For the second time since February, the GRP-NDFP peace talks – which both parties and peace advocates have hailed for achieving an unprecedented advance on the most substantive agenda since President Duterte revived the talks in August 2016 – have suffered disruption. As the fifth round of negotiations was about to begin on May 27…
“You can have all the talent in the world, but it takes mental strength to be a champion.” “Work so hard that one day, your signature will be called an autograph.” These two motivational quotes have propelled a 19-year-old student-athlete to excel in singles table tennis interschool competitions – a district, provincial, and regional champion…
An atmosphere of cautiousness, overshadowed by the imposition of martial law in Mindanao, hangs over the fifth round of GRP-NDFP formal negotiations under the Duterte government which begin today (till June 1), in Noordwijk aan Zee, the Netherlands. Much depends on how events will unfold in the next few days: how will the Mindanao situation…
Sixteen years ago, alarmed over the rising incidents of extrajudicial killing of persons engaged in defending and promoting human rights in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, an independent advocacy group founded Front Line Defenders (FLD) in Dublin, Ireland. Its specific aim: to protect human rights defenders facing risks to their lives or…
Ally of Rodrigo Duterte employs Trump-speak to deny that the President’s policy [on his ‘war on drugs’] has resulted in more than 7,000 being killed by death squads and vigilantes.” Thus says the feisty Guardian, a leading British newspaper, in reporting online about Sen. Allan Peter Cayetano’s statement last Monday before the United Nations Human…
Just ten months in office and after announcing that “Change is coming!” the Duterte government appears bound to be lumped up with its predecessor administrations and indicted before the international community for continued human rights violations and worsening impunity. Yes, that’s how it looks based on the summary presentation in a media briefing last Thursday…
Two aerial views from a military helicopter, hovering above the mountain terrain in Caraga region last Tuesday, remain vivid – and disturbing – in my mind. One is that of a winding river and its tributaries in Agusan del Sur whose waters are oddly thick brownish-yellow. The other, where the sea nears the edge of…
The momentarily disrupted work on the GRP-NDFP peace talks has continued. In eight days the 4th round of formal negotiations will take place in Norway (April 2-6). This time the talks will not be in Oslo but in a town called Noordwijk. The change in the venue seems aimed at providing a fresh atmosphere for…
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…