NO TO HUMAN SECURITY ACT!
Six years ago, in the name of annihilating the Abu Sayyaf group in Mindanao, the newly installed Arroyo administration ordered an “intensive military crackdown” in Basilan, and Zamboanga City. Checkpoints were set-up, saturation drives were implemented in the communities, and more than a hundred Moro men were rounded up in Basilan.
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines treats as a serious threat to press freedom and the people's right to know Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez' statement that under the Human Security Act he may recommend wiretapping journalists government believes to be "co-mingling" with terror suspects.
DAVAO CITY (Press Release) — Prestigious international magazine Digital Photographer Philippines (DPP) launched a partnership with Sony Ericsson and Seair to fly five photographers to select destinations in the Philippines and provide them with a photographic challenge and adventure.
KIDAPAWAN CITY (MindaNews/7 Jul) — The Army’s Sixth Infantry Division, it seems, is working hard to win the people’s hearts and minds not so much with guns and bullets, but through peaceful means as 20 of its top officers underwent a week-long seminar on conflict management and peace building at The Marco Polo in Davao City last week.
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/7 Jul) – The number of dengue cases in Southern Mindanao rose by 22 percent so far this year, a Department of Health (DOH) official announced Friday.
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/7 Jul) – Weather forecasting in Mindanao will get a face lift with the government's weather agency announcing installation of United States technology radars starting at the end of this year, a weather bureau official said.
2nd of a series
MARAWI CITY (MindaNews/07 July) — Lente lawyers who were fielded to monitor the municipal and provincial canvassing in four centers, Marawi People’s Park, Marawi National High School, Amai Pakpak Elementary School and Lanao del Sur Provincial Capitol in Marawi City, were met with utter helplessness of volunteer poll watchers and election executives in the face of blatant disregard of election laws and procedures.
KYOTO, Japan (MindaNews/7 Jul) — Those of us who think that the UN is one of the best hopes for countering the growing militarism in our politics better read this statement of Bobby Garcia. Garcia, author of the painful book To Suffer thy Comrades (which is an account of torture and killing by communists of fellow communists), was forced to resign from his post as coordination specialist of the UN in Manila. His boss, a nasty person named Nileema Noble fired him without cause, and out of spite. Here, readers, is his story, which made me realize how, in certain areas, Gloria Arroyo and the UN are actually the same.
Alungay bissala, alanyap na bangsa.
Lost language, banished people.
Voiceless, invisible.
In a world where one is rendered invisible, little people do wage their own invisible wars. Yet unlike the ‘sikat’ and ‘bigatin’ combatants, freedom-fighters, valiant soldiers and men in uniform that have been alternating as vidas and contravidas in the theatre of Mindanao conflict (depending on which side of the political fence you are in), to marginalized communities such as indigenous people like the Sama Dilaut or Bajaus, there are no guns and rifles to rattle and raise up in rage; no jungles to hide their kidnapped victims; no hinterland look-outs nor underground bunkers to reclaim if their slightest of demands are not heeded. To them, the terrain seems more difficult and waging the battles is even made much harder especially when the ‘enemies’ do not even recognize, let alone acknowledge their existence.
