The Duterte administration will end in 2022, but Dutertism could still continue to afflict the country for the next six years and even beyond should any of Mr. Duterte’s lackeys, cronies, clones, and surrogates win the presidential election that year.
Among several others, the National Union of People’s Lawyers and the human rights watchdog Karapatan – which both have been red-tagged and whose members have become EJK victims – have welcomed the Supreme Court’s response, the Senate resolution and Drilon’s filing of the anti-redtagging bill.
As I read the Gospel this Sunday, I remember a song from our theatre play production in 2014 about the struggles of the indigenous people in the defense of their ancestral domain.
As the number of cases surged enough to put the Philippines ahead of other countries in Southeast Asia; as millions of workers lost their jobs; as schools and businesses ceased operations and even closed permanently; and as the economy spiraled into a recession, apparently at a loss over what to do, Mr. Duterte on a number of occasions declared that only a vaccine could stop the pandemic.
Amid the national outrage and international concern raised over the March 7 “Bloody Sunday” killing of nine activists in the Southern Tagalog region, urgent calls are being addressed to the Supreme Court to do what it can, while it can, to protect the people’s constitutional rights.
“The arrest came days after the DILG release a memorandum tagging ACT and other progressive groups in the public sector as a communist terrorist groups.”
The assumption that education at the basic level should go far beyond the conventional essentials should inform the country’s return to face-to-face classes. Because not everyone can go on to college — where it is presumed that imparting a commitment to civic responsibility and respect for the Bill of Rights are part of the curricula (but often are not) — developing among the young the capacity to make informed decisions as citizens charged with deciding the future of this country should be among the fundamentals of basic education.
The Calabarzon killings were actually the latest of the killings that have provoked such condemnation. Still unresolved are the killings of nine Tumandok indigenous community members in similar police operations in Panay Island last Dec. 30, the attempted slaying of the Tumandoks’ lawyer in Iloilo, as well as the killing by police anti-drug operatives of the mayor of Calbayog City.
Hindi na namin dinig ang kalabugan
ng nag-uunahang daga sa dibdib.
Pag-ibig sa katarungan
ang itinitibok ng aming puso.
When your voice no longer bears the weight
of what you must say, then language must have gone away,
or forcibly buried underground,
silenced the fascist way.
A city’s peace / once more cracked, broken / by a heinous deed / against a barrister of a people’s rights.