By MARYA SALAMAT
The GPH talks whether with the MILF or with the NDFP remain bogged down until today, mired as these are in the GPH’s efforts to “box it in its counter-insurgency program called Oplan Bayanihan.” – Satur Ocampo of Makabayan
Sidebar: A saga of all-out euphemisms vs peace, the Moro and the ordinary people
By JANESS ANN J. ELLAO
“Our income as coconut farmers is only enough to cover our expenses for a few days. To survive on the other days, we eat bananas and sweet potatoes.”
By RONALYN V. OLEA
“Ordinary people like me do not understand why our judicial system is like this. Can it be reformed? It is difficult to accept it would take 20 years or 200 years for the case to be resolved.”
By JANESS ANN J. ELLAO
“Real development must be based on social justice. It cannot be achieved by forcibly evicting and throwing us to the countryside and to remote places without decisively resolving the roots of our poverty and oppression.”
By MARYA SALAMAT
After decades of what they described as “agrarian reform programs designed to fail,” Filipino peasants continue to suffer from landlessness and worsening poverty.
Sidebar: Lakbayan in Northern Mindanao Region a success – peasants’ groups
By MARYA SALAMAT
“It was a well-planned raid, considering that the Army Special Forces were involved,” said Mohagher Iqbal, chairman of MILF peace panel, in an interview with Bulatlat.com.
By INA ALLECO SILVERIO
‘The Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace Process is given charge of P569.64 million ($13.2 million), a strangely huge amount when it is not an implementing agency. It has no regular staffing, yet it claims to be implementing a multi-million project covering 970 villages.’
By MARYA SALAMAT
Contractual women workers do not receive maternity benefits; they receive lower wages and suffer heavy workloads; they have no job security nor union rights. – KMU
By INA ALLECO SILVERIO
“The government remains blind to everything except the money that it gets from the mining firms – but this money is tainted with our blood; and no amount of money can ever compensate for the loss of our slain tribal leaders who fought for our rights to our own lands.”
By MARYA SALAMAT
Labor Undersecretary Lourdes Transmonte said the DOLE cannot file a case against Keppel even if its investigation showed that it is liable for the accident.
Related Story: Govt policies blamed for ‘accidents waiting to happen’ in workplaces
By RONALYN V. OLEA
“It is very clear that the priest’s murder was pre-meditated as there was already a threat on his life by the Bagani paramilitary group under the jurisdiction of the 73rd IB, eight years ago due to his love for the Lumads, particularly in organizing them to have their voice heard…” — Rural Missionaries of the Philippines