ADVERTISEMENT
President Rodrigo Duterte will deliver his fifth State of the Nation Address on Monday, July 27. Bulatlat examines Duterte's policies on the economy and foreign policy, his COVID-19 response and track record on human rights and the attacks on press freedom and expression since the lockdown.
Looking at history, one can say that state abandonment is very much the official disposition on which the labor export system is hinged. The Philippine government is fundamentally inclined to function simply as what sociologist Robyn Rodriguez calls a “labor brokerage state,” an institutional apparatus that facilitates Filipinos’ outward labor traffic.
With the cases increasing, concerned government agencies are swamped with backlogs, particularly on validating COVID-19 cases and an overwhelmed public health system.
If we do not fight back, no one will be left to fight for us and the future generations. If we do not push back, the world that sustain our very lives will be pushed to the brink by tyrants and demagogues like Duterte.
In their petition, church leaders assailed that the vagueness of the Republic Act No. 11479 or the Anti-Terror Act of 2020 will expose them to “credible threat of prosecution” for their ministries and advocacies.
“Ka Fidel V. Agcaoili, my counterpart in the peace table in our efforts to try to end the decades-long armed conflict with the CPP-NPA (New People’s Army)-NDF, was a man of honor and conviction.” -- government negotiator Silvestre Bello III
“Hence, one’s acts may constitute terrorism when the law’s implementors adjudge them to be so. One does not know what acts constitute disobedience of the law. One does not know when and why she or he had become a terrorist.”
"According to the doctor, the cause of his death was pulmonary arterial rupture which caused massive internal bleeding. It was not Covid 19 related."
As COVID-19 wipes out whatever is left of the limited opportunities for Filipinos to earn a living, the Duterte administration’s lacking response, combined with an oppressive political environment, creates conditions for a perfect storm of social unrest.
Under the guise of ‘freedom of navigation’ and ‘commitment to support regional stability’, China and the US have been taking turns in militarizing our territorial waters and plundering our natural resources.
Forty-four leaders of various organizations appealed to the high court to declare the law unconstitutional, for it “insidiously encroaches upon fundamental and constitutional rights, such arbitrary deprivation of the right to life, liberty and property and the non-observance of the right to due process and to presumption of innocence.”
“Are you happily eating your favorite spaghetti and roasted chicken? Can you sleep well? When will these questions be finally answered?”
The ownership of land is in the hands of the powerful people – the landed elites, the mighty corporations that exacted money out of the hard labor, sweat, and blood of the oppressed. They are the bureaucrats, the people in the governments who governed as if the fate of the people is in their hands to give or to put to an end.
A community of readers and supporters that help us sustain our operations through microdonations for as low as $1.
Save as PDF