By MARYA SALAMAT
Aspiring senator and Gabriela Women's Partylist Rep. Liza Maza unveils her fashion line that promotes nationalism.
Sidebar: Angel Locsin and Sandra Araullo -- Two Accomplished Women and Their Advocacies
By MARYA SALAMAT
As a member of the Council for Health and Development, Tere helps out in implementing projects being undertaken by community-based health programs (CBHPs).
In a press conference, the detainees’ children issued an appeal to the government. “As we are about to celebrate the International Women’s Day on March 8, children of the 43 jailed health workers want their mother, sister and grandparents to celebrate the day together with them, outside Camp Capinpin and away from any harm, threat and abuse.”
By MARYA SALAMAT
The Philippine General Hospital -- the country’s hospital of last resort especially for indigent patients, a key training ground for students of the University of the Philippines, and the premier public hospital in the country -- is currently embroiled in a mess over who should be its rightful director. It's an imbroglio that has its roots to a multi-million peso lease contract.
Ahead of Women's Day on March 8, Katribu partylist cited women health workers, particularly the 26 currently detained in Camp Capinpin, “for bringing health service to the poor and far-flung indigenous communities neglected by the government, for performing their medical duty to country and people at the risk of being arrested and tagged as rebels.”
Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Public Information Office is hoodwinking the public when he says that AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Victor Ibrado is ordering the transfer of the 43 health workers collectively known as the Morong 43 to a Philippine National Police (PNP) facility, even as they have supposedly communicated their desire to remain at the military's Camp Capinpin in Tanay, Rizal, where they are now detained. He is trying to make the AFP and its chief of staff appear more magnanimous than they actually are.
By MARYA SALAMAT
In a presidential forum on human rights, Noynoy Aquino, amid hemming and hawing and qualifiers, said he favors a pre-Marcos-like Anti-Subversion Law. He said he is not averse to curtailing rights in the name of national security, although, he hoped “we will not have a situation that will necessitate that.”
By MARYA SALAMAT
Volunteer medical doctors for the “Free the 43 Health Workers” movement decried the military’s refusal to let them examine the detained health workers. They repeatedly requested, with the lawyers and family members, the camp authorities to let them see the detainees but they were rebuffed nine times.
By MARYA SALAMAT
In the Philippines, the bulk of employed health workers and professionals are in the public sector. But over the years, the effect of government neglect on health, such as low wages and deplorable working conditions of health workers, coupled with the government’s active labor export policy, have combined to shrink the number of the country’s employed health professionals and workers.
By MARYA SALAMAT
“She is a community health worker who wanted to help people with medical needs. She and others like her painstakingly reach out to the poor and in farflung areas. They go out of their way to do sacrifices without asking for much in return.”
By MARYA SALAMAT
The nurse who has been working for 18 years at the Jose Reyes Memorial with good service record as attested to by the hospital itself suddenly became a member of the New People's Army, according to the military. He was there, the military alleged, not to train health workers how to save lives but how to make bombs.
The AFP tries to malign the 43 health workers by calling them communists. Instead, the military is suggesting to the country that NPA guerrillas are dedicated and seriously serving the people, against all odds. The AFP could win its case in the Court of Appeals but it would lose the war against the NPA and public opinion.
By MARYA SALAMAT
Dr. Alex Montes is a retired surgeon. But even in retirement, he found time to serve the poor through the medical missions he organized and joined and through the trainings he conducted for community health workers and volunteers. Today, he is behind bars -- abused, tortured and humiliated by a regime that is terrified by his passion.
By MARYA SALAMAT
A hundred members of Piston and the Alliance of Private Motorists against RFID marched from Edsa-Kamias to picket the offices of LTO in East Avenue last Wednesday to press for this demand. They are questioning the LTO’s seeming reluctance to refund the motorists and the LTO officers’ conflicting statements about the status of the money.
By MARYA SALAMAT
Although Douglas Dumanon hailed from a middle-class family, he joined and served without hesitation the struggle of the toiling masses, especially that of the workers and the urban poor.
By MARYA SALAMAT
Concerns are being raised that the automated elections system (AES), which is supposed to be used in the coming elections in May, is vulnerable to cheating and that the Commission on Elections has been so inept in the preparations.
By MARYA SALAMAT
Among those who participated in the recent Lakbayan, the national peasant caravan, were members of the Aberlin Aetas, a tribe in Tarlac whose communities and livelihood are being threatened by a mega-dam project started by the administration of Cory Aquino and now being pursued by the Arroyo regime.
By MARYA SALAMAT
The Supreme Court decision came just a month after the National Union of Peoples' Lawyers, representing progressive partylists Bayan Muna, Gabriela partylist and Anakpawis and transport group Piston, filed a petition questioning the RFID project of the LTO.
By MARYA SALAMAT
Act, Migrante and Courage accuse the Arroyo administration of having a hand in the Comelec's decisions to bar them from the partylist race. The rulings were released quite late last year, thus not allowing enough time for the three partylist groups to challenge the decisions. The groups have been active in campaigns against the Arroyo administration's policies, corruption scandals and rights abuses.
By MARYA SALAMAT
Human-rights violations in 2009 are “numerous and varied and no sector of society is exempted,” belying the Arroyo government’s claim that steps have been taken to improve the Philippine government’s human-rights record, according to Karapatan. And with Oplan Bantay Laya 2's deadline in 2010 fast approaching, more abuses are certain to occur, it said.
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