scored the Philippine government for its failure to address equally important issues such as the protection of migrant workers, the trafficking of women and children, and corruption. If the Philippine National Report was that good, the Philippines should be a paradise, whose people need not line up for rice, seek jobs abroad and would not be named one of the most corrupt countries in Asia. If the Report was that honest, countries would not have raised questions on the foregoing which are the core issues surrounding human rights violations in the Philippines.” Bulatlat
Representatives of 17 countries raised questions on the Philippine human rights record as Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita delivered the government’s presentation before the 47-member UNHRC.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 10, April 13-19, 2008
Representatives of 17 countries –- including four of the country’s main aid donors -– raised questions on the Philippine government’s human rights record in Geneva, Switzerland on April 11 as Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, who also chairs the Presidential Human Rights Committee (PHRC), led a 44-man delegation in delivering a presentation on the human rights situation in the Philippines before the 47-member United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
Ermita delivered his presentation during the deliberations of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on the Philippines.
The UPR is a new mechanism that was established under General Assembly Resolution 60/251, which established the UNHRC on March 15, 2006. The said resolution provides that the UNHRC shall “undertake a universal periodic review, based on objective and reliable information, of the fulfillment by each State of its human rights obligations and commitments in a manner which ensures universality of coverage and equal treatment with respect to all States; the review shall be a cooperative mechanism, based on an interactive dialogue, with the full involvement of the country concerned and with consideration given to its capacity-building needs; such a mechanism shall complement and not duplicate the work of treaty bodies...”
Ermita drew the material for his 38-minute presentation from the Philippine National Report (PNR) submitted to the UNHRC.
The PNR emphasizes the creation of the Commission of Human Rights under the 1987 Philippine Constitution, which Ermita noted antedates the Paris Principles on Human Rights. Ermita also stressed the creation of the Office of the Ombudsman, also under the 1987 Constitution, which is tasked to investigate high government officials. He noted that both chambers of Congress have Committees on Human Rights; and that the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) all have Human Rights Offices.
Ermita also talked about the existence of inter-agency councils tackling various human rights issues. He was referring to agencies like the Inter-agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT), Inter-agency Council on Violence Against Women and Children (IAC-VAWC), Inter-agency Council on Children Involved in Armed Conflict (IAC-CIAC) and the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Council (JJWC).
“The Philippine report, presented by no less than Secretary Ermita with his extraordinarily large contingent of bureaucrats flown in from Manila, was a self-serving, selective and totally one-sided depiction of the Philippine human rights situation,” said Bayan Muna (People First) Rep. Teddy Casiño in a statement sent to media.
Casiño is a member of the six-man Philippine UPR Watch delegation observing the proceedings in Geneva –- together with Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights) secretary-general Marie Hilao-Enriquez; National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) general secretary Fr. Rex Reyes; Jonathan Sta. Rosa, brother of slain Methodist pastor Isaias Sta. Rosa; International Association of People’s Lawyers (IAPL) president Edre Olalia; and Dr. Edita Burgos, mother of missing activist Jonas Burgos.
Representatives of 17 states – France, Norway, Slovenia, Japan, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Canada, Latvia, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Algeria, North Korea, Australia, Switzerland, Netherlands, Mexico, and the U.S. – questioned the 44-man team led by Ermita on the issues of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.
“This sizable number of states sends a strong message that the GRP human rights record is both in the microscope and within the radar of the international community,” Olalia said in a message received by Bulatlat.
Four of these states –- Japan, Canada, Australia, and the U.S. -– are among the Philippines’ major aid donors, based on data from the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID). Also identified by AusAID as major aid donors to the Philippines are the European Union and Germany.
The questions particularly focused on the recommendations of UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions Philip Alston, who went on a mission to the Philippines in late 2007 to investigate extrajudicial killings and came up with a report specifically pointing to the military’s involvement in these. “In some parts of the country, the armed forces have followed a deliberate strategy of systematically hunting down the leaders of leftist organizations,” Alston, who is also a professor at New York University (NYU), said.
Karapatan has documented 902 cases of extrajudicial killings and 180 enforced disappearances from January 2001 -– when President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was catapulted to power through a popular uprising –- to March 2008.
“Canada is encouraged that the Philippine authorities have expressed their commitment to end extrajudicial killings, but remains concerned that there may have been few convictions,” Canada’s Terry Cormier said.
“What is the Philippine government doing to address extrajudicial killings and ensure the prosecution and conviction of perpetrators?” asked Anna Chambers of the U.S. “How is the Philippine government ensuring human rights compliance among the police and security forces?”
Australia’s Jihan Mirza asked for specific updates on the Philippine government’s compliance with Alston’s recommendations.
The Ermita-led delegation was also questioned on the rights of migrant workers, women and children; and the Philippine government’s non-signing of international instruments against torture and enforced disappearances.
In a press statement, the members of the Philippine UPR Watch delegation said of Ermita’s presentation:
“His statement that ‘there is an open and vibrant democracy in the Philippines’ and that the government is “a human rights defender” is the height of distortion and sends a chilling indication that impunity will continue to be the policy of the Arroyo regime.
“Ermita’s statements were a callous disregard to the fact that more than a dozen countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, took the Philippine government to task for its failure to address the extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, especially in the prosecution of perpetrators. His statements ignored the fact that several countries also scored the Philippine government for its failure to address equally important issues such as the protection of migrant workers, the trafficking of women and children, and corruption. If the Philippine National Report was that good, the Philippines should be a paradise, whose people need not line up for rice, seek jobs abroad and would not be named one of the most corrupt countries in Asia. If the Report was that honest, countries would not have raised questions on the foregoing which are the core issues surrounding human rights violations in the Philippines.” Bulatlat
Sunday, April 06, 2008
NEW WATCHDOG CALLS FOR TERMINATION OF RP MEMBERSHIP IN UN RIGHTS BODY
A new coalition formed to observe the upcoming Universal Periodic Review (UPR) deliberation on the Philippines is calling for the termination or suspension of the country’s membership in the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 9, April 6-12, 2008
A new coalition formed to observe the upcoming Universal Periodic Review (UPR) deliberation on the Philippines is calling for the termination or suspension of the country’s membership in the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
At the very least, the Philippine UPR Watch –- which is sending to Geneva a six-member delegation composed of National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) general secretary Fr. Rex Reyes; Bayan Muna (People First) Rep. Teddy Casiño; Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights) secretary-general Marie Hilao-Enriquez; International Association of People’s Lawyers (IAPL) president Edre Olalia; Jonathan Sta. Rosa, brother of slain Methodist pastor Isaias Sta Rosa; and Dr. Edita Burgos, mother of missing activist Jonas Burgos –- is urging the UNHRC to issue a “subtle yet diplomatic” critique on the Philippine government.
The UPR is a new mechanism that was established under General Assembly Resolution 60/251, which established the UNHRC on March 15, 2006. The said resolution provides that the UNHRC shall “undertake a universal periodic review, based on objective and reliable information, of the fulfillment by each State of its human rights obligations and commitments in a manner which ensures universality of coverage and equal treatment with respect to all States; the review shall be a cooperative mechanism, based on an interactive dialogue, with the full involvement of the country concerned and with consideration given to its capacity-building needs; such a mechanism shall complement and not duplicate the work of treaty bodies...”
The 47-member UNHRC is slated to hold its UPR deliberation on the Philippines this coming April 11.
Already, the Arroyo government’s preparations for the defense of its human rights record in Geneva –- where the UNHRC is based -– are in full swing. In fact, it had reportedly sent representatives to Geneva as early as last February. Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita himself -– who also chairs the Presidential Human Rights Committee (PHRC) -– is set to head a 44-member Philippine government delegation to Geneva.
In an e-mail interview with Bulatlat, Olalia said the Philippine government’s sending a 44-man team to defend its human rights record reflects an attempt to “hoodwink the international community” and cover up its “dirty” human rights record.
“They should not pollute the clean air and surroundings and sully the elegant and imposing UN halls and buildings here in Geneva with their pack of lies and hypocrisy,” Olalia said. “Geneva is too tranquil and idyllic for them to send this big roving band. General Ermita leading the contingent with almost the same number of members as the country-members of the UNHRC is the ultimate insult to the victims of the horrors of the government's dirty war where he is a leading player.”
Civil and political rights
In the Philippine National Report submitted to the UPR, the Arroyo administration states that the government “has taken firm measures” to address the issues of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. This is among the claims which the Arroyo administration intends to put forward as proof of its supposed compliance with its obligations in the area of civil and political rights.
It cites among other supposed achievements the creation of the Melo Commission to investigate extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. Measures implemented by the Arroyo administration supposedly in response to the Melo Commission’s recommendations are cited as follows:
· The President issued A.O. 181 Creating a Task Force on Extrajudicial Killings, a special team of prosecutors from the DoJ (Department of Justice);
· Issuance of Administrative Order No. 181 (July 2007) strengthening the coordination between the National Prosecution Service and other concerned agencies of government for the successful investigation and prosecution of political and media killings;
· In October 2007, the President of the Philippines ordered the PNP and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to take active steps to prevent human rights violations by men in uniform. This includes instructions and training designed to reiterate to all PNP and AFP personnel that human rights abuses will not be tolerated;
· The President issued A.O. 211 creating a multi-agency Task Force against Political Violence, Task Force 211(November 2007) to increase coordination between the Department of Justice, the Department of National Defense, the Presidential Human Rights Committee, investigative and national security agencies, and civil society for speedier solutions to such violence.
“This is hogwash,” Olalia said when asked to comment. “The facts speak for themselves. No conviction involving any military or security forces credibly implicated. The killings and disappearances continue. Where are our colleagues, clients, friends, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters who have been taken away?”
Karapatan has documented 902 cases of extrajudicial killings and 180 enforced disappearances from January 2001 –- when President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was catapulted to power through a popular uprising -– to March 2008.
UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions Philip Alston went on a mission to investigate extrajudicial killings in the Philippines late last year, and came up with a report specifically pointing to the military’s involvement in these. “In some parts of the country, the armed forces have followed a deliberate strategy of systematically hunting down the leaders of leftist organizations,” Alston, who is also a professor at New York University (NYU), said.
