This was the top-of-mind step that Ian Fry, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change, urged the Philippine government to take as he wound up a 10-day official visit in the country last Wednesday.
Category: Contributions
At Ground Level | At UN and Vatican, women push for leadership roles
At two world institutions, the United Nations and the Vatican, despite obstacles, momentous changes are on the way: changes that would ensure women equal rights with men to be elected heads of their policy-making and executive bodies.
At Ground Level | 51 years of impunity: legacy of martial law
“It was a period of unmitigated tyranny and corruption in our history that we must never forget and, more importantly, must never allow to happen again.” That was the core message – reflected on t-shirts, flyers, placards and streamers – that human rights defenders reiterated as protesters across the nation once more recalled Ferdinand Marcos…
At Ground Level | Global rights groups assail terror law misuse
Following Marcos Jr.’s approval of the National Security Policy (NSP) 2023-2028 on Aug. 12, progressive people’s organizations and the human rights community are increasingly protesting the continued threats, including red-tagging, vilification and actual attacks on the country’s human rights defenders and activists.
At Ground Level | Efforts vs. Manila Bay reclamation push on
For many years, scientists and environmental advocates have cautioned the government against approving more proposals for land reclamation and coastal development projects in Manila Bay. The historic bay, they emphasize, is unsuitable for such projects because of the risks posed by floods, intensified typhoon-induced storm surges and other related consequences.
At Ground Level | Protests to build up in Marcos Jr’s second year
A people’s counter-SONA protest action, noticeably broader and bigger than that of the previous year, presaged bigger and broader protests during Marcos Jr’s second year in Malacañang.
At Ground Leve l Criminal justice system is working… for whom?
It’s generally conceded that the Philippine criminal justice system grinds exceedingly slow. But for the Marcos Jr. administration, the system has been working well after just one year of the family’s being back in Malacañang.
At Ground Level | Activists push back against red-tagging
Sometimes, people just throw up their hands and shake their heads dejectedly: “But what can you do?” But often there’s really no alternative but to fight back, to push back. It happened again, twice, this week.
At Ground Level | Human rights violations in Marcos Jr.’s first year
Human rights violations, highlighted by extrajudicial killings and questionable arrests, detention and filing of nonbailable trumped-up charges following red-tagging, continued during the first year of Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s occupation of Malacañang.
At Ground Level | SC: JMSU case has ‘transcendental’ value
Finally, describing the case as of “transcendental importance,” the Supreme Court affirmed its Jan. 10, 2023 decision declaring as unconstitutional and void a tripartite agreement for Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking (JMSU), signed in 2005 by the Philippine government with the governments of China and Vietnam.
At Ground Level | Two similar killings, two decades apart
In the early 2000s, government soldiers brutally killed a couple, Expedito and Manuela Albarillo, in a surprise attack on their home in San Teodoro, Mindoro Oriental. Their bodies, mutilated by the intense gunfire, were dragged out of their house by the perpetrators, later identified as Philippine Army soldiers commanded by then Col. Jovito Palparan Jr.