BY EMILY VITAL Bulatlat.com At around 10 am today, the House of Representatives voted 173-32 upholding the decision of the Committee on Justice junking the impeachment complaint filed against Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for “insufficiency in substance”. Justice Committee Chair Simeon Datumanong asserted that prior acts of Arroyo are not considered impeachable. Representative Edcel Lagman, the…
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Court Asked to Issue Warrant vs Palparan
By Jhong dela Cruz Bulatlat.com The parents of two missing students allegedly abducted by the military asked the Court of Appeals to issue a warrant of arrest for Army commander Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, who again failed to appear at the habeas corpus petition hearing today. Palparan snubbed for the fourth time the hearing for…
8 Rights Workers in Southern Tagalog Abducted
BY EMILY VITAL Bulatlat.com Eight members of the human rights group Karapatan- Southern Tagalog were abducted today while on a fact finding mission in Catanauan, Quezon. The fact finding mission team was on their way home at around 10-11a.m. when soldiers from the 74th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army stopped them and separated the…
Leftist Groups Doubt Credibility of ‘Independent’ Commission
BY EMILY VITAL Bulatlat.com On the eve of Benigno Aquino Jr.’s death anniversary, Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed an order creating “A Commission to Conduct an Independent Probe of the Killings of Media Practitioners and Militant Activists.” The commission will have five members. Appointed to the commission are National Bureau of Investigation Director Nestor Mantaring, Chief…
Probe Body: Effective only if Genuinely Independent, Credible, Transparent and with Powers to Prosecute
BY THE COUNSELS FOR THE DEFENSE OF LIBERTIES Bulatlat.com CODAL finds unacceptable Pres. Arroyo’s creation of a probe body to investigate political killings without any consultation from the victims and the human rights sector to assure the public that the body is genuinely independent. Although we have condemned Pres. Arroyo, the PNP, the AFP and…
Merging Executive Policy and Military Strategy
First of three parts In the long-drawn war against the Marxist guerrillas where force takes the lead, the country’s security forces have had a reproachable record in human rights threatening even legitimate political dissent, the peaceful advocacy of radical reform and, now, the use of the legislature to push for patriotic and progressive legislation. BY…
What Drives Macapagal-Arroyo’s “Silent War”?
Last of three parts The issue of political murders is tied to the issue of regime survival. BY BOBBY TUAZON Bulatlat.com The recent directive of Macapagal-Arroyo to the justice department and Philippine National Police (PNP) to solve at least 10 political killings in 10 weeks is obviously just for show. The PNP is not only…
Nursing Test Scam Linked to Poor Education, Labor Export
Top nursing educators and former CHED authorities say that the recent nursing board exam leakage is just the tip of a bigger problem – the deterioration in the country’s nursing education and government’s export of nurses abroad. By Arthur L. Allad-iw Northern Dispatch Bulatlat.com BAGUIO CITY – “Why blame us on the mess attributable to…
Lack of Justice Sickens the Poor
“The poor should have a way to use the justice system for their benefit. The high price of pursuing justice makes the poor choose to evade it.” – FLAG lawyer Jose Manuel Diokno By Jhong dela Cruz Bulatlat.com The relatives of 21-year-old Jonas “Chukoy” Nucum and his brother, Tonton, could only gnash their teeth in…
Gov’t Asked to Adopt UN Declaration on IP Rights
As tribes denounce killings of 72 indigenous peoples What could be the reasons for the Philippine government’s refusal to vote for the adoption of the draft United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples last June? BY JHONG DELA CRUZ Bulatlat.com In an August 3 letter addressed to Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo, the…
Understanding the War in Lebanon
Certain things stand out despite the inevitable fog of war, including the accompanying lop-sided propaganda war being waged, that a fair-minded and serious person can make out. And that is, it is overwhelmingly the Lebanese people – civilians who are getting killed by the hundreds and wounded by the thousands, with one third of the…