Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts

Volume 3, Number 1              February 2 - 8, 2003            Quezon City, Philippines







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News at a Glance

Torture against suspected leftists persists in the Philippines - AI

Amnesty International last week released a report on the persistence of torture and ill-treatment in the Philippines.

Although the Philippines has ratified the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane Degrading Treatment or Punishment and other key human rights standards and has also established the Commission on Human Rights, the AI observed that torture persists.

AI said those most at risk of torture are alleged members of armed opposition groups and their suspected sympathizers, ordinary criminal suspects, including women and children.

Techniques of torture used in recent years and documented by Amnesty International mirror those used in the 1970s and 1980s.  Torture methods include electro-shocks, the use of plastic bags to suffocate detainees, burning detainees with cigarettes, beating with fists, metal pipes or gun barrels and placing chili peppers on the detainees' eyes or genitals. These are used to extract information and force confessions. 

The international human rights group urged the Macapagal-Arroyo government to take immediate steps to prevent torture and ill-treatment. 

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Looming crackdown on militants hit

The Bagong Alyansang Makabayan warned of "a looming crackdown and an open season on the progressive mass movement" following a statement by Palace spokesperson Ignacio Bunye that so-called communist "front organizations" and "militant cells" would be targeted by intelligence saturation drives by 500,000 spies under Col. Romeo Maganto.

Teddy Casiño, secretary general of BAYAN, said that Malacañang is obscenely using the killing of Romulo Kintanar, a former head of the New People’s Army, as a pretext for an open season on so-called front organizations to silence the progressive mass movement and cover up its failure in dealing with the armed communist movement.

Meanwhile, Nathanael Santiago, secretary general of Bayan Muna, said that Bunye’s statement bespeaks ill of the government's intention to conduct surveillance and repressive acts against legitimate organizations without legal or moral justification.

Santiago said that the violent attacks by the military and police been going on since April 2001 claiming the lives of 30 Bayan Muna members and leaders nationwide; five others remain missing.  He expressed grave alarm that with an authorization being given by Malacanang to its armed forces to target legal organizations, the number of casualties among the unarmed ranks of legal groups, including Bayan Muna, will likely increase.

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Muslim families dismayed over GMA’s all-out war

Amid the commemoration of the 4th World Families Meeting, a Muslim-Christian alliance expressed despair over the extent of discrimination of the Philippine government’s policies toward Moslem families in the country.

Cosain Naga Jr., spokesperson of Moro-Christian Peoples’ Alliance (MCPA), said that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s war against terrorism has “undeniably yielded terror in the communities of Moro civilians.

“There are over a hundred individuals, fathers and mothers and their children who are now languishing in the jails of Basilan and here in Bicutan. They were arrested without warrants because the President declared a state-of-lawlessness in Moro lands,” said Naga.

Since Macapagal-Arroyo’s all-out war campaign, 30 Moslem barangays in Patikul, Talipno, Indanan, Parang and Sulu municipalities in Basilan have been declared “hot spot” by the Philippine military.

More than five Moro people were massacred by the Philippine Marines from April 19-23 last year alone, MCPA reported.  In Indanan municipality, 216 homes were either destroyed by bombs, strafed by gunfire or intentionally torched to the ground.  In Barangay Karawan of the same municipality, aerial bombings have found its mark on 53 houses of the Moro.

“In Jolo province, burned houses dot the coast.  In Cauayan municipality, 18 houses were also razed. In Danag, 70 refugee families from Bgy. Kabban Takkas are sharing rooms with 682 elementary students of Danag Elementary School.  The families fled from their village when the Army started turning the area into a war front,” Naga added. 

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Filipinos and Canadians carry streamer during an anti-war rally in Vancouver, Canada.

Filipino-Canadians warn Macapagal-Arroyo will be ousted

VANCOUVER, B.C. – Overseas Filipinos in Canada last week condemned the Macapagal-Arroyo administration for the violent dispersal of a peaceful protest in Manila marking the second anniversary of the People Power 2.

"The fascist response of the Arroyo regime on the anniversary of EDSA 2 is an insult to all Filipinos," said Sean Parlan of SIKLAB, an overseas Filipino workers organization.

"As overseas Filipinos, we condemn her actions and remind her that it was the people who ousted President Estrada two years ago for his crimes against the people. If President Arroyo’s regime continues its anti-people policies and puppetry to the U.S. government, the people will oust her from power as well," Parlan warned. 

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