By JANESS ANN J. ELLAO Bulatlat.com At around 9:30 a.m., silence swept over the court room. A group of men, most of them burly, came in. Behind them was a seemingly frail-looking man, a shadow of the stoic general I have seen only in news reports – it was retired...
“While his transfer to a regular detention cell today is some kind of soothing balm to a lot of pain and suffering for his many victims, the fight for justice is far from over. His unscrupulous disciples of darkness will not tire of wronging a right to protect evils incarnate.” – Edre Olalia, National Union of People’s Lawyers secretary general
“Palparan sees enemies everywhere. A person wearing red shirt is his enemy. A person who carries a banner is his enemy. People who demand jobs, decent wages, land to till, shelter -- they are all Palparan’s enemies. So where will he go?” Aya Santos, Desaparecidos secretary general
Students and members of progressive groups held a protest action in Angeles City, Pampanga calling for the release of two students of the University of the Philippines - Pampanga recently abducted and later surfaced under police custody. Gerald Salonga and Guiller...
“The arrest of Jovito Palparan, a retired army major general, marks a rare challenge to the country’s rampant impunity, which the government of President Benigno Aquino III has failed to adequately address,” Carlos Conde, Human Rights Watch
SPECIAL REPORT: His eyewitness account, lauded by the Supreme Court for being clear, categorical, consistent and credible, served as among the evidences that led to the filing of charges of two counts of kidnapping and serious illegal detention for the enforced disappearance of the two students of the University of the Philippines Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan, along with farmer Manuel Merino, on June 26, 2006 in Hagonoy, Bulacan.
“With boundless hope and bated breath, may justice find its place amidst tragedy and the many lives that have been snatched, futures destroyed and agonizing years that have passed.”– Edre Olalia, National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers
"These afterthought nuisance charges are plain baloney. Police are either exceptionally ignorant of the law, routinely cannot understand it, or are covering up for their violations, or all of the above."—Edre Olalia, secretary general of the National Union of People's Lawyers
“I am in tears. I hope that justice would be served and that they would now surface Karen and Sherlyn.” Connie Empeño, mother of disappeared UP student Karen
“While BS Aquino is harping on his false achievements, it is at the same time whipping its stick on the people who are expressing discontent amid poverty, corruption, unemployment and injustices.” – Cristina Palabay, Karapatan
Government employees said that it is beyond the power and authority of the Bureau of Internal Revenue to tax their benefits without an enabling law, and had asked the Supreme Court to prevent the “unlawful and unwarranted imposition of taxes” on their benefits.
President Aquino’ seven deadly sins, according to the Promotion of Church People’s Response, are widespread poverty, rising unemployment, sham land reform, increase in prices of staple goods and services, unabated killings and human rights violations, corruption and the government's continued subservience to US interests through the signing of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement
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“Aquino has opened the country’s economy for the benefit of big foreign businesses. He would even give them tax incentives. But we, Filipinos, are not getting the same. What would happen to us?”
Seven years after soldiers killed his daughter, peasant-turned-activist Gregorio Galacio was killed by suspected military men at dawn on July 19.
“All of us, rank and file employees of the bureaucracy are victims of an apparent policy of pressing down wage levels.” - Courage
At least 35 residents of a relocation site in Rodriguez, Rizal were killed this year alone in a suspected drug-related killing spree. Among them were three urban poor activists from Corazon de Jesus in San Juan.
“In fact, we want the DAP to be abolished including the Informal Settlers Fund, which has served as a milking cow to corrupt officials in the National Housing Authority and other shelter agencies of the Aquino administration, and a source of business capital to low-cost housing firms.” – Montalban Relocatees Alliance
“If such ailments were the bases for Reyes’ hospitalization, then 50 ailing political prisoners should be accorded the same.- Selda
“Do the members of the claims board understand that it was martial law, when military power took over civilian institutions? How do you expect victims, many of whom are farmers and ordinary people, to acquire such documents? How could they ask for legal papers when they were massacred, abducted, arrested and tortured in huge numbers?”- Karapatan
Peasant leader Edgardo Lopez of the Bicol Coconut Planters Association is the 50th victim of extrajudicial killing in the region alone under President Aquino.
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