Month: September 2012

By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO Bulatlat.com MANILA — The Philippine National Police (PNP) is using the legal system to harass leaders of an indigenous people’s organization in Surigao del Sur. According to a report from the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP) in the Northern Mindanao Region (NMR), 37 indigenous members and leaders of the…

By JOHN KNEFEL Truthout | Report A new Stanford-NYU report, “Living Under Drones,” details the devastation to civilians – and possible war crimes – resulting from US drone strikes in Pakistan. On the morning of March 17, 2011, Ahmed Jan joined over 40 other people at a bus station in Datta Khel, North Waziristan in…

By RONALYN V. OLEA
Last week, activists of the 1970s up to the present commemorated the 40th year of the declaration of Martial Law not only to recall those dark years but also to remind the people of the dangers of a dictatorship or its repressive instruments being revived. One of the legacies of Martial law was treating the press as a dangerous enemy that needs to be suppressed.

Martial law’s legacy of stifling the press persists

Above-ground alternative press: Open defiance to the Marcos dictatorship

Underground press during martial law: Piercing the veil of darkness imposed by the dictatorship

By RONALYN V. OLEA Bulatlat.com MANILA – When Ferdinand Marcos stifled press freedom, there were those who stood up for the truth. The alternative press, defined by Luis Teodoro, deputy executive director of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR), as media outfits not tied to commercial and political interests, fought the Marcos dictatorship.…

By RONALYN V. OLEA Bulatlat.com MANILA – “The sound of the typewriter then was considered subversive.” Carolina “Bobbie” Malay said as she recalled the early years after Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law. When Marcos shut down newspapers, radio stations and television networks, she, along with her husband, Satur Ocampo, and other activists put up Balita…