The issues of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances have brought the Arroyo administration criticisms not only from local groups but also from international organizations – among them the World Council of Churches (WCC), Amnesty International, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), the Uniting Church in Australia, and Human Rights Watch.
In its submission on the Philippines to the UPR, Amnesty International aired concern on the non-conviction of state forces involved in extrajudicial killings.
“Amnesty International is concerned that the failure to deliver justice to the victims of such killings reflects a reluctance on the part of the government to fulfill its obligation under national and international law to protect the right to life of every individual within its jurisdiction,” the Amnesty International document submitted to the UPR reads. “The organization is also concerned that these killings have played a major role in the break-down of the protracted peace process and an accompanying human rights agreement between the government and the National Democratic Front (which represents the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army).”
The London-based Nobel Prize-winning organization cited the Summit on Political Killings and Enforced Disappearances initiated by the Supreme Court last year, as well as the promulgation of the Rule on the Writ of Amparo.
But Amnesty International also voiced fears that the imposition of Administrative Order No. 197, which urges “legislation for safeguards against disclosure of military secrets and undue interference in military operations inimical to national security,” endangers the implementation of the writ of amparo. “This may be an attempt by the government to counter amparo writs by invoking national security or confidentiality of information,” Amnesty International stated.
Economic rights
In the area of economic rights, among the points emphasized in the PNR is that the Philippines has a “comparatively respectable” Gini coefficient, or Inequality of Income Index, compared with other countries in the “developing” world.
“That is ridiculous,” Olalia said. “It is like saying that we are lucky to be less miserable, despondent and hungry even if a few of our own countrymen are into ostentatious living because of massive graft and corruption, anti-people policies, and serving as willing slaves to foreign greedy interests.”
Based on the UN’s Human Development Report 2007/2008, the Philippines has a Gini coefficient of 44.5 –- with 0 representing absolute equality and 100 representing absolute inequality. This was cited in the PNR.
Among the 177 countries ranked in the Human Development Report 2007/2008, there are only 37 countries with higher Gini coefficients, meaning having more inequality, than the Philippines: Argentina, Panama, Chile, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama, Malaysia, Venezuela, Colombia, Dominican Republic, China, Peru, Ecuador, Paraguay, Jamaica, Honduras, Bolivia, Guatemala, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland, Nepal, Madagascar, Papua New Guinea, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Togo, Uganda, Cote d'loivre, Central African Republic, Mozambique, Niger, Guinea-Bissau, and Sierra Leone.
Arroyo has made much of the economic growth posted by the country under her administration. In a speech on Jan. 11, she said:
“Today, the Philippines is on a path to permanent economic growth and stability. We’ve created seven million new jobs in seven years... We’ve achieved 28 consecutive quarters of economic growth in the last seven years. And that’s something that even our neighbors cannot say. There were times during this 28 quarters that the… Singapore for instance, experienced negative growth and many of our neighbors and even the United States, there were quarters when they experienced negative growth.
“And in the last, in the three quarters of 2007 for which we have had our accounting completed, our economy rose 7.3 percent and this is the fastest growth in more than a decade, in a very, very long time.”
This economic growth, however, has been criticized by no less than the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as “among the most inequitable” in Southeast Asia. The ADB also noted that the Philippines has one of the highest Gini coefficients in Southeast Asia.
The ADB’s findings on inequality of income distribution are bolstered by data recently released by the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB), which show that the number of poor Filipinos increased by 3.8 million from 2003 to 2006. Even with its low poverty threshold of P41.25 ($0.988 at an exchange rate of $1:P41.76) for each individual Filipino –- which is much lower than the living wage estimates of the National Wages and Productivity Commission (NWPC) –- the rise in poverty rates from 2003 to 2006 is visible.
Based on February 2008 data from the NWPC, the national average family living wage stands at P767 ($18.37) a day.
The highest regional minimum wage at present is P362 ($8.67) for the National Capital Region (NCR), which has a regional daily family living wage of P853 ($20.43). The region with the lowest minimum wage rate is the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), with only P200 ($4.79) even as it has a regional daily family living wage of P1,185 ($28.38). Bulatlat
A new coalition formed to observe the upcoming Universal Periodic Review (UPR) deliberation on the Philippines is calling for the termination or suspension of the country’s membership in the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 9, April 6-12, 2008
A new coalition formed to observe the upcoming Universal Periodic Review (UPR) deliberation on the Philippines is calling for the termination or suspension of the country’s membership in the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
At the very least, the Philippine UPR Watch –- which is sending to Geneva a six-member delegation composed of National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) general secretary Fr. Rex Reyes; Bayan Muna (People First) Rep. Teddy Casiño; Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights) secretary-general Marie Hilao-Enriquez; International Association of People’s Lawyers (IAPL) president Edre Olalia; Jonathan Sta. Rosa, brother of slain Methodist pastor Isaias Sta Rosa; and Dr. Edita Burgos, mother of missing activist Jonas Burgos –- is urging the UNHRC to issue a “subtle yet diplomatic” critique on the Philippine government.
The UPR is a new mechanism that was established under General Assembly Resolution 60/251, which established the UNHRC on March 15, 2006. The said resolution provides that the UNHRC shall “undertake a universal periodic review, based on objective and reliable information, of the fulfillment by each State of its human rights obligations and commitments in a manner which ensures universality of coverage and equal treatment with respect to all States; the review shall be a cooperative mechanism, based on an interactive dialogue, with the full involvement of the country concerned and with consideration given to its capacity-building needs; such a mechanism shall complement and not duplicate the work of treaty bodies...”
The 47-member UNHRC is slated to hold its UPR deliberation on the Philippines this coming April 11.
Already, the Arroyo government’s preparations for the defense of its human rights record in Geneva –- where the UNHRC is based -– are in full swing. In fact, it had reportedly sent representatives to Geneva as early as last February. Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita himself -– who also chairs the Presidential Human Rights Committee (PHRC) -– is set to head a 44-member Philippine government delegation to Geneva.
In an e-mail interview with Bulatlat, Olalia said the Philippine government’s sending a 44-man team to defend its human rights record reflects an attempt to “hoodwink the international community” and cover up its “dirty” human rights record.
“They should not pollute the clean air and surroundings and sully the elegant and imposing UN halls and buildings here in Geneva with their pack of lies and hypocrisy,” Olalia said. “Geneva is too tranquil and idyllic for them to send this big roving band. General Ermita leading the contingent with almost the same number of members as the country-members of the UNHRC is the ultimate insult to the victims of the horrors of the government's dirty war where he is a leading player.”
Civil and political rights
In the Philippine National Report submitted to the UPR, the Arroyo administration states that the government “has taken firm measures” to address the issues of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. This is among the claims which the Arroyo administration intends to put forward as proof of its supposed compliance with its obligations in the area of civil and political rights.
It cites among other supposed achievements the creation of the Melo Commission to investigate extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. Measures implemented by the Arroyo administration supposedly in response to the Melo Commission’s recommendations are cited as follows:
· The President issued A.O. 181 Creating a Task Force on Extrajudicial Killings, a special team of prosecutors from the DoJ (Department of Justice);
· Issuance of Administrative Order No. 181 (July 2007) strengthening the coordination between the National Prosecution Service and other concerned agencies of government for the successful investigation and prosecution of political and media killings;
· In October 2007, the President of the Philippines ordered the PNP and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to take active steps to prevent human rights violations by men in uniform. This includes instructions and training designed to reiterate to all PNP and AFP personnel that human rights abuses will not be tolerated;
· The President issued A.O. 211 creating a multi-agency Task Force against Political Violence, Task Force 211(November 2007) to increase coordination between the Department of Justice, the Department of National Defense, the Presidential Human Rights Committee, investigative and national security agencies, and civil society for speedier solutions to such violence.
“This is hogwash,” Olalia said when asked to comment. “The facts speak for themselves. No conviction involving any military or security forces credibly implicated. The killings and disappearances continue. Where are our colleagues, clients, friends, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters who have been taken away?”
Karapatan has documented 902 cases of extrajudicial killings and 180 enforced disappearances from January 2001 –- when President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was catapulted to power through a popular uprising -– to March 2008.
UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions Philip Alston went on a mission to investigate extrajudicial killings in the Philippines late last year, and came up with a report specifically pointing to the military’s involvement in these. “In some parts of the country, the armed forces have followed a deliberate strategy of systematically hunting down the leaders of leftist organizations,” Alston, who is also a professor at New York University (NYU), said.
The issues of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances have brought the Arroyo administration criticisms not only from local groups but also from international organizations – among them the World Council of Churches (WCC), Amnesty International, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), the Uniting Church in Australia, and Human Rights Watch.
In its submission on the Philippines to the UPR, Amnesty International aired concern on the non-conviction of state forces involved in extrajudicial killings.
“Amnesty International is concerned that the failure to deliver justice to the victims of such killings reflects a reluctance on the part of the government to fulfill its obligation under national and international law to protect the right to life of every individual within its jurisdiction,” the Amnesty International document submitted to the UPR reads. “The organization is also concerned that these killings have played a major role in the break-down of the protracted peace process and an accompanying human rights agreement between the government and the National Democratic Front (which represents the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army).”
The London-based Nobel Prize-winning organization cited the Summit on Political Killings and Enforced Disappearances initiated by the Supreme Court last year, as well as the promulgation of the Rule on the Writ of Amparo.
But Amnesty International also voiced fears that the imposition of Administrative Order No. 197, which urges “legislation for safeguards against disclosure of military secrets and undue interference in military operations inimical to national security,” endangers the implementation of the writ of amparo. “This may be an attempt by the government to counter amparo writs by invoking national security or confidentiality of information,” Amnesty International stated.
Economic rights
In the area of economic rights, among the points emphasized in the PNR is that the Philippines has a “comparatively respectable” Gini coefficient, or Inequality of Income Index, compared with other countries in the “developing” world.
“That is ridiculous,” Olalia said. “It is like saying that we are lucky to be less miserable, despondent and hungry even if a few of our own countrymen are into ostentatious living because of massive graft and corruption, anti-people policies, and serving as willing slaves to foreign greedy interests.”
