Balong can now join his batchmates after his family and child's rights groups rescued him from state forces who presented him to the media as a “child soldier, informer and collector” for the New People’s Army.
Marbel Bishop Dinualdo D. Gutierrez told DavaoToday that "the prelates of Mindanao are hoping that President Aquino will now heed our calls to stop the Tampakan project, discerning on the protection and preservation of the environment and the life of the Lumad inhabitants in South Cotabato."
The Department of Education plans to provide a subsidy called the expanded voucher program to finance students enrolling at senior high school (Grades 11 and 12).
Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and a former head of the government’s peace panel said that if senior communist leaders Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria who were arrested Saturday showed genuine immunity papers, they “should be released” because the government should “honor what we have committed to the people and to the CPP (Communist Party of the Philippines).”
Davao’s Archbishop Emeritus Fernando Capalla demanded justice for the country’s extra-judicial killings that included his brother, former political detainee and fair trade advocate Romeo, who was gunned down in Oton, Iloilo last week.