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Acute income and economic inequality, the negative phenomenon spawned by neoliberal economics, continues to widen worldwide. Wealth gets concentrated, in scandalous scale, in the hands of the few super-rich, depriving billions of the poor all over the world...
It’s one magistrate’s opinion against those of his 11, or 14, other colleagues. And it’s a much younger voice arguing with the many older ones who have presumably spent more years than him in thinking about the law. Yet Supreme Court Associate Justice Marvic M.V.F....
As the “war against terrorists” in Marawi City under martial law conditions in Mindanao enters its fifth week, a grave humanitarian crisis looms. Meantime, conflicting signals from President Duterte and the Armed Forces of the Philippines continue to baffle the...
Sixteen years ago, alarmed over the rising incidents of extrajudicial killing of persons engaged in defending and promoting human rights in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, an independent advocacy group founded Front Line Defenders (FLD) in Dublin,...
Just ten months in office and after announcing that “Change is coming!” the Duterte government appears bound to be lumped up with its predecessor administrations and indicted before the international community for continued human rights violations and worsening...
Two aerial views from a military helicopter, hovering above the mountain terrain in Caraga region last Tuesday, remain vivid – and disturbing – in my mind. One is that of a winding river and its tributaries in Agusan del Sur whose waters are oddly thick...
The momentarily disrupted work on the GRP-NDFP peace talks has continued. In eight days the 4th round of formal negotiations will take place in Norway (April 2-6). This time the talks will not be in Oslo but in a town called Noordwijk. The change in the venue seems...
The deployment of more than 60 percent of the total number of AFP troops in (Mindanao) has resulted in massive militarization in rural communities, particularly the indigenous people’s ancestral domain… The pervasiveness of the AFP and its paramilitary groups in...
How shall we read this latest situation? What can we expect to happen next? Having dispatched his peace adviser Jesus Dureza and a team of government negotiators to Europe and allowed the travel of NDFP negotiating panel member Benito Tiamzon and two consultants to...
Two media announcements from Malacanang this week, reaffirming President Duterte’s commitments on two crucial issues at the start of his term in July, have evoked positive responses from the peasant and worker sectors. These sectors constitute the majority of the...
President Duterte’s four-day blustering last week – withdrawing the government’s unilateral ceasefire, “cancelling” the GRP-NDFP peace talks, ordering the re-arrest of 17 NDFP consultants released in August to join the peace negotiations, and tagging as...
Negotiate in a non-adversarial way. Resolve differences and overcome obstacles. Focus on the substantial agenda of social, economic and political reforms that address the root causes of the armed conflict and thus move decisively forward to a just and lasting...
In his farewell speech on Tuesday, US President Barack Obama tried to project confidence in America’s future, while saying economic inequality, racism, and closed-mindedness threaten national unity. He pledged to support his successor, Donald Trump, in face of the...
President Duterte enters the second half of his first year in office unrelentingly pursuing his bloody war on illegal drugs, which during the electoral campaign he had promised to complete in six months. The fulfillment of another campaign promise has now been...
By Satur C. Ocampo At Ground Level | The Philippine Star “The United States won a significant victory on Tuesday in its effort to counter China’s rising influence in the South China Sea, as the highest court in the Philippines cleared the way for American troops to...
By Satur C. Ocampo At Ground Level | The Philippine Star Last December 22, a major daily published (as full-page ad) an appeal titled “Cease all hostilities until the 2016 elections.” It’s addressed to the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the Communist Party...
By Satur C. Ocampo At Ground Level | The Philippine Star Whatever may be the reason(s), 90 percent of Filipinos welcome 2016 with hope, per the surveys by Pulse Asia and Social Weather Stations. Here’s wishing one and all a happy and exciting new year! Before...
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