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By BEN EHRENREICH Truthout Posted by Bulatlat Perhaps we protest too much. Torture, after all, is a venerable American tradition. We were waterboarding captives in one of our earliest wars of occupation, the Philippine-American War, which cost as many as 1 million...
MANILA -- Today, June 20, members of the organizations of victims and relatives of victims of human rights violations, Desaparecidos and Hustisya! as well as the human rights alliance, KARAPATAN, turned out in a jubilant mood to show their support to the wedding of...
Unless the Arroyo regime released all the individuals it has thrown to jail for politically motivated and fabricated charges, the abolition last month of the agency behind these cases will amount to nothing but a publicity stunt, according to lawyers and human-rights advocates.
Melissa Roxas Case: Military Is Accountable
“I thought I was going to die there and then,” Melissa Roxas says. “They held my feet and my hands down and doubled-up plastic bags were pulled down on my head and face and closed on my neck and I started to suffocate and I could not breathe anymore and I was seeing white and thinking I was going to die.” | JOHN EDWARD JANDOC, MELISSA'S COMPANION, REMAINS MISSING
By the New York Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines The abduction, captivity, and surfacing of Filipina-American activist Melissa Roxas serves as a due wakeup call to many Filipinos in the United States that no critic of the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo...
The translation of feces from an abject source of embarrassment into a potential weapon of vengeance is perhaps the most telling instance of a kind of rebellion: the refashioning of the body from an object of captivity into an agent of its own liberation. Drawing...
The clock struck twelve. The brothers snuck out of a safehouse in Pangasinan where they were allegedly detained by elements from the 24th Infantry Battalion and hurried towards the highway. Unlike their previous attempt to flee, this time they succeeded. Raymond...
Ang pagiging written at spoken art ng tula ay makitid na dimension lamang ng pag-iral nito. Mas malawak ang hamon sa tula na makalampas pa sa mabusising pagkakasulat, mahusay na pagkakabigkas o kaiga-igayang pagkakatanghal, papunta sa pagtanggap ng mambabasa, na...
MANILA -- In 2007, Melissa Roxas moved to the Philippines to pursue what a colleague of hers described as "human-rights advocacy full-time." Prior to Roxas's move, she had been active as a founding member of the cultural organization Habi-Arts in Los Angeles. She...
By BENJIE OLIVEROS Analysis Bulatlat MANILA -- The United Nations (UN), including its committees and commissions, is not known for straightforward and precise assessments and statements. Its reports and statements are usually couched in diplomatic language. This is...
After hearing the report of the Philippine government and the testimonies of two torture victims, the United Nations Committee against Torture expressed its grave concern at the “routine and widespread use of torture” and the “climate of impunity for perpetrators of acts torture, including military, police, and other State officials”.
Filipino Torture Victims Testify Before UN
On the second day of the five-day search for two missing youths Romulo Robiños and Ryan Supan in military camps, soldiers denied the families and rights groups entry to what the military calls a “sacred place,” a forested area beside the office of the Commanding...
BY ANNA KRISTINA P. VIRTUSIO Bulatlat Human rights groups condemned the Arroyo administration for ignoring the latest report of the United Nations special rapporteur Philip Alston on extrajudicial killings in the country. In a press conference in Diliman, Quezon...
BY BULATLAT An alliance of individuals from the church, academe and human rights groups expressed dismay over how the Philippine National Police (PNP) handles the case of Rebelyn Pitao. Rebelyn, 20, was abducted by four armed men at 6:30 p.m. last March 4, 2009 at...
If defenders of human rights are the ones being attacked by state security forces, can a country still boast of being under a democracy? Since 2001 until March this year, human rights group Karapatan revealed that 420 human rights defenders have been killed and 66...
As the Philippine National Police (PNP) exonerated the military from the murder of Rebelyn Pitao, the New People's Army (NPA) carried out what it calls 'revolutionary' punishment against four alleged perpetrators. BY RONALYN V. OLEA Bulatlat The Philippine National...
Torture victim Raymond Manalo identified one of his captors, a military officer, in court during the continuation of the Cadapan-Empeño hearings at the Court of Appeals in Manila, Jan 18. BY DABET CASTAÑEDA Bulatlat Vol. VII, No. 49, January 20-26, 2008 Torture...
In a statement sent to Bulatlat, the Philippine UPR Watch said Ermita consumed the time of the whole session and left the Committee members with little time to ask more searching and probing questions even after being reminded, a couple of times, to shorten its report. “It was pretty obvious to the Philippine and international NGOs that the Philippine delegation was just “dribbling” the time away to avoid being put to task for its general and high-falluting replies spruced up with cute acronyms that – in the words of another Committee member - have “nothing on the practical side” and have no value on the ground,” the group said.
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