Based on the UN’s Human Development Report 2007/2008, the Philippines has a Gini coefficient of 44.5 –- with 0 representing absolute equality and 100 representing absolute inequality. This was cited in the PNR.
Among the 177 countries ranked in the Human Development Report 2007/2008, there are only 37 countries with higher Gini coefficients, meaning having more inequality, than the Philippines: Argentina, Panama, Chile, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama, Malaysia, Venezuela, Colombia, Dominican Republic, China, Peru, Ecuador, Paraguay, Jamaica, Honduras, Bolivia, Guatemala, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland, Nepal, Madagascar, Papua New Guinea, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Togo, Uganda, Cote d'loivre, Central African Republic, Mozambique, Niger, Guinea-Bissau, and Sierra Leone.
Arroyo has made much of the economic growth posted by the country under her administration. In a speech on Jan. 11, she said:
“Today, the Philippines is on a path to permanent economic growth and stability. We’ve created seven million new jobs in seven years... We’ve achieved 28 consecutive quarters of economic growth in the last seven years. And that’s something that even our neighbors cannot say. There were times during this 28 quarters that the… Singapore for instance, experienced negative growth and many of our neighbors and even the United States, there were quarters when they experienced negative growth.
“And in the last, in the three quarters of 2007 for which we have had our accounting completed, our economy rose 7.3 percent and this is the fastest growth in more than a decade, in a very, very long time.”
This economic growth, however, has been criticized by no less than the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as “among the most inequitable” in Southeast Asia. The ADB also noted that the Philippines has one of the highest Gini coefficients in Southeast Asia.
The ADB’s findings on inequality of income distribution are bolstered by data recently released by the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB), which show that the number of poor Filipinos increased by 3.8 million from 2003 to 2006. Even with its low poverty threshold of P41.25 ($0.988 at an exchange rate of $1:P41.76) for each individual Filipino –- which is much lower than the living wage estimates of the National Wages and Productivity Commission (NWPC) –- the rise in poverty rates from 2003 to 2006 is visible.
Based on February 2008 data from the NWPC, the national average family living wage stands at P767 ($18.37) a day.
The highest regional minimum wage at present is P362 ($8.67) for the National Capital Region (NCR), which has a regional daily family living wage of P853 ($20.43). The region with the lowest minimum wage rate is the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), with only P200 ($4.79) even as it has a regional daily family living wage of P1,185 ($28.38). Bulatlat
Thursday, April 03, 2008
DISGUISING THEMSELVES
Alexander Martin Remollino
Guilt and shame --
particularly the types that tower --
are virtuosos at coming up with ways
to conceal their identities.
So a conversation about how visits
to certain friends of yours languishing in jail
are becoming rare as cases speedily tried
could jump to what is labeled
"the primary task of those behind bars"
without you knowing why or how.
Such things do take place
without bothering to explain themselves,
because guilt and shame --
especially of the colossal kind --
are geniuses at coming up with ways
to disguise themselves.
Alexander Martin Remollino
Guilt and shame --
particularly the types that tower --
are virtuosos at coming up with ways
to conceal their identities.
So a conversation about how visits
to certain friends of yours languishing in jail
are becoming rare as cases speedily tried
could jump to what is labeled
"the primary task of those behind bars"
without you knowing why or how.
Such things do take place
without bothering to explain themselves,
because guilt and shame --
especially of the colossal kind --
are geniuses at coming up with ways
to disguise themselves.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
GOV'T, AFP CLAIMS OF NPA WEAKENING ARE LIES -- KA ROGER
CPP spokesperson Gregorio “Ka Roger” Rosal has belied claims by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the AFP that the strength of the CPP's armed component, the NPA, has been halved in the last two years and that it will certainly face defeat by 2010.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 8, March 30-April 5, 2008
Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) spokesperson Gregorio “Ka Roger” Rosal has belied claims by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) that the strength of the CPP's armed component, the New People's Army (NPA), has been halved in the last two years and that it will certainly face defeat by 2010.
According to AFP chief of staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, the NPA's total strength is now down to some 5,000-6,000 fighters from more than 10,000 in 2005 and 2006.
The New People's Army (NPA), the armed component of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), turns 39 this March 29. Its founding took place just a little over three months after Jose Maria Sison led a group that broke away from the Lava leadership of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP) over ideological differences and reestablished the Party as the CPP.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the CPP quickly grew in strength and, together with the NPA, developed into one of the most effective organized forces fighting the U.S-Marcos dictatorship.
The NPA has weathered ideological rifts within the CPP, particularly in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and has remained a force to reckon with on the national scene.
But the NPA now faces claims by the Arroyo government and the AFP that it is a spent force and is pretty much on the way out.
In this interview with Bulatlat, Rosal provides the CPP-NPA's side on the issue.
Following is the full text of the interview:
What can you say about government claims that the AFP through its counter-“insurgency” campaign has been able to reduce the NPA’s total forces by half, and about President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s claim that the “insurgency” will be defeated by 2010?
They keep on prating that they are winning the war against the revolutionary forces. They claim that they have been cutting down the strength of the NPA to some 5,000 and that they have been destroying scores of revolutionary guerrilla fronts during the past few years. Again and again, as in many other things that the ruling regime has been confronted with, these are nothing but lies.
It is the demoralized fascist mercenary armed forces of the Arroyo regime that keeps suffering one defeat after another from the tactical offensives of the NPA. There have been over 500 major and minor tactical offensives from a year ago. Quite the opposite to what the Arroyo regime and the AFP are making it appear to be, the NPA is riding high with victories and continues to grow with additional recruits.
The Arroyo regime has inflicted severe sufferings on the people as a result of its gargantuan plunder and bribery, its treasonous sell out of the country’s patrimony, and its worsening of the people’s poverty, joblessness and hunger. There is also the brutality of the intensified fascist and terrorist acts of its armed forces. Because of all this the Arroyo regime has even become the Number One recruiter for the NPA.
The regime is covering up its failures against the revolutionary armed forces by carrying out an unprecedented spate of extrajudicial killings, abductions and other fascist terrorist acts against unarmed activist forces and suspected supporters in the legal arena.
How has the NPA survived and resisted the onslaughts of Oplan Bantay Laya (OBL) I and II?
OBL concentrates enemy forces and applies fascist deception and atrocities on the “centers of gravity” of a score of priority guerrilla fronts. However this leaves the enemy forces thinly dispersed in much greater scores of others. The NPA takes advantage of this and shifts its forces to these other fronts. It steps up its mass work and its military operations against the isolated and weak enemy forces there.
Like other earlier “counter-insurgency” strategies applied by the enemy, OBL cannot succeed against a revolutionary movement and its people’s army that is led by the Communist Party, fights for the people’s interest, closely links with the masses, pursues the strategic line of protracted people’s war, and applies guerrilla tactics to fight the momentarily bigger enemy.
Grasping fully the excellent current revolutionary situation, the revolutionary forces systematize and speed up the arousal, education, organizing and mobilizing of the mass of the Filipino people. The revolutionary forces do not just launch tactical offensives and other military work in expanding and consolidating its guerrilla fronts and mass base. Side by side with these, they also launch anti-feudal struggles and other political, socio-economic and cultural campaigns in the interest of the people.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) only admits falling short of its targets but in reality it has utterly failed to live up to any of its bragging. Arroyo’s OBL I failed miserably and its current second version is also failing.
In how many provinces, towns and villages does the NPA have a presence now?
The revolutionary forces are solidly entrenched in 9,000 barangays (villages) in more than 70 provinces and 800 municipalities, and are advancing day by day. The enemy forces haven’t been able to dismantle even a single one of the well over a hundred revolutionary guerrilla fronts. These are the solid building blocks of relatively more stable base areas.
How close is the NPA to its objective of moving to the middle phase of the strategic defensive?
Under the leadership of the CPP, the NPA and other revolutionary forces are forging ahead with the people’s war and other forms of struggle. Its present objective is to complete the middle stage of the strategic defensive and proceed to the strategic stalemate of the protracted people’s war towards the completion of the national democratic revolution and the start of the socialist revolution right after.
Is the NPA contributing to or in any way involved in the campaign to oust the Arroyo regime?
Alongside their waging of armed struggle, the revolutionary forces welcome and support the complementary people’s open and legal struggles and mass uprisings and the withdrawal of support of enlightened and disgruntled military and police forces. The brewing upsurge of mass protests and the imminent possibility of another people power uprising to topple the extremely hated and isolated Arroyo regime will be a big boost to the advance of the revolutionary struggle as it serves the attainment of immediate relief for the suffering Filipino people.
Yet Gloria Arroyo is blinded by her own lying, criminality and megalomania. She refuses to see the handwriting on the wall and tries to ignore the people’s seething anger and their resounding demand for the immediate ouster of her rotten reactionary, puppet regime. Bulatlat
CPP spokesperson Gregorio “Ka Roger” Rosal has belied claims by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the AFP that the strength of the CPP's armed component, the NPA, has been halved in the last two years and that it will certainly face defeat by 2010.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 8, March 30-April 5, 2008
Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) spokesperson Gregorio “Ka Roger” Rosal has belied claims by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) that the strength of the CPP's armed component, the New People's Army (NPA), has been halved in the last two years and that it will certainly face defeat by 2010.
According to AFP chief of staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, the NPA's total strength is now down to some 5,000-6,000 fighters from more than 10,000 in 2005 and 2006.
The New People's Army (NPA), the armed component of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), turns 39 this March 29. Its founding took place just a little over three months after Jose Maria Sison led a group that broke away from the Lava leadership of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP) over ideological differences and reestablished the Party as the CPP.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the CPP quickly grew in strength and, together with the NPA, developed into one of the most effective organized forces fighting the U.S-Marcos dictatorship.
The NPA has weathered ideological rifts within the CPP, particularly in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and has remained a force to reckon with on the national scene.
But the NPA now faces claims by the Arroyo government and the AFP that it is a spent force and is pretty much on the way out.
In this interview with Bulatlat, Rosal provides the CPP-NPA's side on the issue.
Following is the full text of the interview:
What can you say about government claims that the AFP through its counter-“insurgency” campaign has been able to reduce the NPA’s total forces by half, and about President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s claim that the “insurgency” will be defeated by 2010?
