US intervention throughout the globe over the past 120 years in the defense and furtherance of its economic, political, and military interests has not only imbued most Americans with the arrogant presumption that they know best what’s good for everyone else on earth. It has also legitimized the use of force as the main instrument of State policy
Category: Commentary
Rights violations in wars vs insurgency, illegal drugs
Criticized for its muddled, bumbling response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Duterte government has been trying to rev up its two priority wars – against insurgency and against illegal drugs – in the remaining 14 months of its term.
#Bulatlat20: 20 years of of fearless reporting on human and people’s rights in the Philippines
#Bulatlat’s human rights reporting is true to its name – to search, probe, investigate, inquire, unearth facts. Its stories chronicle the facts, circumstances and travails of human rights victims, as individuals and collectively, while providing the political and socio-economic contexts. Cite any human rights case in the past twenty years and google them to look for accurate, well-written and relevant stories pertaining to these cases, and you may most probably find them on #Bulatlat’s website.
G20 is gathering – debt justice is our demand
As the G20 meet to discuss the global economic recovery, the Debt Justice group calls for a radical break with extraction and austerity and proposes a new system in its place.
FIRST PERSON | ‘Lumad students are not child warriors’
“It was indeed very enriching for me to be given the opportunity to teach the Lumad Junior and Senior High-School students. Likewise, it was very heart-wrenching as I had learned many things from them especially in their narratives of struggles to uphold ownership of their ancestral lands and their way of life as well as their fight for self-determination and liberation from the shackles of their oppressors.”
Opinion | In defense of our red (tagged) comrades in the ivory tower!
These red (tagged) comrades were not responsible for the phasing out of jeepneys, for rampant violations of human rights, for the collapse of our agriculture. They took up arms precisely because they know that the peaceful means to achieve genuine social change is irresolvable in the current existing system. They realized that it was the existing system, which is unsustainable, that is utopian rather than the alternative future that they were willing to die for. They were not dreamers! They were realistic! Like the 1968 French student rebellion, they demanded the impossible!
FIRST PERSON | Solidarity with the poor, defending labor rights
For almost 30 years, I was granted the privilege of being issued a permanent resident VISA. I have been living my mission in the Philippines and I have no further desire than to continue my mission among the oppressed workers.
FIRST PERSON | Remembering a pamanhikan in 1979
The soft cry fades away into
the core of a clenched fist
to shout out as
a cry of protest,
a cry for freedom.
Standard Chartered, stop funding our destruction!
A Filipina climate activist tells a British multinational bank: “Your money kills people, fuels the climate crisis, and destroys our homes.”
Preparing for 2022
Without the informed participation of the stakeholders in governance, the 2022 elections could make the brazen despotism, the unremitting brutality, the shameless corruption and the gross incompetence that reign in officialdom permanent.
Unauthorized vaccination probe must be completed
More importantly, the AFP said its own investigation could help the military improve its own rules, regulations and policies. In backing off, such a commendable objective was dropped.