By MARA S. GENOTIVA Davao Today TAGUM CITY – An international fact-finding and solidarity mission bound to check on reported human rights violations was blocked twice by military checkpoints on Saturday entering Maco, Compostela Valley. The mission comprised of 200 persons was earlier “welcomed” on their arrival on Friday with streamers calling them to “Stay…
By RAYMUND VILLANUEVA
By NOY PALAY
“We came here for a very urgent reason, we came here to verify mounting reports of rights abuse against peasant and Lumad communities perpetrated allegedly by military elements. No wonder the military people do not want us here.”
They have created another universe as false as their glowing descriptions of their own dynastic rule. The “new republic” was Marcos’s version. The “strong state” was Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s — and the country where “change has come” that of Duterte’s.
If there’s any consolation in this protracted resistance to injustice, it’s that I am just one among the many Filipinos who continue to believe in upholding the freedoms and rights we have won.