The deployment of more than 60 percent of the total number of AFP troops in (Mindanao) has resulted in massive militarization in rural communities, particularly the indigenous people’s ancestral domain… The pervasiveness of the AFP and its paramilitary groups in securing the interests of big landlords and capitalists over the [natural] resources in Mindanao has…
How shall we read this latest situation? What can we expect to happen next? Having dispatched his peace adviser Jesus Dureza and a team of government negotiators to Europe and allowed the travel of NDFP negotiating panel member Benito Tiamzon and two consultants to participate in back-channel talks, President Duterte made a U-turn and ordered…
Two media announcements from Malacanang this week, reaffirming President Duterte’s commitments on two crucial issues at the start of his term in July, have evoked positive responses from the peasant and worker sectors. These sectors constitute the majority of the poor whose socio-economic conditions Mr. Duterte has vowed to uplift. The first, announced after a…
President Duterte’s four-day blustering last week – withdrawing the government’s unilateral ceasefire, “cancelling” the GRP-NDFP peace talks, ordering the re-arrest of 17 NDFP consultants released in August to join the peace negotiations, and tagging as “terrorists” the CPP-NPA and NDFP – has upended his previous stance (in the first six months of his term) of…
Negotiate in a non-adversarial way. Resolve differences and overcome obstacles. Focus on the substantial agenda of social, economic and political reforms that address the root causes of the armed conflict and thus move decisively forward to a just and lasting peace. Invoking these vital principles, the two panels in the revived GRP-NDFP peace talks under…
In his farewell speech on Tuesday, US President Barack Obama tried to project confidence in America’s future, while saying economic inequality, racism, and closed-mindedness threaten national unity. He pledged to support his successor, Donald Trump, in face of the widespread fears expressed over how the volatile political outlier could mishandle the superpower’s problems and affairs.…
President Duterte enters the second half of his first year in office unrelentingly pursuing his bloody war on illegal drugs, which during the electoral campaign he had promised to complete in six months. The fulfillment of another campaign promise has now been added to that: weeding out corruption in government. Comes now the disclosure by…
By Satur C. Ocampo At Ground Level | The Philippine Star “The United States won a significant victory on Tuesday in its effort to counter China’s rising influence in the South China Sea, as the highest court in the Philippines cleared the way for American troops to return to the country on a regular basis.…
By Satur C. Ocampo At Ground Level | The Philippine Star Last December 22, a major daily published (as full-page ad) an appeal titled “Cease all hostilities until the 2016 elections.” It’s addressed to the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front of the Philippines (CPP-NPA-NDFP).…
By Satur C. Ocampo At Ground Level | The Philippine Star Whatever may be the reason(s), 90 percent of Filipinos welcome 2016 with hope, per the surveys by Pulse Asia and Social Weather Stations. Here’s wishing one and all a happy and exciting new year! Before midyear, we’ll know the results of the national and…