By CHERYLL D. FIEL Davao Today DAVAO CITY – A 74-year-old man, a 32-year-old mother, three farmers and two Bagobo lumads find themselves accused of the military’s trumped up charges as the government’s Oplan Bantay Laya (OBL) deadline to end the four-decades of Communist insurgency nears. For opposing...

By GERMELINA LACORTE Davao Today DAVAO CITY—Top executives of the country’s second biggest power distribution firm warned of much longer brown-outs in Mindanao as the declining water level of Agus and Pulangi rivers further push down Mindanao’s power generation capacity by about half of the island’s...

By CHERYLL D. FIEL Davao Today DAVAO CITY– Police and the Task Force Davao are putting up mobile checkpoints to secure the entire city against threats after the discovery of two improvised explosive devices in two separate downtown areas on Thursday, February 26. A man leaving a package at the counter...

By CHERYLL D. FIEL Davao Today DAVAO CITY – “Nakasabot ko unsa ilang gibati (I understand how they feel),” Cris Tony Monzon, 18-year-old son of murdered activist leader Ludenio Monzon said when he saw the families of the victims of the Ampatuan massacre. Now a member of the group Hustisya (Justice),...

By GRACE S. UDDIN Davao Today DAVAO CITY— A teacher’s group in the region is worried over the delays on the teachers’ scheduled training on poll automation. Gloria Arcenas, secretary-general of Kamkem-Alliance of Concerned Teachers, said teachers who will serve as Board of Election Inspectors in the...

By GRACE S. UDDIN Davao Today DAVAO CITY—Three problems cropped up during the mock elections at the Generoso Elementary School in Bago Aplaya village in Davao City on February 6, Saturday. The first problem occurred when a ballot jammed inside the Precinct Count Optical Scanning machine (PCOS). Upon...

By GINGGING AVELLANOSA- VALLE Davao Today Relief assistance for people displaced by the fighting between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Maguindanao has come to a halt after the massacre that killed 58 people, 32 of them journalists, in the town of Ampatuan on November 23 last...

By GERMELINA LACORTE Davao Today DAVAO CITY—“Malacañang could not wash its hands off the Ampatuan massacre because the state is obliged to prevent such things,” said Lawyer Harry Roque, who represented the 13 widows of journalist victims of the Ampatuan massacre in the filing of cases before the...

By GRACE S. UDDIN Davao Today DAVAO CITY— A member of the military intelligence group implicated in the Rebelyn Pitao rape- slay case was caught violating the election gun ban. But police released Private First Class Edmar “Ben” Tipait, 50, a member of the military intelligence group after detaining...

NAGA CITY– They left Davao City bearing meager belongings: a bagful of clothes good for ten days, a lunchbox and a cup. They had to leave their fields, their families for a mission — to bring their woes for land and justice and call the attention of the national government. The delegates of the...

By GRACE S. UDDIN Davao Today DAVAO CITY— Winifreda Cabisay, 62, carried a placard during the kick-off ceremony of Lakbayan, a 10-day farmers’ caravan that will bring together farmers from as far as Davao in the south and Tarlac in the north to dramatize their age-old clamor for land and...

By GRACE S. UDDIN Davao Today DAVAO CITY— The nationwide farmers’ caravan, calling for land and justice and urging people to oppose Charter change, will kick off on Tuesday in Davao City. Rep. Rafael Mariano of farmers’ partylist Anakpawis said that 7,000 farmers nationwide will join the 10-day caravan...

By GRACE S. UDDIN Davao Today DAVAO CITY— Just like in the cybergame Farmville on Facebook , overseas Filipino workers can now invest their hard-earned money in a virtual poultry farm and watch it grow on the internet. The Department of Trade and Industry recently launched the virtual poultry farm North...

By ALVIN LUQUE In the past three years, several speculations about my absence from the progressive movement in urban centers in Mindanao have come out.   The AFP, through its propaganda spin-doctors, has consistently vilified me through black propaganda, saying even, at one time, that I was already...

By GRACE S. UDDIN Davao Today DAVAO CITY– Migrant workers and their families have asked the government to protect every Filipino worker abroad. “The overseas foreign workers are called ‘modern day heroes’ but the government has failed to provide for their welfare,” said Gina Garboni,...

By GRACE S. UDDIN Davao Today DAVAO CITY— If Christmas wishes could be granted, Bayan Intise, 25, wanted to see his father and mother again. His father, Federico and mother Nelly were last seen on October 26 three years ago in Purok Puting Bato in Barangay Calumpang in General Santos City, where his father...

By JOSE HERNANI and GRACE S. UDDIN Davao Today MONKAYO, COMPOSTELA VALLEY— Militant groups marched the coffin of Conrado Cañete, 57, the slain father of a commander of the New People’s Army, around the town of Monkayo on December 9 before bringing it to the cemetery for burial. Activists interpreted his...

By DAVAO TODAY DAVAO CITY– “They did not only kill my father, they brutally murdered him,” student Cristony Monzon, 17, addressed more than 7,000 activists during the 61st international human rights day rally here on December 10. It was Cristony’s first time onstage. It used to be his...

By GRACE S. UDDIN Davao Today DAVAO CITY— The much-awaited showdown between Davao’s two fiercest political opponents begins as Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and daughter Sara Duterte formally declared a team up against House Speaker Prospero Nograles’ bid for mayor in the city. Vice Mayor Sara Duterte, who...

By CHERYLL D. FIEL Davao Today DAVAO CITY– After the mass murder that killed 57 people, 21 of them women, Moro residents in Ampatuan town in Maguindanao have remained largely silent, perhaps dumbfounded, at the extent of the atrocities. “But it does not mean that they wanted these things to...

By GRACE S. UDDIN Davao Today DAVAO CITY— Following the pre-election violence in Maguindanao that killed 57 people, the city council of Davao wanted to impose an early gun ban to prevent the violence from spilling over to the city. “The violence in Maguindanao happened because some people freely move...

By CHERYLL D. FIEL Davao Today DAVAO CITY—Election violence erupted this early right at the heart of Maguindanao, a province long wrought by political killings. Forty persons including lawyers and journalists on their way to Maguindanao’s capital town of Shariff Aguak were reportedly taken by armed men...

By GRACE S. UDDIN Davao Today DAVAO CITY— Davao City mayor Rodrigo Duterte was furious at a retired general for telling him “what to do” with the Left. Reporters who covered the release of the soldier earlier captured by the New People’s Army (NPA) found the mayor fuming mad against a certain...

By GRACE S. UDDIN Davao Today MONTEVISTA, COMPOSTELA VALLEY—Released New People’s Army prisoner Corporal Dominador Alegre said he will face whatever sanctions his higher command will impose for the successful NPA raid in his Monkayo detachment that led to his capture three weeks ago. “Whatever they...

By CHERYLL D. FIEL Davao Today DAVAO CITY (davaotoday.com)–Towards the end of March this year, at the start of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) public hearing on extrajudicial killings in Davao City, CHR chairperson Leila De Lima read this part of an excerpt from the davaotoday interview with...