“While we at CPA continue to seek legal remedies to ensure our safety, security, and human rights in this shrinking democratic space, the state also weaponizes everything at its disposal to silence us."
The setting of the sun signals the time to come home, a time for rest from the daily toils. But for the poor workers in highly urbanized areas rest is a luxury. The none-stop rotation of work propagated by capitalism, rest is counter-productive.
Finally, describing the case as of “transcendental importance,” the Supreme Court affirmed its Jan. 10, 2023 decision declaring as unconstitutional and void a tripartite agreement for Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking (JMSU), signed in 2005 by the Philippine government with the governments of China and Vietnam.
The families of indigenous peoples’ rights advocates Dexter Capuyan and Gene Roz Jamil De Jesus, who disappeared more than two months ago, asked the Court of Appeals to order law enforcement authorities to surface their missing kin.
Bahaghari Philippines called out the Philippine National Police’s brutality and transphobia and demanded “the urgent release of Awra and the dropping of all false, trumped-up charges against her.”
In primitive times, when a person disappears, his tribe would presume he had been eaten by wild beasts, fallen off a cliff, captured by another tribe, or taken by the spirits. If search parties fail to locate him, the babaylan will ask the diwatas or engkantos if they have taken the missing person’s body or spirit. The necessary rituals can then be performed according to circumstances or the person’s social status.
More children have fallen victim to the government’s offensive military operations.
After six years of the government’s program to phase out jeepneys, thousands of drivers and operators are still feeling the cruel punishment.
“We do not see any compelling reason for Gadon to be appointed to this position. This is nothing but a political reward for his continuing defense of the Marcos family."
"While we are importing sugar in record volume, prices of sugar went up by at least 80 percent under Marcos Jr."
For communities living around Mayon Volcano’s six-kilometer danger zone, evacuation is part of their life.
I was blessed by children today. Two children, actually. A young girl, 10-year old Sophie, and a 3-month old baby boy, Matteo. Sometimes, one can’t contain oneself, by the joy these two pure souls may offer this poor, weak soul. Life can be so burdensome.
In the early 2000s, government soldiers brutally killed a couple, Expedito and Manuela Albarillo, in a surprise attack on their home in San Teodoro, Mindoro Oriental. Their bodies, mutilated by the intense gunfire, were dragged out of their house by the perpetrators, later identified as Philippine Army soldiers commanded by then Col. Jovito Palparan Jr.
This year marks the 13th year of Mary Jane’s detention on death row. And while there is no imminent threat of execution since she was granted a temporary reprieve by the Indonesian government in 2015 to allow her to testify against her traffickers in an ongoing legal case in the Philippines as a victim of human trafficking, Mary Jane does not deserve to be imprisoned for another single day.
It is a daunting task if we think of it without God in the equation. This call of God to discipleship today is not far more or far less formidable than in the time of the apostles. The contexts are very different but there is one constant: it is God who calls us to be laborers for his harvest. When the going gets tough, God will carry us on eagle’s wings. When faced with death, we know that it is life in God that awaits us.
Almost a year after taking office, the new administration hasn’t taken any perceptible step towards making decisive, positive changes in the country’s dismal human rights situation. This is a major long-festering national malaise that Ferdinand Marcos Jr. seems to be determined to ignore.
Despite the attacks and the experience in prison, the four continue to struggle for education and land because they have witnessed ancestors who sacrificed their lives just for their land.
We are just pilgrims here on earth. We are all travelers. We are just passing through this world. Our worldly existence is very much finite. Our worldly existence could not overpower time.
Nearing the end of his first year in Malacañang, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has stayed silent about his stand on the continuing calls from peace advocates to resume negotiations with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, which his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, unilaterally terminated in November 2017.
“He always reminded me of my mom’s unwavering fighting spirit as she battled with cancer – that we have to be strong and prepare ourselves for any eventuality and prepare whenever she has to go."
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