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Gov’t breaks own ceasefire 

Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights)-Rizal denounced Jan. 2 alleged violations of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) of its ceasefire declaration covering Dec. 10 to Jan. 6.

The group said about 100 soldiers, some on board two Armored Personnel Carriers (APC) and in full battle gear, from the 21^st Recon Company and 59^th Infantry Battalion led by a certain Capt. Riende conducted warrantless searches in barangays (villages) Calumpit and Bayugo beginning Dec. 30. The soldiers were under the 2^nd IB under the command of controversial appointee Brig. Gen. Jovito Palparan’s 2^nd Infantry Division.

The group’s chair, Rev. Armando Perez, called on the government to immediately demilitarize the province as the military operations in the area, he said, violate the government’s own ceasefire while the soldiers’ presence “terrorizes” the people as well.

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DENR to blame for Leyte landslide – Kalikasan

Clemente Bautista, national coordinator of environmental network Kalikasan-PNE, refuted Department of Environment and Natural Resource (DENR) secretary Elisea Gozun’s statement Dec. 23 that the pre-Christmas Leyte landslide was caused by heavy rains, land conversion and basic geology.

Bautista said that such statement showed President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s and Gozun’s hypocrisy since it is the “government (that) did not implement any reforestation program and failed to stop logging in the province” while allowing transnational mining companies to “exploit and plunder the natural resources” of Leyte.

Kalikasan said that Leyte’s forest cover, which was 59 percent during the 1900s, was down to only 12 percent in 1987. The worst flood that hit Leyte took place in Ormoc City on Nov. 7, 1991. It claimed about 8,000 lives.

Despite all these, the environment group said, the DENR granted mining permits to Buena Suerte Mining Corp. and Oro Philippine Ventures Inc. covering 13,876 hectares of land in four Southern Leyte towns, for mining of gold, silver and other minerals. There are also four other mining companies and an individual, which have existing Mineral Production Sharing Agreements covering 10,378 hectares of land mostly located in the forested and mountainous parts of Leyte.

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Plunder Watch calls anti-graft court decision unfair

PlunderWatch has condemned the Sandiganbayan’s decision allowing ousted President Joseph Ejercito Estrada to seek medical treatment in the United States.

In a Dec. 24 statement, the group described the anti-graft court’s decision as “a classic case of unequal justice long decried by poor and powerless litigants with the misfortune of having to seek justice in Philippine courts.”

Plunder Watch said the decision is unfair “especially in the light of the numerous cases of ill prisoners accused of lesser crimes languishing in unhealthy, congested prisons and disallowed from seeking competent medical treatment outside prison walls.”

Whether it is to “curry favor with the remaining pro-Estrada loyalists or simply to get rid of another controversy and source of political instability,” President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s willingness to grant Estrada’s desires proves her failure to implement meaningful reforms the people have fought for at Edsa II in 2001, the group said.

Bulatlat.com

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