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Kin Remember Disappeared Loved Ones, Slam OBL Extension
By ANNE MARXZE D. UMIL and
RONALYN V. OLEA
On the occasion of the International Day of the Disappeared, relatives of victims of enforced disappearances marched to Mendiola bridge to demand that their loved ones be surfaced and the perpetrators, including former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo be punished.
On August 30, Carina Judilyn Oliveros and her baby, escorted by at least 10 BJMP officers, were finally transferred to the Philippine General Hospital in Manila, where they would detained for three months.
By RONALYN V. OLEA
Casiano Abing is the sixth activist killed since President Benigno S. Aquino III assumed power. Human rights lawyer Katrina Castillo deems the killing a result of the extension of counterinsurgency program Oplan Bantay Laya.
By RONALYN V. OLEA
After initially denying the petition for temporary release of Morong 43 mother Carina Judilyn Oliveros, the court, in deciding on the appeal filed by Oliveros’s counsel, ordered her and her son’s transfer to a hospital where she would be detained for a period of three months.
By RONALYN V. OLEA
The book Oplan Bantay Laya: The US-Arroyo Campaign of Terror and Counterinsurgency in the Philippines not only explains why Oplan Bantay Laya is the most vicious counterinsurgency campaign but also puts in proper context the role of the US government in the state’s brutal campaign against the Filipino people.
On the eve of the 27th anniversary of the assassination of Senator Ninoy Aquino last August 20, families and relatives of human-rights violations led by Families of the Disappeared for Justice (Desaparecidos) and Victims of Arroyo United for Justice (Hustisya!), tied a long yellow cloth around the Boy Scout Monument in Quezon City to signify their continuing search and fight for justice.
By RONALYN V. OLEA
Twenty armed men in three vehicles took her from her hospital room in handcuffs. She was separated from her baby. They took her away swiftly while her mother was settling her hospital bills. This detainee is not a high profile, dangerous criminal, but a health worker and political detainee.
By ANNE MARXZE D. UMIL
President Benigno S. Aquino III is “doing the exact opposite of his pronouncement that he will put closure to the human-rights violations of Arroyo and her cohorts. As commander-in-chief, he allowed the AFP to extend the counter-insurgency plan which was proven to have violated human rights.” Read more stories on Oplan Bantay Laya
By RONALYN V. OLEA
Lawmaker says Supreme Court itself will be on trial. “The Hacienda Luisita land dispute is the first acid test of the Supreme Court under the Aquino administration. The Cojuangco-Aquinos have put the Supreme Court on trial here,” says Anakpawis Rep. Rafael Mariano.
Before the coffin bearing the remains of Tarlac City Councilor Abel Ladera, the ninth Hacienda Luisita martyr, was buried, it was opened for his family and barriomates one last time. It took however almost an hour before the people could finish their goodbye: young ones took pictures of him with their cellular phones; the older ones patted the coffin, with whispers of “Salamat po, salamat po” (thank you, thank you) while a woman asked with a break in her voice, “Bakit ka nila pinatay, wala na kaming kasama.” (Why did they kill you, we no longer have someone to help us.)
The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) has set June 10 as the date for initial land distribution in Hacienda Luisita but the parties to the dispute, including DAR, appear to be getting deeply embroiled in a tug-of-war.
Sa Ngalan ng Tubo is action-packed and is never dragging. The music is at one time stirring and at another, solemn. Truly, the film portrays a history unfolding – and the strikers as the makers of history.
From his humble beginnings as a sugar worker, City Councilor Abelardo R. Ladera emerged as one of the few successful local political figures who openly stood against the Cojuangco-Aquino dynasty in Tarlac. Ladera was gunned down at high noon of March 3 making him Tarlac’s first local official assassinated in the post-dictator era.
After several minutes of searching in the shadows, we finally find them, with lights from their gas lamps flickering through sack-covered bunkhouses. They stay by the edge of the Cojuangcos’ sprawling sugar plantation in Tarlac, far from the estate’s factories and barrios.
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