Several groups urged President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to veto the whole Republic Act 11506 or the franchise granting San Miguel Corporation Aerocity to create the Bulacan Airport City, noting its unscientific construction.
Despite harsh prospects under the Marcos Jr. administration, activists say the fight is not over.
Will opening up natural resources to foreign-owned and large-scale mining boost the Philippine economy? For the government, the answer is yes. For environmental defenders, the answer is no.
Today we also are called to draw closer to Jesus and his mission of bringing about a new reign of justice, peace and love. As disciples, we know from experience the path is not easy. Moving into a new Government, we need to heed the advice of Jesus to his talmidim to be alert, especially as we see hungry farmers still being arrested for planting food crops, false charges against progressive people and organizations continuing, ecological defenders harassed and killed and indigenous peoples displaced.
Together with, and partly as a result of, its attacks on the press, it is leaving behind it neither change nor development, but more of the same rule of the few, even worse poverty, and, as it kept reminding us, the use of State violence and terror against anyone who dared exercise the freedoms the Constitution protects.
Deafeningly silent, however, was Marcos Jr. on national security management and its criminal consequences: foremost of which is the impunity enjoyed by state security forces in perpetrating massive human rights violations, under all administrations beginning with the Marcos dictatorship.
Marcos Jr. has yet to complete his list of cabinet members but several of those identified have been found to be from the family’s bailiwick, the Ilocos region, or linked to his father’s appointees.
The plight of Hacienda Tinang farmers brought to mind how land reform and due support continue to evade Filipino farmers.