They keep on prating that they are winning the war against the revolutionary forces. They claim that they have been cutting down the strength of the NPA to some 5,000 and that they have been destroying scores of revolutionary guerrilla fronts during the past few years. Again and again, as in many other things that the ruling regime has been confronted with, these are nothing but lies.
It is the demoralized fascist mercenary armed forces of the Arroyo regime that keeps suffering one defeat after another from the tactical offensives of the NPA. There have been over 500 major and minor tactical offensives from a year ago. Quite the opposite to what the Arroyo regime and the AFP are making it appear to be, the NPA is riding high with victories and continues to grow with additional recruits.
The Arroyo regime has inflicted severe sufferings on the people as a result of its gargantuan plunder and bribery, its treasonous sell out of the country’s patrimony, and its worsening of the people’s poverty, joblessness and hunger. There is also the brutality of the intensified fascist and terrorist acts of its armed forces. Because of all this the Arroyo regime has even become the Number One recruiter for the NPA.
The regime is covering up its failures against the revolutionary armed forces by carrying out an unprecedented spate of extrajudicial killings, abductions and other fascist terrorist acts against unarmed activist forces and suspected supporters in the legal arena.
How has the NPA survived and resisted the onslaughts of Oplan Bantay Laya (OBL) I and II?
OBL concentrates enemy forces and applies fascist deception and atrocities on the “centers of gravity” of a score of priority guerrilla fronts. However this leaves the enemy forces thinly dispersed in much greater scores of others. The NPA takes advantage of this and shifts its forces to these other fronts. It steps up its mass work and its military operations against the isolated and weak enemy forces there.
Like other earlier “counter-insurgency” strategies applied by the enemy, OBL cannot succeed against a revolutionary movement and its people’s army that is led by the Communist Party, fights for the people’s interest, closely links with the masses, pursues the strategic line of protracted people’s war, and applies guerrilla tactics to fight the momentarily bigger enemy.
Grasping fully the excellent current revolutionary situation, the revolutionary forces systematize and speed up the arousal, education, organizing and mobilizing of the mass of the Filipino people. The revolutionary forces do not just launch tactical offensives and other military work in expanding and consolidating its guerrilla fronts and mass base. Side by side with these, they also launch anti-feudal struggles and other political, socio-economic and cultural campaigns in the interest of the people.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) only admits falling short of its targets but in reality it has utterly failed to live up to any of its bragging. Arroyo’s OBL I failed miserably and its current second version is also failing.
In how many provinces, towns and villages does the NPA have a presence now?
The revolutionary forces are solidly entrenched in 9,000 barangays (villages) in more than 70 provinces and 800 municipalities, and are advancing day by day. The enemy forces haven’t been able to dismantle even a single one of the well over a hundred revolutionary guerrilla fronts. These are the solid building blocks of relatively more stable base areas.
How close is the NPA to its objective of moving to the middle phase of the strategic defensive?
Under the leadership of the CPP, the NPA and other revolutionary forces are forging ahead with the people’s war and other forms of struggle. Its present objective is to complete the middle stage of the strategic defensive and proceed to the strategic stalemate of the protracted people’s war towards the completion of the national democratic revolution and the start of the socialist revolution right after.
Is the NPA contributing to or in any way involved in the campaign to oust the Arroyo regime?
Alongside their waging of armed struggle, the revolutionary forces welcome and support the complementary people’s open and legal struggles and mass uprisings and the withdrawal of support of enlightened and disgruntled military and police forces. The brewing upsurge of mass protests and the imminent possibility of another people power uprising to topple the extremely hated and isolated Arroyo regime will be a big boost to the advance of the revolutionary struggle as it serves the attainment of immediate relief for the suffering Filipino people.
Yet Gloria Arroyo is blinded by her own lying, criminality and megalomania. She refuses to see the handwriting on the wall and tries to ignore the people’s seething anger and their resounding demand for the immediate ouster of her rotten reactionary, puppet regime. Bulatlat
Sunday, March 30, 2008
KUNG BAKIT LAGING LUMANG BALITA ANG NAIBABAHAGI KO SA MGA MAKADADALAW NAMA'Y KUNG BAKIT HINDI DUMADALAW
Alexander Martin Remollino
Sa inyong katayuan ngayon,
usad-bato ang kalendaryo't mga orasan:
kahit na nagbabagu-bago ang araw at oras,
waring wala ring sandaling lumilipas.
Kaya't sa tuwing kukumustahin kayo sa akin
ng mga kasama't kaibigang
sa kung anumang kadahilanan
ay mapagpasya sa kanilang kawalan ng kapasyahang
dumalaw
ay laging lumang balita ang naitutugon ko:
"Buhay pa naman sila,
pero wala pa ring paggalaw
sa kanilang kaso."
Ganyan yata talaga ang karaniwang karanasan
ng mga nabibilanggo
sa bansa kung saan ang mga gulong ng hustisya
ay umiikot lamang nang mabilis
kapag may ginto sa timbangan.
Alexander Martin Remollino
Kina Axel Pinpin, Riel Custodio, Aristides Sarmiento, Enrico Ybañez, at Michael Masayes -- ang tinaguriang "Tagaytay 5"
Sa inyong katayuan ngayon,
usad-bato ang kalendaryo't mga orasan:
kahit na nagbabagu-bago ang araw at oras,
waring wala ring sandaling lumilipas.
Kaya't sa tuwing kukumustahin kayo sa akin
ng mga kasama't kaibigang
sa kung anumang kadahilanan
ay mapagpasya sa kanilang kawalan ng kapasyahang
dumalaw
ay laging lumang balita ang naitutugon ko:
"Buhay pa naman sila,
pero wala pa ring paggalaw
sa kanilang kaso."
Ganyan yata talaga ang karaniwang karanasan
ng mga nabibilanggo
sa bansa kung saan ang mga gulong ng hustisya
ay umiikot lamang nang mabilis
kapag may ginto sa timbangan.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
MGA DALIT SA PAGHAHANAP NG KATOTOHANAN
Alexander Martin Remollino
1.
Di bubukol kung di ukol.
Pero ang mga komisyon
Sa kontrata'y bumubukol
Sa bulsa ng mga baboy.
2.
Ang k'wagong nasa palasyo
Nang wala nating permiso --
Matakpan lang ang totoo,
Sarili ma'y niluluko.
3.
Itong si Gloria Arroyo
Ay walang gloryang totoo.
Isa s'yang bulaang tao:
Kapatid po ni Dorobo.
4.
O Banal na Espiritu,
Obispo namin ay hilo:
Sa pagtungong Paraiso,
Dinaana'y pa-Impyerno.
5.
Ang sa totoo'y magtakip,
Kapatid ng mang-uumit:
Di man siya ang nang-umit,
Kamay rin n'ya ay marungis.
Ang unang dalit ay kabilang sa mga nagwagi ng consolation prize sa ikalawang linggo (Marso 7-14, 2008) ng "Katext Mo sa Katotohanan," isang pampanulaang patimpalak ng Filipinas Institute for Translation, Inc. (FIT).
Alexander Martin Remollino
1.
Di bubukol kung di ukol.
Pero ang mga komisyon
Sa kontrata'y bumubukol
Sa bulsa ng mga baboy.
2.
Ang k'wagong nasa palasyo
Nang wala nating permiso --
Matakpan lang ang totoo,
Sarili ma'y niluluko.
3.
Itong si Gloria Arroyo
Ay walang gloryang totoo.
Isa s'yang bulaang tao:
Kapatid po ni Dorobo.
4.
O Banal na Espiritu,
Obispo namin ay hilo:
Sa pagtungong Paraiso,
Dinaana'y pa-Impyerno.
5.
Ang sa totoo'y magtakip,
Kapatid ng mang-uumit:
Di man siya ang nang-umit,
Kamay rin n'ya ay marungis.
Ang unang dalit ay kabilang sa mga nagwagi ng consolation prize sa ikalawang linggo (Marso 7-14, 2008) ng "Katext Mo sa Katotohanan," isang pampanulaang patimpalak ng Filipinas Institute for Translation, Inc. (FIT).
YOUTH, STUDENTS LEAD ANTI-ARROYO RALLY IN MANILA
That it was examination week in schools throughout the country did not deter youth and students from leading a March 14 rally at the Liwasang Bonifacio in Manila.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 7, March 16-29, 2008
That it was examination week in schools throughout the country did not deter youth and students from leading a March 14 rally at the Liwasang Bonifacio in Manila.
It was the last major demonstration against the Arroyo regime before the nation’s Christian faithful take a break for the Holy Week. It was also the third big anti-Arroyo rally in a month since former Philippine Forest Corporation president Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada came out with his exposés on the National Broadband Network (NBN) deal between the Philippine government and China’s ZTE Corporation –- for which he served as a technical consultant.
The NBN project is a $329-million contract to connect government agencies throughout the Philippines through the Internet.
Lozada revealed in Senate investigations that the NBN deal was overpriced by $130 million, and that it was “standard practice for government contracts” to be overpriced by 20 percent.
He also disclosed that presidential spouse Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo was involved in back channel negotiations on the NBN deal. He confirmed the involvement of former Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Benjamin Abalos in the contract, as well as his attempt to bribe Romulo Neri –- who was director-general of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) during negotiations on the project –- thus corroborating earlier allegations by businessman Jose “Joey” de Venecia III, son of ousted House Speaker Jose de Venecia, and Neri himself.
The younger De Venecia heads Amsterdam Holdings, Inc., which is one of the losing bidders in the NBN contract.
Lozada’s exposés came about a week after the elder De Venecia was ousted from the House speakership. The elder De Venecia is reported to have earned the ire of Malacañang for failing to stop his son from speaking out on the NBN deal.
Lozada’s revelations, together with previous attempts to silence him like his abduction allegedly by elements from the Presidential Security Group (PSG) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) with the assistance of airport security men upon his arrival from Hong Kong early last month, provoked public outrage and revived calls for Arroyo to resign from office.
United Opposition (UNO) spokesperson Adel Tamano, who is also the president of the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (PLM), appealed to the crowd for unity.
