While the media industry in the country faces hundreds of attacks in the past six years under outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration, the situation is no different for student publications in their respective campuses nationwide.
"We are entitled to appeal this decision and will do so, especially since the proceedings were highly irregular."
The Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called on the Philippine government to restore access to two alternative news sites that were earlier blocked for supposed terror links, saying this is intimidation and censorship.
The fall of socialist regimes and the restoration of capitalism in many countries in the 1990s provoked the view that the current stage of history is also its last. The adherents of the theory that liberal democracy is the pinnacle of political evolution are correct: individual freedom and self-rule are the prerogatives of all of humanity. But democracy has never been as imperiled as it is today by the tyrants who rule in its name. Despite the economic and social crises that afflict not only the poorest countries of the world but also the wealthiest, no alternative seems to be available, the only prospect being more of the same.
“We call on all the concerned sectors to stand together against the continuing wave of red-tagging and terrorist-labelling and to vigorously defend freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom of association and the right to peaceably assemble.”
Today’s gospel provides us guidance on how to be disciples today. To be able to share the Good News, we must be ready to speak the truth. We should come prepared for some people to reject us because God’s ways are different. Do not expect royalties, retainers, commissions, and other rewards for it is not promised.
“This situation is like a throwback to 1972 when Marcos Sr. closed down private media and broadcasting networks and maintained only government mouthpieces."
A group of overseas Filipino workers challenged President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to act accordingly on the case of Filipina on death row Mary Jane Veloso.
International media organizations are appalled over the National Telecommunications Commission’s order blocking online access to Bulatlat and fellow alternative news Pinoy Weekly, which the Philippine government accused of having terror links.
“No matter who is in power, we have remained fearless in our truth-telling. We will continue our work while we also consider all legal remedies available to question, and stop yet another state-sponsored repression."
Independence of mind as well as of the Filipino nation that was yet to be was what Rizal, Bonifacio, Apolinario Mabini, and company wrote, fought and died for. And they are inextricably linked, the first being the essential condition for the achievement of the second.
Yesterday president-in-waiting Ferdinand Marcos Jr. named Juan Ponce Enrile as his presidential legal counsel. A key implementor during Marcos Sr.’s martial law dictatorship, Enrile figured prominently in the latter’s ouster by popular uprising in 1986. He still faces charges of plunder as former Senate president.
On the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, the Eucharist shows us that the way forward is not to focus on ourselves and on our “truths” but to move toward others, especially those who are in need, as Jesus Christ had shown us in his life, ministry, passion and resurrection. There are no alternative truths and we cannot own the truth.
"No matter what we do, it seems that it is still not enough."
Their unlawful arrest brought to mind how while the rest of the world is being plagued by a storm that is the COVID-19, not everyone is able to ride the tides with sturdy boats.
“We call on the CHR and the various UN human rights and environmental offices we have worked with in the past years to undertake preventive interventions against these human rights abuses and threats.”
When humankind was brought into being, they were not just any kind of creatures, but beings created in God’s likeness. God wants to share something of the Divinity, something within the Triune God which seeks to be expressed and can only be expressed by bringing into being humankind and the whole creation.
The accreditation of bloggers that Marcos Junior’s choice for Press Secretary (she will also head the Presidential Communication Operations Office or PCOO) is planning is not new. It was also considered by her predecessor, but abandoned because of problems over which bloggers would join the Malacañang Press Corps in covering the President.
But this week, international attention has turned to the Philippines as Ferdinand Marcos Jr. prepares to become the country’s next president. Instead of stamping out reminders of tyranny, will there be a restoration? With an ousted dictator’s son taking power, will historical documents be destroyed? Will the memories of victims be forcibly erased?
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