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Calling it a sugar-coated extortion scheme, Migrante International said that the policy reforms issued by the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA) which supposedly sets a minimum wage of $200-$400 for domestic workers abroad, prohibits the charging of...
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s critics in Negros Occidental have a different view of her development plan for Central Philippines, with most saying it will only worsen the “already acute exploitation and oppression of the people” and the “plunder” of the...
Indigenous communities in Benguet have recently decided to reject the mining operations of Philex, which they say have displaced natives and destroyed the local environment in the last 50 years. BY LYN V. RAMO Northern Dispatch Posted by Bulatlat Vol. VII, No. 23,...
While affected indigenous peoples in Tuba and Itogon towns in Benguet have resolved to stop operations of Philex Mining Corporation, the local office of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) ordered another round of dialogues between them and the...
Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte has created an “Anti-Hoodlum Unit” that will go after gang members and abusive cabbies. He said the unit can shoot these “embarrassments to the city” with shotguns if necessary. “I warn you,” he said last week. “You bring out the...
The law against libel is being misused once again to silence critics. This time, it was filed against environment groups by a mining company, Lafayette Mining. BY AUBREY MAKILAN Bulatlat Vol. VII, No. 23, July 15-21, 2007 A form of harassment and intimidation, this...
It was the first of July, a Sunday. People were rushing over to the public market after the Mass in Barangay San Jose, Baggao, Cagayan. A van parked amid the many tricycles and the farmers’ kuliglig (generator-powered vehicles). Several people alighted and started...
When President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo delivers her next SoNA, she will no doubt count among her administration’s accomplishments the increase in employment rate from last year to this year. But the government’s own figures show that there was not much gainful...
Beware! The guy pestering you to buy dibidi or the vendor you approached in looking for a nice combination of 12 movies which includes your favourites may well be a terrorist in disguise. That is, if the claims of an American expert Jeffrey Williams, a former a...
Recent legal victories of well-known Left personalities such as Anakpawis representative and former chairperson of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) and Kilusang Mayo Uno, Crispin Beltran, as well as Prof. Jose Maria Sison, founding chairperson of the Communist...
Only the government’s sale of its stake in PLDT saved it from a whopping P67.8 billion ($1,481,967,213) deficit during the first five months of 2007, P4.8 billion ($104,918,032) higher than the official deficit target of P63 billion ($1,377,049,180) for the whole...
Nanay Fe was shocked when she saw the cost of tuition of her daughter Karina at the “University of the People.” And even if she was exempted by the Bureau of Internal Revenue from paying an income tax because her annual income is a mere P46, 000 ($1,005), her...
A land dispute between the administration of the Central Mindanao University and its 200 farmer-tenants almost resulted in a massacre last June 22. BY DABET CASTAÑEDA HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH Bulatlat Vol VII, No. 23 July 15-21 For defending the land her family has...
The glaring discrepancy between the number of students coming from the provinces and the capacity of in-campus dorms already presents a long-standing problem of insufficient student housing in the University of the Philippines. A host of other factors aggravate its...
NDFP chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison criticized what he described as the “concerted hostile reactions” of the Dutch and Arroyo governments to the July 11 verdict of the European Court of First Instance (ECFI) in Luxembourg annulling the May 29 decision...
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) launched a series of “educational” forums in universities, starting with the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (PLM) and Philippine Women’s University (PWU) late last month as part of its intensified counter-insurgency...
Even though it was hailed by various sectors in society as historic and unprecedented, human rights advocates doubted if the human rights summit initiated by the Supreme Court would be enough to curb the festering problems of extrajudicial killings and enforced...
A petition filed last week before the Supreme Court to have the Human Security Act of 2007 (HSA), also known as the Anti-Terrorism Law, declared as unconstitutional has among its signatories former Vice President Teofisto Guingona, Jr. and National Artist for...
This is a terrible time in our country, and we must cleanse the nation of the brutal and destructive actions by its own security forces and law enforcement agencies. For can they, invoking our protection and "human security," play god in their dirty war and violate...
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