“The Arroyo administration is using the ‘divide and conquer’ tactic against us,” Tamano said. “The activists are pitted against the non-activists, EDSA I and EDSA II are pitted against EDSA III. This is not right. We have a common purpose, and that is to search for the truth.”
Lozada did not show up at the March 14 rally in Manila, as he was on a speaking tour in Iloilo.
But the younger De Venecia was there, echoing Joze Rizal’s description of the youth as the “hope of (the nation)” and urging them to continue fighting for truth. He also urged the Arroyo couple to “back off” from corruption and from lying to the Filipino people –- alluding to a supposed order to him by presidential spouse Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo to “back off” from the biddings on the NBN deal.
A highlight of the program was a skit performed by the University of the Philippines (UP) Repertory Company. Set in 2030, the skit depicted a girl’s travel back to the time of the Arroyo administration when, as one of the characters would say, “corruption and political killings were rife.” The main character was on a mission to get President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s mole, and her quest took her through several corruption scams involving the Arroyo administration –- including the construction of the President Diosdado Macapagal Avenue, which was overpriced by P1 billion and was one of the first corruption issues against the President.
Another highlight of the program was a performance by rapper Peter Park Her, whose song demanded that those involved in corruption be lined up at Rizal Park and shot -– in reference to the execution of Rizal, now the country’s national hero, in what was known as Bagumbayan in 1896.
Mary Grace Poe, daughter of the late actor Fernando Poe, Jr. who was Arroyo’s closest rival in the 2004 presidential elections, also spoke at the rally, urging the youth to think not only of their own futures but also the future of the nation.
Poe lost by 1.1 million votes to Arroyo in 2004 in an election marred by fraud, which repeatedly manifested itself in tampered election documents and discrepant poll figures.
The issue of fraud in the 2004 elections was revived in 2005, when presidential spokesperson Ignacio Bunye brought out into the open copies of the so-called “Hello Garci” tapes. These are a series of wiretapped and recorded conversations in which a woman with a voice similar to Arroyo’s is heard instructing an election official –- widely believed to be then Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano –- to rig the polls. The woman specifically instructs “Garci” to ensure a victory of “more than 1M” for her.
Before the youth-led program at the Liwasang Bonifacio, activists belonging to Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay) and Bagong Alyansang Makabayan-National Capital Region (Bayan-NCR) staged a “Kalbaryo ng Maralita” (Calvary of the Poor), a street-theater presentation depicting the sufferings of the Filipino masses using Christianity-based imagery.
At around 2 p.m. Bayan and the Promotion of Church People’s Response (PCPR) marched to the Liwasang Bonifacio for an interfaith activity officiated by Abp. Oscar Cruz and Bp. Teodoro Bacani, both of the Catholic Church; and several Protestant pastors.
After the interfaith activity, which included the release of doves and green balloons, there were several speeches by student leaders from different schools.
Former Vice President Teofisto Guingona, Jr. and Reps. Satur Ocampo of Bayan Muna (People First) and Liza Maza of the Gabriela Women’s Party (GWP) were in the rally, but did not speak on stage. Former Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) Commissioner Zosimo Paredes, who ran in the 2007 senatorial elections but lost, was also spotted in the rally.
The rally had a festive atmosphere, with performances by UP-based ethnic ensemble Kontra-Gapi and rock bands The Jerks, Republika de Lata, and Datu’s Tribe among others.
Rally organizers – mostly belonging to the Youth Act Now -– estimated the crowd size at its peak at 10,000. Police estimates yielded a figure of 6,000.
Aside from the “usual suspects” UP and the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), schools like the University of Asia and the Pacific, De La Salle University, Ateneo de Manila University, University of Santo Tomas (UST), PLM, and the Philippine School of Business Administration (PSBA) were well-represented in the rally. Bulatlat
That it was examination week in schools throughout the country did not deter youth and students from leading a March 14 rally at the Liwasang Bonifacio in Manila.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 7, March 16-29, 2008
That it was examination week in schools throughout the country did not deter youth and students from leading a March 14 rally at the Liwasang Bonifacio in Manila.
It was the last major demonstration against the Arroyo regime before the nation’s Christian faithful take a break for the Holy Week. It was also the third big anti-Arroyo rally in a month since former Philippine Forest Corporation president Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada came out with his exposés on the National Broadband Network (NBN) deal between the Philippine government and China’s ZTE Corporation –- for which he served as a technical consultant.
The NBN project is a $329-million contract to connect government agencies throughout the Philippines through the Internet.
Lozada revealed in Senate investigations that the NBN deal was overpriced by $130 million, and that it was “standard practice for government contracts” to be overpriced by 20 percent.
He also disclosed that presidential spouse Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo was involved in back channel negotiations on the NBN deal. He confirmed the involvement of former Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Benjamin Abalos in the contract, as well as his attempt to bribe Romulo Neri –- who was director-general of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) during negotiations on the project –- thus corroborating earlier allegations by businessman Jose “Joey” de Venecia III, son of ousted House Speaker Jose de Venecia, and Neri himself.
The younger De Venecia heads Amsterdam Holdings, Inc., which is one of the losing bidders in the NBN contract.
Lozada’s exposés came about a week after the elder De Venecia was ousted from the House speakership. The elder De Venecia is reported to have earned the ire of Malacañang for failing to stop his son from speaking out on the NBN deal.
Lozada’s revelations, together with previous attempts to silence him like his abduction allegedly by elements from the Presidential Security Group (PSG) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) with the assistance of airport security men upon his arrival from Hong Kong early last month, provoked public outrage and revived calls for Arroyo to resign from office.
United Opposition (UNO) spokesperson Adel Tamano, who is also the president of the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (PLM), appealed to the crowd for unity.
“The Arroyo administration is using the ‘divide and conquer’ tactic against us,” Tamano said. “The activists are pitted against the non-activists, EDSA I and EDSA II are pitted against EDSA III. This is not right. We have a common purpose, and that is to search for the truth.”
Lozada did not show up at the March 14 rally in Manila, as he was on a speaking tour in Iloilo.
But the younger De Venecia was there, echoing Joze Rizal’s description of the youth as the “hope of (the nation)” and urging them to continue fighting for truth. He also urged the Arroyo couple to “back off” from corruption and from lying to the Filipino people –- alluding to a supposed order to him by presidential spouse Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo to “back off” from the biddings on the NBN deal.
A highlight of the program was a skit performed by the University of the Philippines (UP) Repertory Company. Set in 2030, the skit depicted a girl’s travel back to the time of the Arroyo administration when, as one of the characters would say, “corruption and political killings were rife.” The main character was on a mission to get President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s mole, and her quest took her through several corruption scams involving the Arroyo administration –- including the construction of the President Diosdado Macapagal Avenue, which was overpriced by P1 billion and was one of the first corruption issues against the President.
Another highlight of the program was a performance by rapper Peter Park Her, whose song demanded that those involved in corruption be lined up at Rizal Park and shot -– in reference to the execution of Rizal, now the country’s national hero, in what was known as Bagumbayan in 1896.
Mary Grace Poe, daughter of the late actor Fernando Poe, Jr. who was Arroyo’s closest rival in the 2004 presidential elections, also spoke at the rally, urging the youth to think not only of their own futures but also the future of the nation.
Poe lost by 1.1 million votes to Arroyo in 2004 in an election marred by fraud, which repeatedly manifested itself in tampered election documents and discrepant poll figures.
The issue of fraud in the 2004 elections was revived in 2005, when presidential spokesperson Ignacio Bunye brought out into the open copies of the so-called “Hello Garci” tapes. These are a series of wiretapped and recorded conversations in which a woman with a voice similar to Arroyo’s is heard instructing an election official –- widely believed to be then Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano –- to rig the polls. The woman specifically instructs “Garci” to ensure a victory of “more than 1M” for her.
Before the youth-led program at the Liwasang Bonifacio, activists belonging to Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay) and Bagong Alyansang Makabayan-National Capital Region (Bayan-NCR) staged a “Kalbaryo ng Maralita” (Calvary of the Poor), a street-theater presentation depicting the sufferings of the Filipino masses using Christianity-based imagery.
At around 2 p.m. Bayan and the Promotion of Church People’s Response (PCPR) marched to the Liwasang Bonifacio for an interfaith activity officiated by Abp. Oscar Cruz and Bp. Teodoro Bacani, both of the Catholic Church; and several Protestant pastors.
After the interfaith activity, which included the release of doves and green balloons, there were several speeches by student leaders from different schools.
Former Vice President Teofisto Guingona, Jr. and Reps. Satur Ocampo of Bayan Muna (People First) and Liza Maza of the Gabriela Women’s Party (GWP) were in the rally, but did not speak on stage. Former Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) Commissioner Zosimo Paredes, who ran in the 2007 senatorial elections but lost, was also spotted in the rally.
The rally had a festive atmosphere, with performances by UP-based ethnic ensemble Kontra-Gapi and rock bands The Jerks, Republika de Lata, and Datu’s Tribe among others.
Rally organizers – mostly belonging to the Youth Act Now -– estimated the crowd size at its peak at 10,000. Police estimates yielded a figure of 6,000.
Aside from the “usual suspects” UP and the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), schools like the University of Asia and the Pacific, De La Salle University, Ateneo de Manila University, University of Santo Tomas (UST), PLM, and the Philippine School of Business Administration (PSBA) were well-represented in the rally. Bulatlat
Thursday, March 06, 2008
MABUBUHAY KA SA P41.25 SA ISANG ARAW, AYON SA NATIONAL STATISTICAL COORDINATION BOARD
Alexander Martin Remollino
Sampung pisong pisbol ang kainin sa almusal.
Sampung pisong pisbol ang kainin sa tanghalian.
Sampung pisong pisbol ang kainin sa hapunan.
Sa halagang P30, lubos nang matutugunan
ang pangangailangang kumain
nang tatlong beses sa isang araw.
Para naman sa "panulak,"
mabibili sa sampung piso
ang pinakamaliit na bote ng mineral water.
Matutong magtipid at kakasya sa maghapon
ang 350 ml na tubig.
'Yang matitirang P1.25 ay huwag balewalain:
kapag nagmarakulyo ang sikmura
at ayaw kang patulugin pagdating ng gabi --
lamang-tiyan din 'yan,
lamang-tiyan din 'yan.
