Martial Law still exists in Mindanao, particularly in Moro areas under the pretext of pulverizing terrorists. Thirty-five years later, the public is still being made to believe that the terrorist scare justifies anti-people measures like the Human Security Act and all-out war in Moro communities, even during Ramadhan, the holy month of fasting.
Mayor Rodrigo Duterte hands a package of food to Muslim leaders at a mosque in Ecoland last week. Giving out food to Moro communities in Davao City during the Ramadan has been a yearly practice of the mayor. (davaotoday.com photo by Barry Ohaylan)
With HSA, poor communities most vulnerable to rights abuses
A Davao City councilor, Edgar Ibuyan, has filed a proposed ordinance that would regulate the practice by employers of putting out advertisements about the termination or separation from service of their employees. There have been complaints that these ads, which implies that the employee had committed a wrongdoing as reason for the separation, violate the rights of employees and destroy their credibility, thus reducing their chances of becoming employed in the future.
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines is alarmed over reports that no less than the chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines has prevented a reporter from covering legitimate news events in Mindanao, particularly in the province of Basilan.
“In Davao City in Mindanao, several corpses were found bearing placards similarly suggesting they that were criminal offenders. What is shocking is the implied acceptance by the authorities and the public regarding this practice without seriously reflecting on the tremendous implications if it is allowed to continue,” says the Asian Human Rights Commission.
Across Mindanao, Lumad vs. Lumad as firms gobble up tribal land
Childrens vulnerabilities have further been aggravated by reports from the DSWD in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao that on August 19, eight kids aged 4 to 16 years old from Indanan, Sulu, were arrested and tortured along with their parents by the militarys Joint Special Operations Force.
On this day of the desaparecidos, Anakpawis SOCSKSARGEN calls for the immediate surfacing of abducted labor leader Jaime Jimmy Rosios.
Rosios, a Board Member of Yellow Bus Lines Employees Union, and a vocal critic of the YBL managements unfair labor practices, was abducted by armed men aboard a Tamaraw FX, just outside the Yellow Bus garage in Koronadal City, South Cotabato last August 11, 2007.
DAVAO CITY — Bayan Muna negated here today the recent pronouncement of Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of posting the alleged…
