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While authorities dismiss the recent bombings in Quezon City, Jolo, Iligan City and Cotabato City as mere pre-Sona “noises,” critics, martial-law era activists and analysts believe that an Arroyo regime desperate enough to hold on to power is capable of anything, including using its iron fist on Filipinos.
The political dimension of charter change has dominated the national agenda. But the constant driving force behind all the attempts since the last decade to modify the Constitution has been the external pressure coming mainly from the WTO, the US, the EU and Japan to create the sort of policy environment that will allow globalization to fully thrive in the Philippines. (First of two parts)
To many Filipinos in the southern Philippines, Sabah represents salvation. Beckoned by the vast palm-oil plantations in the Malaysian state, they go there in droves seeking employment that they could not find in their homeland. Once there, however, many of them are confronted with the reality of neglect and abuse that is far brutal than the one they had left behind.
To some, Susan Fernandez was an educator. To her children, she was a loving mother. To the many who have known her since the 1970s, she was a singer and a patriot, rendering songs that reflected the people’s yearnings.
Ka Wilson was a dropout from a poor family in Tarlac. But that did not stop him from becoming one of the most intelligent and passionate leaders of the progressive labor movement in the Philippines. Not even his sickness, to which he succumbed this week at the age of 55, prevented him from pursuing the Filipino workers’ struggle that he waged all his life.
There are signs that Dennis Rodinas was tortured, his wife says. The military asserts that he was a leader of the NPA in Western Mindanao and that an “explosive component” was found on him. His family says the charges are fabricated.
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Church Worker Missing After Being Arrested By Police and Turned Over to Military
Dennis Rodinas, a lay worker of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, was subjected to “custodial debriefing” at a military camp in Misamis Occidental and has not been heard from. His family is concerned that he may end up the latest victim of human-rights atrocities in the Philippines.
Protesters Demand End of Arroyo Regime
The crimes and other atrocities stemming from the implementation of Oplan Bantay Laya are directly instigated by the so-called “war on terror,” which the Bush regime exported to and imposed on the Philippines. The Obama government is faced with the challenge of stopping the war begun by its predecessor – a war that has caused countless human-rights violations in the Philippines and its other “fronts.”
The Office of the Solicitor General told the Court of Appeals that the abduction and torture of Melissa Roxas are nothing but mere fabrications to embarrass the government. Her recent press conference in Los Angeles, it says, was part of the plot. The victim’s lawyers and supporters, however, say the government is just trying to evade responsibility.
The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant symbolized the corruption and excesses of the Marcos dictatorship. The Arroyo administration is now trying to revive it. But those who participated in the 1985 “welgang bayan” that helped shut down the plant are reviving the passion and spirit of that landmark protest to oppose the present regime’s plan.
An overseas Filipino worker (OFW) who recently returned to the Philippines has made an urgent appeal to help rescue 20 other women OFWs in Saudi Arabia, some of whom are being treated as sex slaves. She said several of them have been raped.
Union denounces move by Triumph International, calling it “unjust and illegal." The workers have been trying to fend off attempts by the company to decrease production at the factories and to move these facilities elsewhere.
In a perfect world, Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan never would have met. The atrocity that befell them, a most horrendous fate, never would have happened. And they never would have stood now as a testament to the rot that is eating away at the core of this country.
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