Mababasa rin sa:
Kilometer 64
Tinig.com
Bulatlat
Alexander Martin Remollino
Sampung pisong pisbol ang kainin sa almusal.
Sampung pisong pisbol ang kainin sa tanghalian.
Sampung pisong pisbol ang kainin sa hapunan.
Sa halagang P30, lubos nang matutugunan
ang pangangailangang kumain
nang tatlong beses sa isang araw.
Para naman sa "panulak,"
mabibili sa sampung piso
ang pinakamaliit na bote ng mineral water.
Matutong magtipid at kakasya sa maghapon
ang 350 ml na tubig.
'Yang matitirang P1.25 ay huwag balewalain:
kapag nagmarakulyo ang sikmura
at ayaw kang patulugin pagdating ng gabi --
lamang-tiyan din 'yan,
lamang-tiyan din 'yan.
Mababasa rin sa:
Kilometer 64
Tinig.com
Bulatlat
Saturday, March 01, 2008
ISANG PAALAALA SA ATING LAHAT HINGGIL SA MGA GANITONG PANAHON
Alexander Martin Remollino
Mabuti pa raw ang kubong ang nakatira ay tao
Kaysa roon sa palasyong nakatira ay kuwago.
Ngayon, tayong taong laging nangahuhukot sa kubo
Ay nagtataboy ng k'wago mula roon sa palasyo.
Ngunit, hangga't sa 'ting bayan ay isang kaugalian
Ang pag-ayaw na lumingon sa ating pinanggalingan,
Tuluy-tuloy lamang tayong wala ring paroroonan --
Humakbang ma'y di aalis sa ating pinagsimulan.
Hangga't tayong mga tao ay hindi nangatututo,
Itong ating mga buhay ay hindi rin magbabago:
Tayong tao'y lagi't laging mangahuhukot sa kubo
At parati nang kuwago'ng malalagay sa palasyo.
Alexander Martin Remollino
Mabuti pa raw ang kubong ang nakatira ay tao
Kaysa roon sa palasyong nakatira ay kuwago.
Ngayon, tayong taong laging nangahuhukot sa kubo
Ay nagtataboy ng k'wago mula roon sa palasyo.
Ngunit, hangga't sa 'ting bayan ay isang kaugalian
Ang pag-ayaw na lumingon sa ating pinanggalingan,
Tuluy-tuloy lamang tayong wala ring paroroonan --
Humakbang ma'y di aalis sa ating pinagsimulan.
Hangga't tayong mga tao ay hindi nangatututo,
Itong ating mga buhay ay hindi rin magbabago:
Tayong tao'y lagi't laging mangahuhukot sa kubo
At parati nang kuwago'ng malalagay sa palasyo.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
NAPAKADALI ANG MAGSABING 'MAGHINTAY' KUNG...
Alexander Martin Remollino
Ngayong bumubulwak na muli ang mga panawagan para sa pagbabago sa pambansang liderato, kasunod ng mga pagbubunyag ni Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada hinggil sa mga anumalya sa kontratang National Broadband Network (NBN) sa pagitan ng gobyerno ng Pilipinas at ZTE Corp. ng Tsina, pati na sa ibang proyektong pinasukan ng pamahalaan gaya ng NorthRail at SouthRail, umeeksena rin ang ilang henyo’t nagsasabing dapat ay hintayin na lamang ng mga puwersang anti-administrasyon ang 2010 para sa pagkakataong mapalitan si Gng. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo — na diumano’y Pangulo ng Pilipinas.
Sa 2010 ang susunod na halalang pampanguluhan ng Pilipinas. Sapagkat diumano’y nakapagwagi na sa halalang pampanguluhan, ayon sa Saligang Batas ay hindi na maaaring maihalalal “na muli” si Arroyo — na ang kahina-hinalang “tagumpay” sa halalan ng 2004 ay ipinagbunyi ng gobyerno ng Estados Unidos — bilang Pangulo.
Ngunit may halos dalawang taon pa hanggang sa 2010, at sa halos dalawang taon ay napakaraming maaaring mangyari. Sa loob ng halos dalawang taon ay marami pang maanumalyang proyekto ang maaaring pasukin ng pamahalaan, malaki pa ang maaaring ilawak ng agwat ng halaga ng pamumuhay at ng kabuhayan ng nakararaming mamamayan, at marami pang paglabag sa karapatang pantao ang maaaring isagawa.
Pinatalsik si Joseph “Erap” Estrada noong 2001 sa isang pambansang pag-aaklas na sa kalakha’y laban sa katiwalian, upang pagkatapos ay palitan ni Arroyong ang panunungkula’y kinatampukan ng lalo’t lalong katiwalian — mula sa anumalya sa pagpapagawa ng President Diosdado Macapagal Avenue hanggang sa kagila-gilalas na mga kickback sa kontratang NBN. Sa ilalim ng rehimeng Arroyo nasaksihan ang mga antas ng kagutuman at karalitaan sa bansa na hindi nakita sa loob ng mahabang panahon, batay sa lahat ng kapani-paniwalang panlipunang sarbey (IBON Foundation, Social Weather Station, at Pulse Asia). Ang rehimeng ito’y nakapagtala rin ng mga paglabag sa karapatang pantao — mula sa mga ekstrahudisyal na pamamaslang at sapilitang pagkawala hanggang sa mga pagbibibilanggong pulitikal, mula sa marahas na pagtugon sa mga kilos-protesta hanggang sa pagbubusal sa pabatirang-madla — na ang dami’y hindi kayang pantayan ng alinmang rehimen, marahil, sa kasaysayan ng Pilipinas maliban sa kay Ferdinand Marcos (na malapit-lapit na nga nitong maungusan).
Napakadali ang magsabing “maghintay” para sa mga taong hindi nagtitiis na magpainiksiyon sa mga nars at duktor na gumagamit ng hiringgilyang naninilaw; o magklase sa damuhan, sa ilalim ng init ng araw, sapagkat ang salapi ng taumbayan na dapat sana’y inilalaan sa mga serbisyong panlipunan ay ipinapasok sa maanumalyang mga proyektong ang nakikinabang lamang ay iilang salanggapang na opisyal ng pamahalaan gaya ng mga Benjamin Abalos, at mga kamag-anak ng mga nasa kapangyarihan tulad ng mga Mike Arroyo.
Napakadali ang magsabing “maghintay” para sa mga taong nagtatampisaw sa salapi kahit na hindi igalaw ang mga daliri at hindi nagkakangkukuba sa pagtatrabaho sa mga pabrika’t opisina upang pagkatapos ng isang buong araw ng pagpapatulo ng pawis ay mag-uwi ng sahod na maaaring kitain sa loob lamang ng isang oras sa ibang bansa, o sa paggawa sa bukid upang pagkatapos ng bawat anihan ay maipagbili ang palay sa halagang kulang na pang-isang buwan ngunit kailangang papagkasyahin sa tatlong buwan.
Napakadali ang magsabing “maghintay” para sa mga taong walang kamag-anak, kaibigan o kakilala man lamang na kabilang sa mahigit na 900 na ngayong biktima ng ekstrahudisyal na pamamaslang at mahigit sa 180 biktima ng sapilitang pagkawala, o sa mahigit sa 200 bilanggong pulitikal — batay sa pinakahuling mga tala ng Karapatan — na kaya humantong sa gayon ay sapagkat nangahas na ipaglaban ang karapatan ng mga manggagawa sa nakabubuhay na sahod, ang karapatan ng mga magsasaka na pakinabangang lubos ang mga bunga ng lupang sinasaka, at ang karapatan ng mga mamamayan sa mga serbisyong tulad ng kalusugan at edukasyon — mga karapatang dapat ay tinatamasa ng lahat sa alinmang bansang tulad ng Pilipinas na namamaraling siya’y isang demokrasya.
Dahil sa ang alinmang pamahalaan ay lubhang nakapangyayari sa kalakhan ng buhay ng mga mamamayan, ang pag-iral nito ay dapat na nakabatay sa kapakanan ng tanang nasasakupan. Kung hindi ganito ang batayan ng pag-iral ng isang pamahalaan, karapatan ng mga mamamayan ang ito’y lansagin.
At sapagkat karapatan ito ng mga mamamayan, hindi nila kailangang maghintay ng pagkakataong gawin ito, kundi karapatan nilang likhain ang ganitong pagkakataon.
Hintayin ang 2010? Hayaan ang mga hunghang at hangal na maghintay kung siya nilang ibig.
Alexander Martin Remollino
Ngayong bumubulwak na muli ang mga panawagan para sa pagbabago sa pambansang liderato, kasunod ng mga pagbubunyag ni Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada hinggil sa mga anumalya sa kontratang National Broadband Network (NBN) sa pagitan ng gobyerno ng Pilipinas at ZTE Corp. ng Tsina, pati na sa ibang proyektong pinasukan ng pamahalaan gaya ng NorthRail at SouthRail, umeeksena rin ang ilang henyo’t nagsasabing dapat ay hintayin na lamang ng mga puwersang anti-administrasyon ang 2010 para sa pagkakataong mapalitan si Gng. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo — na diumano’y Pangulo ng Pilipinas.
Sa 2010 ang susunod na halalang pampanguluhan ng Pilipinas. Sapagkat diumano’y nakapagwagi na sa halalang pampanguluhan, ayon sa Saligang Batas ay hindi na maaaring maihalalal “na muli” si Arroyo — na ang kahina-hinalang “tagumpay” sa halalan ng 2004 ay ipinagbunyi ng gobyerno ng Estados Unidos — bilang Pangulo.
Ngunit may halos dalawang taon pa hanggang sa 2010, at sa halos dalawang taon ay napakaraming maaaring mangyari. Sa loob ng halos dalawang taon ay marami pang maanumalyang proyekto ang maaaring pasukin ng pamahalaan, malaki pa ang maaaring ilawak ng agwat ng halaga ng pamumuhay at ng kabuhayan ng nakararaming mamamayan, at marami pang paglabag sa karapatang pantao ang maaaring isagawa.
