MANILA — The Philippine Chamber of Pharmaceutical Industry (PCPI) urges the
Senate and the House of Representatives to immediately agree on the
common provisions of the proposed bill amending the Intellectual
Property Code (IPC) to bring immediate relief to the people and try to
address the divergence by filing a separate bill in the next Congress.
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In 2008, for the first time in history, more than half of world population, 3.3 billion people, will be living in urban areas. By 2030, this is expected to reach almost 5 billion. The population of towns and cities in developing countries is set to double in the space of a generation. Poor people will make up a large part of future urban growth.
MANILA — While the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) welcomes the European Union’s (EU) 10-day mission to the Philippines, it also warns the EU against simply acceding to the Arroyo government’s request for so-called technical assistance to put a stop to extrajudicial killings in the country.
Torture victims in the Philippines have suffered from the physical
and mental pain inflicted on them by those who have mercilessly
tortured them and have suffered a second time from the lack of a law
criminalising torture. For years, torture victims in the country have
been waiting for redress and a legal tool they can use to prosecute
their torturers. Even filing complaints supported with substantial
proof and medical evidence to support torture claims are later found
to be a meaningless exercise by victims and their legal counsel.
Because torture is not a criminal offence under the
Philippines’ penal code, torture victims can file a complaint,
but usually it makes little or no progress in the court system, if it
even reaches the courts. It can even take prosecutors years—for
instance, 11 years in one case—without resolving a complaint.
Often those accused are able to retire or commit similar offences
again and again without being held accountable for their violent
actions.
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MANILA– Senate Minority Leader Aquilino ?Nene? Q. Pimentel,
Jr. (PDP-Laban) today called on the Commission on
Elections to prevent another electoral catastrophe and
to seize the opportunity to redeem its impaired
reputation by deciding once and for all to exclude the
senatorial votes from Mindanao for being tainted with
fraud and being devoid of any semblance of truth and
credibility.
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