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By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO
"The budget for OFW services is only 0.43 percent of the debt-servicing budget; three precent of the military budget, 14 percent of PPP funds, and 1.9 percent of the presidential un-programmed funds or the President's pork barrel." – Migrante International
By MARYA SALAMAT
“It is well within the capacity of the Big Three oil companies to implement a significant rollback as their profits have steadily increased in recent years. It is simply revolting for us poor people to see the Big Three’s profits soar as oil prices rise unabated while we suffer from poverty and hunger.” – KMU
By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO
“It is not for the DFA to raise an alert level and declare that there is a directive for ‘voluntary repatriation.’ What should our OFWs do? Who should they call? Where should they go?" – Migrante International
By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO
Artists from the United States, Canada, Italy, Germany, Australia and Thailand defended Cruz and said the campaign of vilification against Cruz was unjust.
By RONALYN V. OLEA
“Hacienda Luisita farm workers cannot be fooled by the SC’s legal semantics. The SC order pretends to be democratic when, in fact, it is anti-democratic.” – Danilo Ramos, Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas.
By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO
“It is the farmers, without any meaningful support from the government, who principally worked for a bountiful harvest. Even the so-called budget for irrigation cannot be claimed as government support because we're the ones paying the exorbitant irrigation fees. Now, because the the government is giving measly funds for the national rice and corn program, we seriously doubt that high harvest yields can continue." – KMP
By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO
The Philippine embassy in Dubai should coordinate with local authorities and work for the speedy release of OFW inmates and their children on humanitarian grounds.
By MARYA SALAMAT
In a study of the proposed 2012 health budget conducted by the Coalition for Health Budget Increase (CHBI), it found out that the increases in the health budget only “define the Aquino Health Agenda of privatization and commercialization of public health care which will further jeopardize the health of the people.”
By MARYA SALAMAT
August 9 is the international day of the world’s indigenous peoples, but the “occasion is a grim one as human rights violations and ancestral landgrabbing are rampant.” – Piya Macliing Malayao, KAMP.
Sidebar: Indigenous peoples’ groups decry use of IPRA and NCIP for development aggression
By RONALYN V. OLEA
Fidel Agcaoili, member of the NDFP peace panel and chairman of its Human Rights Committee, told Bulatlat.com that they already proposed a date for the next round of talks to be held in Oslo, Norway and are now waiting for the response from the GPH panel.
By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO
" It did more than just shut the doors of a gallery exhibiting Kulo, it surrendered the rights of artists and allowed censorship in." – National Artist Bienvenido Lumbera
By MARYA SALAMAT
Despite the promises of devolution, funding for health services is unable to keep up with local needs.
Sidebar: Not enough doctors, and nurses, in
Sidebar: Where do the sick go?
SECOND PART: LGUs try enterprise to cure shortage in health funding
By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO
During the August 9 budget hearing of the DOH, Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño exposed the practice of the Philippine Children’s Medical Center (PCMC) of asking indigent patients to pawn personal items like mobile phones and watches in exchange for releasing patients.
By ANNE MARXZE D. UMIL
“The government should have given us permanent jobs instead of this (conditional cash transfer). Money is not permanent, we lose it in a day, unlike when we have a permanent job, we would somehow have permanent resources to spend for our needs,” – Angie Lorenzo, beneficiary
By MARYA SALAMAT
The Japan meeting of leaders of the two parties to an ongoing peace negotiation is “a grand gesture on the part of the president,” Mohagher Iqbal told bulatlat.com. But he added that “the real thing is on the negotiating table.”
By LYN V. RAMO
"Justice has been too slow and elusive to the Moro victims of Arroyo’s fascist reign. Many of the victims who belong to the poorest sectors of Moro society have been languishing in jail for 10 years now." – Moro Christian Peoples' Alliance
By MARYA SALAMAT
They have all been rewarded and chances are, they would be able to get away with it.
By JOE PENNEY
When I witnessed the Twin Towers falling while we were evacuated from school, I was in a state of shock and awe...Little did I know that 10 years later I would meet a woman whose suffering was caused by the Bush administration’s response to 9/11—not in Afghanistan nor Baghdad, but in Manila.
By RONALYN V. OLEA
One of the alleged but still unnamed perpetrators had the gall and temerity to go to the hearing and display himself, intimidating and eyeing Ramos all throughout the hearing. He was openly thumbing his nose, as it were, at the whole justice system.” – Edre Olalia, lawyer
By RONALYN V. OLEA
“However long this takes, we will never give up. What is important is we get justice for what was done to us. We urge newly-appointed Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales to act on the cases we filed that aim to seek justice for victims of human rights violations.”
– Raymond Manalo, victim of torture and arbitrary detention
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