Pinatalsik si Joseph “Erap” Estrada noong 2001 sa isang pambansang pag-aaklas na sa kalakha’y laban sa katiwalian, upang pagkatapos ay palitan ni Arroyong ang panunungkula’y kinatampukan ng lalo’t lalong katiwalian — mula sa anumalya sa pagpapagawa ng President Diosdado Macapagal Avenue hanggang sa kagila-gilalas na mga kickback sa kontratang NBN. Sa ilalim ng rehimeng Arroyo nasaksihan ang mga antas ng kagutuman at karalitaan sa bansa na hindi nakita sa loob ng mahabang panahon, batay sa lahat ng kapani-paniwalang panlipunang sarbey (IBON Foundation, Social Weather Station, at Pulse Asia). Ang rehimeng ito’y nakapagtala rin ng mga paglabag sa karapatang pantao — mula sa mga ekstrahudisyal na pamamaslang at sapilitang pagkawala hanggang sa mga pagbibibilanggong pulitikal, mula sa marahas na pagtugon sa mga kilos-protesta hanggang sa pagbubusal sa pabatirang-madla — na ang dami’y hindi kayang pantayan ng alinmang rehimen, marahil, sa kasaysayan ng Pilipinas maliban sa kay Ferdinand Marcos (na malapit-lapit na nga nitong maungusan).
Napakadali ang magsabing “maghintay” para sa mga taong hindi nagtitiis na magpainiksiyon sa mga nars at duktor na gumagamit ng hiringgilyang naninilaw; o magklase sa damuhan, sa ilalim ng init ng araw, sapagkat ang salapi ng taumbayan na dapat sana’y inilalaan sa mga serbisyong panlipunan ay ipinapasok sa maanumalyang mga proyektong ang nakikinabang lamang ay iilang salanggapang na opisyal ng pamahalaan gaya ng mga Benjamin Abalos, at mga kamag-anak ng mga nasa kapangyarihan tulad ng mga Mike Arroyo.
Napakadali ang magsabing “maghintay” para sa mga taong nagtatampisaw sa salapi kahit na hindi igalaw ang mga daliri at hindi nagkakangkukuba sa pagtatrabaho sa mga pabrika’t opisina upang pagkatapos ng isang buong araw ng pagpapatulo ng pawis ay mag-uwi ng sahod na maaaring kitain sa loob lamang ng isang oras sa ibang bansa, o sa paggawa sa bukid upang pagkatapos ng bawat anihan ay maipagbili ang palay sa halagang kulang na pang-isang buwan ngunit kailangang papagkasyahin sa tatlong buwan.
Napakadali ang magsabing “maghintay” para sa mga taong walang kamag-anak, kaibigan o kakilala man lamang na kabilang sa mahigit na 900 na ngayong biktima ng ekstrahudisyal na pamamaslang at mahigit sa 180 biktima ng sapilitang pagkawala, o sa mahigit sa 200 bilanggong pulitikal — batay sa pinakahuling mga tala ng Karapatan — na kaya humantong sa gayon ay sapagkat nangahas na ipaglaban ang karapatan ng mga manggagawa sa nakabubuhay na sahod, ang karapatan ng mga magsasaka na pakinabangang lubos ang mga bunga ng lupang sinasaka, at ang karapatan ng mga mamamayan sa mga serbisyong tulad ng kalusugan at edukasyon — mga karapatang dapat ay tinatamasa ng lahat sa alinmang bansang tulad ng Pilipinas na namamaraling siya’y isang demokrasya.
Dahil sa ang alinmang pamahalaan ay lubhang nakapangyayari sa kalakhan ng buhay ng mga mamamayan, ang pag-iral nito ay dapat na nakabatay sa kapakanan ng tanang nasasakupan. Kung hindi ganito ang batayan ng pag-iral ng isang pamahalaan, karapatan ng mga mamamayan ang ito’y lansagin.
At sapagkat karapatan ito ng mga mamamayan, hindi nila kailangang maghintay ng pagkakataong gawin ito, kundi karapatan nilang likhain ang ganitong pagkakataon.
Hintayin ang 2010? Hayaan ang mga hunghang at hangal na maghintay kung siya nilang ibig.
Monday, February 25, 2008
AT KAHIT NA NINGNING AY WALA SA IYO
Alexander Martin Remollino
Ikaw na ngayo'y nasa pinakamataas na luklukan
ng aming bayan: luwalhati -- liwanag --
ang ibinabandila ng iyong pangalan.
Ngunit anong luwalhati ang mababanaag
sa isang magnanakaw na sa araw,
hindi man lamang sa gabi, nagnanakaw?
At anong luwalhati ang mababanaag
sa isang mamamatay-taong ang mga kamay
ay hindi matuyuan ng dugo ng bayan?
Luwalhati ang ibinabandila ng iyong pangalan,
ngunit isang silahis man lamang ng liwanag
ay wala ka --
at kahit na ningning ay wala sa iyo.
Alexander Martin Remollino
Ikaw na ngayo'y nasa pinakamataas na luklukan
ng aming bayan: luwalhati -- liwanag --
ang ibinabandila ng iyong pangalan.
Ngunit anong luwalhati ang mababanaag
sa isang magnanakaw na sa araw,
hindi man lamang sa gabi, nagnanakaw?
At anong luwalhati ang mababanaag
sa isang mamamatay-taong ang mga kamay
ay hindi matuyuan ng dugo ng bayan?
Luwalhati ang ibinabandila ng iyong pangalan,
ngunit isang silahis man lamang ng liwanag
ay wala ka --
at kahit na ningning ay wala sa iyo.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
BALIKATAN 2008 RAISES FEARS OF RAPES, OTHER ATROCITIES BY U.S. TROOPS
This year’s RP-U.S. Balikatan military “exercises” in Sulu, Basilan, Lanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, and North Cotabato start just shortly after two sexual assaults by U.S. troops in Okinawa, Japan –- in which one of the victims was a Filipina. They also come less than three years after a Filipina was raped by U.S. troops participating in joint military “exercises” in Subic, Zambales.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 4, February 24-March 1, 2008
The arrival of U.S. troops in several Mindanao provinces and in Sulu for the 2008 Balikatan military “exercises” has triggered fears of rapes and other atrocities by U.S. soldiers against Filipinos.
This year’s RP-U.S. Balikatan military “exercises” in Sulu, Basilan, Lanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, and North Cotabato started just shortly after two sexual assaults by U.S. troops in Okinawa, Japan –- in which one of the victims was a Filipina. They also come less than three years after a Filipina was raped by U.S. troops participating in joint military “exercises” in Subic, Zambales.
Last week, the Kyodo News Agency repoted that the U.S. military had taken into custody earlier this month a U.S. soldier who sexually assaulted a Filipina in Okinawa, where the U.S. government maintains a military base.
Also last week, U.S. Marine soldier Tyrone Hadnott, 38, was arrested for allegedly raping a 14-year-old girl also in Okinawa. This incident is reminiscent of the rape of a 12-year-old girl by a U.S. solider also in Okinawa in 1995 – an incident that sparked a wave of protests that threatened to banish U.S. troops from the island.
In October last year, four U.S. soldiers were also arrested in Okinawa for allegedly raping a young woman. They are being investigated and could face court martial proceedings.
In the Philippines, L/Cpl Daniel Smith of the U.S. Marines was convicted in December 2006 for raping a young woman in Subic in November 2005. Judge Benjamin Pozon of the Makati City Regional Trial Court ordered him detained at the Makati City Jail, but he was secretly transferred to the U.S. Embassy in Manila at the behest of the U.S. government, which invoked the RP-U.S. Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA). His case is still on appeal.
Mindanao: Balikatan 2008
U.S. and Philippine troops began this year’s Balikatan military “exercises” on Feb. 19 amid protest actions all over Mindanao. This year’s joint military “exercises are scheduled to last until March 3.
In a Feb. 14 statement, the Sisters’ Association of Mindanao (SAMIN) asked, “Will U.S. troops participate in actual military operations against our people as they did in other places? Will there be another Nicole, and will our women and children again be made ‘objects’ for the U.S. soldiers’ rest and recreation?”
In the Lanao provinces, a broad multi-sectoral alliance has been formed to oppose the Balikatan military “exercises.” The alliance, called RACABE (Ranao Crescent Against Balikatan Exercises), stressed in a statement:
“The presence of U.S. troops in Lanao will be a serious threat to the ongoing peace process in Mindanao since the U.S. troops...help organize counterinsurgency groups.... On the one hand, it will awaken painful memories of the past American invasions of the Ranao areas such as the massacres in Padang Karbala of Bayang, Lanao del Sur (during the first decade of the 20th century) that almost wiped out all the able-bodied men in the said municipality except for seven who were either minors or infirm, in Tugaya, Lanao del Sur and Pantar, Lanao del Norte that may trigger violent retaliatory actions against U.S. troops.”
Sittie Rajabia Sundang, secretary-general of the Kawagib Moro Human Rights organization, cited in a Feb. 19 press statement the following atrocities by U.S. troops against civilians since the first Balikatan military “exercises” were held in Basilan in 2002:
· Farmer Buyung-Buyung Isnijal was shot by an American soldier identified by witnesses as Sgt. Reggie Lane, who was accused of participating in a military operation on July 27, 2002 in Tuburan, Basilan.
· In Zamboanga, U.S. soldiers accidentally fired at civilians in the community while on their testing missions. One case was the shooting and wounding of Arsid Baharun in Zamboanga City while soldiers were conducting a marksmanship practice in 2004.
· In August 2004, Sardiya Abu Calderon, 54, died of a heart attack when a helicopter carrying two U.S. soldiers landed on their farm during the clearing operation conducted by U.S. and Philippine troops in August 2004.
· In September 2006, shrapnels from a misfired bomb hit the back of a 50-year-old Bizma Juhan in Indanan, Sulu.
· In Zamboanga City, passengers of a tricycle complained in a radio station about U.S. soldiers who accidentally bumped the tricycle they were riding in Calarian village on Dec. 15, 2007. Instead of assisting the victims, U.S. soldiers alighted from their vehicle brandishing high-powered guns.
