A day before the joint U.S.-Philippine Balikatan military exercises, young Moro protesters led a barricade in barangay Sarimanok in Marawi City, which ended up with protesters hurling stones at a passing convoy of vehicles loaded with U.S. soldiers. Not contented, the protesters chased the fleeing Hi-Ace and Toyota vans and hit the car windows with stones. Aida Ibrahim, chair of the Moro youth organization Liga ng Kabataang Moro (LKM) in Marawi said the Moro youth will do everything they can to drive the U.S. troops away.
PHOTO ESSAY From the towns of Baganga, Cateel and Boston in Davao Oriental, more than 200 Mandaya farmers walked the five-kilometer distance from the downtown area of Mati, the province’s capital, to Barangay Dahikan, the seat of legislative power, to criticize the military for the alleged human rights abuses in their villages.
After the New People’s Army (NPA) admitted their mistake in the February 2 killing of Davao businessman Vicente Ferrazini, the family of the slain businessman asked the Communist rebels to leave Davao and the entire family in peace.
Reporters Without Borders/Reporters sans frontires – www.rsf.org 13 February 2008 Annual Press Freedom Report 2008 REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS CRITICISES LACK…
Salupongan believed that their opposition to the Integrated Forestry Management Agreement logging project must have prompted the military to intensify their operation in the area. The lumads have been fighting against the government-backed IFMA for a long time now because it threatens to intrude into their ancestral domain. Your browser may not support display of this image.
Mayor Rodrigo Duterte ordered no let up against drugs and crime syndicates despite criticisms from international human rights groups and the report by United Nations (UN) rapporteur Philip Alston on extra-judicial killings.
At the height of the escalating incidents of the murder of activists, there was strong condemnation, both within and outside the country that forced the government to do something to stop the killing. Now that the number of killings has declined, condemnation has also decreased and discussion into finding reasonable remedies and redress for the victims had waned. It has even prompted the government to take the credit for the decline in the number of killings as proof of the improved human rights conditions in the country.
Mayor Rodrigo Duterte hinted that a Davao Congressman, who hired retired Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan as a consultant, must have known something about the killing of Davao broadcaster Ferdinand “Batman” Lintuan.
