In a moment, anytime today we will be hearing loud bangs and celebrations coming across the world as we close this year’s chapter. A few days ago, we were also delighted at how we joyously celebrated Christmas Day and how we also stood in solidarity with those who were unable to do so because of the many struggles they were facing.
For years, Southern Tagalog has been one of the priority areas in the government’s counterinsurgency program. Social injustice breeds resistance, and the struggle for land, jobs and decent life has been met by vicious attacks.
In the almost three decades that she has been residing at the PNR FTI compound in Taguig City, Nelia has yet to have access to a piped water system into her own home. The irony, she said, is that their community sits at a stone’s throw away from a high-end estate, whose residents would never have to experience this.
Despite the filing of a perjury case against Jhed and Jonila, they continue standing with the poor whose lives would be put in peril with the reclamation of Manila Bay.
The Manalo brothers continue to fight for justice as Bulacan court acquitted retired major Jovito Palparan over the kidnapping and illegal detention charges.
By all indications, the coming year will see the continuation and even intensification of devastating wars in the world.
Even if these calls of climate activists and CSO members’ reverberated at the venue of the COP, their voices were not heard at the negotiations of world leaders. Some of the CSOs were allowed to sit in as observers but not to participate in the negotiations.
Civil society organizations called the US’s pledge a measly contribution compared to its aid for war and militarization. They also demand that the funds should truly serve the communities in the Global South.
The right to development of indigenous peoples in the region has been ignored since the beginning of the project. The United Nations defines the right to development as “an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized.”
“These people are innocent civilians being tagged by the NTF-ELCAC as NPAs. Out of their desperation, they are using the civilians for their report on the counter-insurgency program.”
The warning declared by various groups in 2020 – that the ATA would be used by the government to intimidate and harass human rights defenders, activists and dissenters – has become a reality.