New York ?Jose Miguel Arroyo, husband of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, has withdrawn 46 criminal libel suits he had filed against 11 journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomed today?s news but said the suits should never have been brought.
The umbrella group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) was not the least surprised that the phone of former president Corazon Aquino was bugged.
?We are not surprised. Killings, abductions, surveillance; these are clear signs that we are now living in a police state. All our movements are being watched by a paranoid and unstable government. Just imagine how things will be when the anti-terror law is implemented in July,? said Bayan secretary general Renato M. Reyes, Jr.
Reporters Without Borders today welcomed the news that Mike Arroyo, the husband of President Gloria Arroyo, has decided to drop all law suits against the country’s journalists and publishers.
The worldwide press freedom organisation hailed the exemplary campaign waged by Philippines’ journalist organisations and called for press offences to be decriminalised.
(more…)
DAVAO CITY ?Driven by it’s commitment to support peace and development
efforts in Mindanao, the Canadian government, through the Canadian
International Development Agency (CIDA), has recently provided an additional
P40 million to the Mindanao Trust Fund (MTF), further boosting the
implementation of community-driven development for the conflict-affected and
vulnerable areas.
(more…)
DAVAO CITY — Compostela Valley Province still bears the name it earned a long time ago for what could only be blamed on the military — the Valley of Death, the human-rights group Karapatan said.
This, the group said, is a result of the continued rule of military brutality and fascism in the area under 1001st Brigade-Philippine Army (PA) of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
(more…)