MANILA, Philippines — ?The Asian Development Bank will continue to fund climate change. The Bank will still invest in coal power plants inspite of its recognition that coal projects have serious environmental and health implications,? said Hemantha Withanage, executive director of NGO Forum on ADB.
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Many of these children might have been forced to leave school to earn a living. In 2006 some 2.5 million children aged 5 to 17 were working either to augment family income or simply to survive. The number of children in school is also dropping: in SY 2005-2006 only 84% of children aged 6-11 was able to attend elementary school, a sharp decrease from 90% in 2001-2002.
Below is a statement released by Pastor Berlin Guerrero, the UCCP priest abducted by government agents last week:
What does it take a government to have the nerve to abduct, torture, and terrorize my family on the basis of an old inciting to sedition case and a baseless murder charge?
Far more absurd is the accusation that I am the Secretary of the CPP Provincial committee in Cavite. This lie that they tried to extract from me by means of physical, mental and psychological torture and projecting me in public as a ?hand-gun and grenade carrying rebel.?
The Philippine Supreme Court today dismissed the rebellion cases against six leftist congressmen known as the "Batasan 6," among them Anakpawis Rep. Crispin Beltran who has been detained in the past 15 months. "We are vindicated. This is a triumph of truth and justice over the Arroyo government's invented and unfair charge against duly elected people's representatives," Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo said.