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United States President Barack Obama's two-day state visit to the Philippines was met with protest actions by progressive groups. On April 29, protesters expressed outrage at the signing of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) and marched toward the US Embassy in Manila. Police dispersed the protesters using truncheons and water cannon.
Two years after the Supreme Court ordered the distribution of Hacienda Luisita lands to farmworker-beneficiaries, the Cojuangco-Aquinos, with the help of the Department of Agrarian Reform, have been doing everything to maintain their stranglehold on Luisita, and to provent farmers from taking control of their own land.
On the second anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling on Hacienda Luisita, farmworker-beneficiaries stormed the main office of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR). They called on Secretary Virgilio delos Reyes to face them in a dialogue but neither the DAR chief nor any of his representative talked to the farmers. Instead, anti-riot police pushed Hacienda Luisita farmers out of the DAR compound.
Two years after the SC decision, Hacienda Luisita farmers said DAR has not performed its mandate of distributing the land.
How could the peace talks between the GPH and the NDFP proceed? Bulatlat.com's editor Benjie Oliveros and Rey Casambre, executive director of the Philippine Peace Center and one of the convenors of the Philippine Ecumenical Peace Platform, discusses about this and more.
Bulatlat.com's editor Benjie Oliveros interviews Rey Claro Casambre, executive director of the Philippine Peace Center and one of the convenors of the Philippine Ecumenical Peace Platform regarding the controversies surrounding the peace talks.
On the 45th anniversary of the New People's Army (NPA), revolutionary forces from the Southern Tagalog region hold a lighting rally in Manila to salute to all the communist guerrillas in the country. They also call for the immediate release of alleged top communist leaders Wilma Austria and Benito Tiamzon who were arrested last week.
Monique Wilson, a world class Filipino actress and global diretor for One Billion for Rising Justice campaign, takes up the cudgels for Hacienda Luisita women's struggle for genuine land reform.
Hacienda Luisita farmers share how their huts were destroyed and how they were evicted from their farm lands last month by the security guards of the Tarlac Development Corporation, a firm owned by the family of President Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III.
On February 14, 2014, women’s rights advocates gathered to rise for One Billion Rising for Justice, a global movement to stop violence against women and children. In the Philippines, women’s group Gabriela and One Billion Rising global director Monique Wilson led the campaign. They slammed the Philippine government for its criminal neglect on the Filipino people.
A grandmother talks about losing her house to typhoon Yolanda and having to move her family far from their livelihood. Meanwhile, houses of other typhoon survivors were demolished to make way for the government's relocation project.
At the height of supertyphoon Yolanda (international name:Haiyan) on November 8, a power barge operated by the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation (PSALM) slammed against houses in Barangay Botongon, Estancia, Iloilo. This resulted in death, displacement and continuing endangerment to thousands of residents in the massive oil spill that followed.
Two months after, the government has still to finish the clean up.
Teachers and students at Botongon Elementary School continue to hold classes up to two hours a day in the midst of clean up operations in their school, exposing them to various health risks.
At around 3 p.m., Dec. 21, policemen under the command of Tarlac City Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Bayani Razalan, Provincial Director Alex Sintin, chief of Great Star Security Agency, Mauro dela Cruz and Tarlac Development Corporation representative Villamor Lagunero arrested Hacienda Luisita farmers Vicente Sambo, Rod and his mother Eufemia Acosta, Ronald Sakay, husband and wife Jose and Elsa Baldiviano, and Manuel and Mamerto Mandigma. They are now detained at Camp Macabulos, headquarters of PNP-Tarlac. No charges have been filed against them as of Dec. 22.
In Leyte, survivors of Typhoon Yolanda decry the lack of assistance received from the government despite millions of donations, funds allocated for them.
On November 8, 2013, Typhoon Yolanda (international name Haiyan) hit the Philippines and left thousands dead and millions more homeless in its wake.
As many city children play only virtual games or are parked before TV sets, these kids in a provincial town still play traditional games in the schoolyard after school hours.
Hundreds of thousands of Filipinos gather in Luneta to call for the scrapping of the pork barrel system and to express outrage over the blatant misuse of public funds and growing number of unsolved cases of corruption.
Government officials say the pork barrel is indispensable for development. Listen to what average citizens have to say.
Nida and Solomon Naños were farmworkers in Bicol who were forced to migrate to the city after falling victims to a defective agrarian reform program. They now live along Dario Creek in Quezon City where they face constant threat of demolition.
Farmer-beneficiaries of Hacienda Luisita march from Tarlac to Manila to press for the immediate distribution of Hacienda Luisita land, as ordered by the Supreme Court. This video shows the hardships the farmworkers undergo to attain justice, despite the nearly insurmountable odds ranged against them by those who control the vast landholding—the family of President Benigno Aquino—who, according to the farmers, use legalities and the government's coercive forces to delay and eventually keep Hacienda Luisita under their control. But the farmworkers are not to be denied. Aside from pressing their right to land, they have already started tilling the land they say belongs to them by law and by moral right.
25 years after the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program,farmers campout in front of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to protest the continued massive landlessness among poor Filipino farmers under what they call the "longest, most repressive land reform program in the Philippines."
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