· On Feb. 4, 2008, one of the survivors of the Maimbung, Sulu massacre Rawina Wahid revealed that when the soldiers who attacked their village brought her and the body of her husband, Pfc. Ibnul Wahid, into a Navy boat she saw four U.S. soldiers inside.
U.S. troops in RP: 2002-present
The first RP-U.S. Balikatan military “exercises” were held in 2002 in Basilan, then known as a stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), which, according to different sources, was formed by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to justify the intensive military operations against Moro communities and the continuing presence of U.S. troops in the region.
As then Col. David Maxwell wrote in an article for the Military Review in 2004, the Balikatan “exercises” in Basilan were a guise for counter-“terrorist” operations under the auspices of Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines.
Operation Enduring Freedom is the official name given to the U.S. government’s military response to the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001 in New York City. It entails a series of anti-“terrorism” activities in Afghanistan, the Philippines, the Horn of Africa, Trans-Sahara, and Pakinsi Gorge.
“The mission in Basilan was to conduct unconventional warfare operations in the Southern Philippines through, by, and with the AFP to help the Philippine government separate the population from and to destroy terrorist organizations,” Maxwell, who was the commander of the U.S. troops deployed for Balikatan 2002, wrote. “The plan’s intent was to provide all SF (Special Forces) elements in Basilan with unifying guidance that would help harmonize counterterrorist and counterinsurgency operations in the Southern Philippines with initial focus on Basilan.”
Maxwell included among the Special Forces’ tasks “supporting operations by the AFP ‘strike force’ (LRC or Light Reaction Company)” in their areas of responsibility.
Areas covered
This year’s Balikatan military “exercises” cover Basilan, the Lanao provinces, Sulu, and North Cotabato.
North Cotabato is one of the provinces straddled by the oil-rich Liguasan Marsh, together with Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat. Basilan, the Lanao provinces, and North Cotabato are strongholds of the revolutionary Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), whose peace talks with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) are currently at a standstill over ancestral domain issues.
Sulu is also currently the site of oil exploration operations involving several foreign companies including a U.S. corporation.
In 2005, the Department of Energy (DoE) awarded Service Contract 56 to Australia’s BHP Billiton Petroleum PTY Ltd., Amerada Hess Ltd., Unocal Sulu Ltd., and Sandakan Oil II, LCC. Amerada Hess Ltd. is a unit of Hess Ltd., a U.S.-based oil and gas exploration company.
Based on a 2005 news item published by the Philippine Information Agency (PIA), Service Contract 56 covers some 8,620 hectares offshore Sulu Sea, an area described as “one of the most prospective areas for oil and gas exploration as indicated by the previous drilling activities conducted in the area.”
These provinces are covered by this year’s Balikatan military “exercises,” which have raised among other fears the possibility of other women suffering the plight of “Nicole” (the court-assigned name for the Subic rape victim of 2005) -– not an unjustified fear considering the latest series of rapes by U.S. troops stationed in Okinawa. Bulatlat
This year’s RP-U.S. Balikatan military “exercises” in Sulu, Basilan, Lanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, and North Cotabato start just shortly after two sexual assaults by U.S. troops in Okinawa, Japan –- in which one of the victims was a Filipina. They also come less than three years after a Filipina was raped by U.S. troops participating in joint military “exercises” in Subic, Zambales.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 4, February 24-March 1, 2008
The arrival of U.S. troops in several Mindanao provinces and in Sulu for the 2008 Balikatan military “exercises” has triggered fears of rapes and other atrocities by U.S. soldiers against Filipinos.
This year’s RP-U.S. Balikatan military “exercises” in Sulu, Basilan, Lanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, and North Cotabato started just shortly after two sexual assaults by U.S. troops in Okinawa, Japan –- in which one of the victims was a Filipina. They also come less than three years after a Filipina was raped by U.S. troops participating in joint military “exercises” in Subic, Zambales.
Last week, the Kyodo News Agency repoted that the U.S. military had taken into custody earlier this month a U.S. soldier who sexually assaulted a Filipina in Okinawa, where the U.S. government maintains a military base.
Also last week, U.S. Marine soldier Tyrone Hadnott, 38, was arrested for allegedly raping a 14-year-old girl also in Okinawa. This incident is reminiscent of the rape of a 12-year-old girl by a U.S. solider also in Okinawa in 1995 – an incident that sparked a wave of protests that threatened to banish U.S. troops from the island.
In October last year, four U.S. soldiers were also arrested in Okinawa for allegedly raping a young woman. They are being investigated and could face court martial proceedings.
In the Philippines, L/Cpl Daniel Smith of the U.S. Marines was convicted in December 2006 for raping a young woman in Subic in November 2005. Judge Benjamin Pozon of the Makati City Regional Trial Court ordered him detained at the Makati City Jail, but he was secretly transferred to the U.S. Embassy in Manila at the behest of the U.S. government, which invoked the RP-U.S. Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA). His case is still on appeal.
Mindanao: Balikatan 2008
U.S. and Philippine troops began this year’s Balikatan military “exercises” on Feb. 19 amid protest actions all over Mindanao. This year’s joint military “exercises are scheduled to last until March 3.
In a Feb. 14 statement, the Sisters’ Association of Mindanao (SAMIN) asked, “Will U.S. troops participate in actual military operations against our people as they did in other places? Will there be another Nicole, and will our women and children again be made ‘objects’ for the U.S. soldiers’ rest and recreation?”
In the Lanao provinces, a broad multi-sectoral alliance has been formed to oppose the Balikatan military “exercises.” The alliance, called RACABE (Ranao Crescent Against Balikatan Exercises), stressed in a statement:
“The presence of U.S. troops in Lanao will be a serious threat to the ongoing peace process in Mindanao since the U.S. troops...help organize counterinsurgency groups.... On the one hand, it will awaken painful memories of the past American invasions of the Ranao areas such as the massacres in Padang Karbala of Bayang, Lanao del Sur (during the first decade of the 20th century) that almost wiped out all the able-bodied men in the said municipality except for seven who were either minors or infirm, in Tugaya, Lanao del Sur and Pantar, Lanao del Norte that may trigger violent retaliatory actions against U.S. troops.”
Sittie Rajabia Sundang, secretary-general of the Kawagib Moro Human Rights organization, cited in a Feb. 19 press statement the following atrocities by U.S. troops against civilians since the first Balikatan military “exercises” were held in Basilan in 2002:
· Farmer Buyung-Buyung Isnijal was shot by an American soldier identified by witnesses as Sgt. Reggie Lane, who was accused of participating in a military operation on July 27, 2002 in Tuburan, Basilan.
· In Zamboanga, U.S. soldiers accidentally fired at civilians in the community while on their testing missions. One case was the shooting and wounding of Arsid Baharun in Zamboanga City while soldiers were conducting a marksmanship practice in 2004.
· In August 2004, Sardiya Abu Calderon, 54, died of a heart attack when a helicopter carrying two U.S. soldiers landed on their farm during the clearing operation conducted by U.S. and Philippine troops in August 2004.
· In September 2006, shrapnels from a misfired bomb hit the back of a 50-year-old Bizma Juhan in Indanan, Sulu.
· In Zamboanga City, passengers of a tricycle complained in a radio station about U.S. soldiers who accidentally bumped the tricycle they were riding in Calarian village on Dec. 15, 2007. Instead of assisting the victims, U.S. soldiers alighted from their vehicle brandishing high-powered guns.
· On Feb. 4, 2008, one of the survivors of the Maimbung, Sulu massacre Rawina Wahid revealed that when the soldiers who attacked their village brought her and the body of her husband, Pfc. Ibnul Wahid, into a Navy boat she saw four U.S. soldiers inside.
U.S. troops in RP: 2002-present
The first RP-U.S. Balikatan military “exercises” were held in 2002 in Basilan, then known as a stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), which, according to different sources, was formed by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to justify the intensive military operations against Moro communities and the continuing presence of U.S. troops in the region.
As then Col. David Maxwell wrote in an article for the Military Review in 2004, the Balikatan “exercises” in Basilan were a guise for counter-“terrorist” operations under the auspices of Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines.
Operation Enduring Freedom is the official name given to the U.S. government’s military response to the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001 in New York City. It entails a series of anti-“terrorism” activities in Afghanistan, the Philippines, the Horn of Africa, Trans-Sahara, and Pakinsi Gorge.
“The mission in Basilan was to conduct unconventional warfare operations in the Southern Philippines through, by, and with the AFP to help the Philippine government separate the population from and to destroy terrorist organizations,” Maxwell, who was the commander of the U.S. troops deployed for Balikatan 2002, wrote. “The plan’s intent was to provide all SF (Special Forces) elements in Basilan with unifying guidance that would help harmonize counterterrorist and counterinsurgency operations in the Southern Philippines with initial focus on Basilan.”
Maxwell included among the Special Forces’ tasks “supporting operations by the AFP ‘strike force’ (LRC or Light Reaction Company)” in their areas of responsibility.
Areas covered
This year’s Balikatan military “exercises” cover Basilan, the Lanao provinces, Sulu, and North Cotabato.
North Cotabato is one of the provinces straddled by the oil-rich Liguasan Marsh, together with Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat. Basilan, the Lanao provinces, and North Cotabato are strongholds of the revolutionary Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), whose peace talks with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) are currently at a standstill over ancestral domain issues.
Sulu is also currently the site of oil exploration operations involving several foreign companies including a U.S. corporation.
In 2005, the Department of Energy (DoE) awarded Service Contract 56 to Australia’s BHP Billiton Petroleum PTY Ltd., Amerada Hess Ltd., Unocal Sulu Ltd., and Sandakan Oil II, LCC. Amerada Hess Ltd. is a unit of Hess Ltd., a U.S.-based oil and gas exploration company.
Based on a 2005 news item published by the Philippine Information Agency (PIA), Service Contract 56 covers some 8,620 hectares offshore Sulu Sea, an area described as “one of the most prospective areas for oil and gas exploration as indicated by the previous drilling activities conducted in the area.”
These provinces are covered by this year’s Balikatan military “exercises,” which have raised among other fears the possibility of other women suffering the plight of “Nicole” (the court-assigned name for the Subic rape victim of 2005) -– not an unjustified fear considering the latest series of rapes by U.S. troops stationed in Okinawa. Bulatlat
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