By MARYA SALAMAT
Special Report As the Philippine military continues to wage Oplan Bantay Laya, its so-called “dirty war” against communists as well as activists, peasants and workers, more and more innocent children are not only being caught in the crossfire but have become targets as well of human-rights violations.
By DAISY C. GONZALES, MARILOU AGUIRRE-TUBURAN and JOSE HERNANI
After eight years of government control, the mineral reservation site in Diwalwal has been eyed by big interest groups, leaving Velasco and more than 40,000 villagers in a constant threat of displacement. Small miners resent government’s policy allowing big private mining firms to take over the site.
By RONALYN V. OLEA
Up to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s last weeks in office, impunity presented itself . She should be made accountable for all these atrocities inflicted on the Filipino people.
By MARYA SALAMAT
Previous revisions in the Labor Code have served to deprive workers of their hard-won rights. Now, the Employers Confederation of the Philippines are pushing for more.
By MARYA SALAMAT
The Philippine General Hospital — the country’s hospital of last resort especially for indigent patients, a key training ground for students of the University of the Philippines, and the premier public hospital in the country — is currently embroiled in a mess over who should be its rightful director. It’s an imbroglio that has its roots to a multi-million peso lease contract.
By ARNOLD PADILLA
In a poor country where one out of two people dies without receiving any medical attention, where more than half of the population do not have access to basic health care, community-based health workers who provide needed services to fill this health-care gap should be heralded as heroes, not thrown to jail and tortured.
Related blog post: The AFP is telling us we need more NPA guerrillas
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.
Conclusion If there’s anybody to blame for making farm life in the Ifugao town of Alfonso Lista more and more miserable today, it should be the Arroyo government for its aggressive promotion of GMO in corn production in tandem with the TNC giant Monsanto and the Ayalas, among other corporations. BY FERNANDO BAGYAN AND LULU…
By MARYA SALAMAT Bulatlat.com MANILA — In their concluding press briefing early this month, the high-level mission from the International Labor Organization expressed appreciation for the “full cooperation and extensive information provided to it” by the Philippine government, its agencies and the workers’ and employers’ organizations. Now, the battle between the “contradictory statements concerning violence…
By MARYA SALAMAT
A high-level team of the UN’s International Labor Organization has proposed, among others, trainings and “continuing education” for the Philippine police, military, the judiciary and the labor department on how to respect union rights and uphold labor laws.
Sidebar: Responses to ILO High-Level Mission
By CARLOS H. CONDE
A disaster-prone country like the Philippines should by now be a nation of experts on calamities and how to deal with them. But, as Ondoy has shown, Filipinos are almost always caught unawares. And often, the high cost of these calamities are caused not so much by lack of knowledge or resources as by poor governance.