By ARNOLD PADILLA
There’s good news for its close to five million customers to start the New Year, said utility giant Manila Electric Power Co. (Meralco). It claimed that its January billing will go down by 30.5 centavos per kilowatt-hour (kWh) due to lower generation and transmission charges. But Meralco did not say that the said reduction is just one side of the story.
By MARYA SALAMAT
The year 2009 began, ended and paved the way to 2010 with the festering problem of joblessness for millions of Filipinos. The global financial crisis only revealed the stark reality of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s inherently flawed job-generation strategies. The Arroyo regime fell short of its employment target. Worse, thousands of jobs, especially in the export industry, were “massacred” in 2009 even as unionists faced violence, intimidation and murder.
A former chief of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), who is also one of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s most trusted men, is one of the directors of a big mining company that operates in a number of provinces, among them Bukidnon, which is one of the provinces where several indigenous-peoples’ communities are suffering under a reign of terror perpetrated by the military and paramilitary groups.
By IBON FEATURES Posted by Bulatlat.com The Arroyo government’s human rights record is considered one of the worst in history, not just in violations of civil and political rights but also in the economic, social and cultural realm. Thirty-five years after the Philippines ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESR), the…
By ARNOLD PADILLA
Underneath the never-ending and intensifying political conflict is the permanent and worsening crisis of the economy. The raging economic crisis feeds the growing dispute among the various factions of the political elite contending for control of political power and monopoly of economic spoils – a conflict that has become more pronounced and increasingly vicious under the nine-year old Arroyo administration.
By ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
As foreign mining investments continue to encroach into Lumad lands in Northern Mindanao, the military, through its Oplan Bantay Laya, intensifies its campaign to stifle local opposition to these companies. A fact-finding mission found that so far this year, 13 Lumads have been summarily executed while more were tortured and harassed by soldiers and fellow Lumads co-opted by the military.
By MARYA SALAMAT
Unlike other post-martial law administrations that used assumption of jurisdictions (AJ) mostly to quell already ongoing strikes, the Arroyo regime has used these orders not only to quell ongoing strikes but also to make sure workers cannot strike at all. As a result, fewer strikes have been recorded, allowing Arroyo to claim that “industrial peace” is improving. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
By ARNOLD PADILLA
Malacañang is threatening to reimpose an oil price control if oil companies will not follow the conditions outlined by Mrs. Arroyo. Government, however, has given up the high ground with its lifting of EO 839 and continued adherence to the discredited deregulation policy.
By XANDRA BISENIO
Through the stock distribution option such as the one in Hacienda Luisita, the essence of land reform has been distorted to benefit landowners, denying the farmers of actual land redistribution.
By ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Through the generations, many of the Filipinos in Hawaii attained their dreams of greener pastures, and other Filipinos continue to go there in search of more decent opportunities. Their dreams, however, have been crumbling in the face of the financial crisis, which hit the US in 2008. They have not been spared from the effects of the crisis.
By MARYA SALAMAT
Despite its limitations, the oil-price caps have irked Big Business and their think tanks and they have been lobbying to have it lifted. Fearing EO 839 could set a dangerous precedent to its business, Shell even filed a case in court against Arroyo’s order. But consumers and critics say that if Arroyo is really sincere in protecting consumers, she should use her power to have the Oil Deregulation Law repealed.