After three decades of hosting large-scale mining projects, Marinduque remains impoverished, ranked as the country’s 14th poorest province with a staggering poverty incidence of 71.9 percent. By Dennis Espada Bulatlat The people of Marinduque (some 170 kms south of Manila) marked March 24 as a “day of mourning, unity and action” to remember an ill-fated…

Thirteen community journalists and four media organizations from Baguio City are the latest signatories to a petition filed in the Court of Appeals which seeks to stop government agencies from muzzling the press. BY ARTHUR L. ALLAD-IW Bulatlat BAGUIO CITY (246 kms from Manila) – For Baguio-based journalists, distance is never a factor in supporting…

Gen. Generoso Senga, in a recent speech before the Philippine Constitution Association (Philconsa), acknowledged that “the alliance between the military and the leftist rebels to oust Mrs. Arroyo has been deepening for over two years now and will not be uprooted in a single stroke.” BY CAROL PAGADUAN-ARAULLO Streetwise / Business World Posted by Bulatlat…

BY IBON FOUNDATION Posted by Bulatlat Contrary to the propaganda of the country’s economic managers, charter change is not a solution to the country’s economic problems. Rather, charter change is part of an economic restructuring agenda advanced by the U.S. and other rich countries to open the country further to exploitation by their transnational corporations.…

The worsening joblessness and underemployment reflect the backward and crisis-ridden state of the economy. It shows the folly of the neo-liberal policies of privatization, liberalization, and deregulation, not to mention the inability of the Arroyo administration in addressing poverty. BY BENJIE OLIVEROS Bulatlat A study by Ibon Foundation reveals that the Arroyo administration has the…