By DEE AYROSO
Under siege
Category: Commentary
Representing themselves
On July 23, 2016, President Rodrigo Duterte signed Executive Order No. 2 mandating public access to information held by the agencies and offices of the executive branch. The nongovernmental organizations that had been campaigning for a freedom of information (FOI) act for decades welcomed it with cautious optimism. The Executive Order (EO) encouraged the legislature…
Higher social pension for poor senior citizens
This week I had interesting interactions with senior citizens in some barangays of Quezon City, Manila, and the cities of Caloocan and Malabon. These were public forums that had been organized to encourage voter participation in the mid-term elections to be held on May 13. They were visibly very poor: and physically their communities haven’t…
Politically-driven
Since the arrest and eventual posting of bail of news site Rappler’s chief Maria Ressa, Malacanang’s spin doctors have been attempting to absolve the president from allegations of curtailing press freedom and grave abuse of power. Still, the political backlash that the Duterte administration is getting has been unforgiving, and rightly so. Even the simplest…
FIRST PERSON | Thoughts on the occasion of Valentine’s Day and One Billion Rising
I am grateful to my wife for standing by me despite my frailties as a person, husband and father. She carries the responsibility of providing the family financially when I continued my full-time work as activist.
Measles Epidemic: The Real Cause of Deaths
The concomitant and worsening assaults (including extrajudicial killings) on fundamental human rights have subjected marginalized people to extreme physical, biological, psychological and social stress and have repeatedly been forced to be displaced from their land, homes, crops and other means of survival. Under these circumstances, infectious disease epidemics, like measles, and other serious health problems are bound to arise and worsen.
How Myanmar indigenous peoples defend their rights over natural resources
The peace park is an expression and integration of Karen people’s right to self-determination, natural resource management, environmental protection, and good governance.
On the menu
By DEE AYROSO
Media are part of the problem
That former TV broadcaster who’s running for senator under Sara Duterte’s Hugpong ng Pagbabago party isn’t alone in denying that the Duterte regime is a threat to press freedom. There are other former and still practicing broadcast, print and online media people who have never quite understood that the most fundamental values in journalism are…
2 remarkable modern-day women
One was an editor of books and novels for 41 years, hailed by her peers as “the best editor in London,” who made a mark as prize-winning author mostly of her memoirs. Asserting and living out her independence to the end, she passed away recently at the age of 101. The other is a pastor…
FIRST PERSON | Ever northward, Randy
Yes, both rivers are flowing still, however much some people’s greed wishes to dam them or turn them to mud. Their waters flow ever northward, ever sure that, at the end of their travels, a wider and freer ocean awaits.