“Karapatan will continue its human rights work, as it has done under perilous conditions for more than 20 years. These series of attacks [by state security forces against human rights defenders] have strengthened our commitment. We will not be cowed. We will always march for, protect, and defend the human rights of the people.” Thus…
Definitely justified are the strong public outrage and calls for impartial investigation into the killing last March 30 of 14 farmers, by police and military forces in joint day-long operations in Canlaon City and the towns of Manjuyod and Sta. Catalina in Negros Oriental. The Philippine National Police has justified the killings, as the operations…
The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, created under the Bangsamoro Organic Law, was inaugurated in Cotabato City yesterday. In the morning, the Bangsa-moro Transition Authority, the region’s interim government until the election of the Bangsamoro Parliament in 2022, convened, adopted its rules and elected its officers. Supposedly, in the afternoon the BARMM was to…
Back-to-back with the controversial withdrawal of the Philippines from the International Criminal Court (ICC) that took effect on March 17, the following day President Duterte dismissed the government panel negotiating peace with the National Democratic Front and, the day after, even said it was a “permanent” termination. These moves by the president raise big questions…
“For the things I have said, ordered and done, I am willing to put my neck here. Maybe someday, this ICC [International Criminal Court]… if they decide to hang me I would be very glad to go.” With a fatalistic twinge, President Duterte was quoted as having said this last Wednesday, as he considered the…
Ten years ago, no country in the world gave women and men equal legal rights. Today (or since June 2017) six out of 187 nations have enshrined gender equality in their laws, specifically those affecting employment and entrepreneurship, according to a decade-long study made public by the World Bank, ahead of the observance of International…
Putting to work its National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, the Duterte government since last month has ramped up its red-tagging campaign against human rights defenders, militant people’s organizations and alliances, and left-leaning candidates in the May 13 elections. Instantly the ripostes were vigorous – denials, condemnations – from a broad range…
There is probably no question that the Duterte government‘s 2017-2022 plan to clean up and rehabilitate the gravely polluted Manila Bay, at the cost of P43 billion, is a most welcome, although much-delayed, development. Much-delayed because it was in 2008 that the Supreme Court granted the petition for a writ of continuing mandamus filed —…
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…
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…
He was fast asleep inside the bus, too tired perhaps to get out and stretch his legs during the stopover in Aritao, Nueva Vizcaya, at about 2 a.m. Wednesday. So when a gunman boarded the bus to kill him in cold blood, the murder went very fast. The assassin then quickly left the scene on…