MANILA — ?The military desperately fumbles with their alibis for they cannot explain why they killed a nine-year old girl. After saying she is a combatant, the AFP points its finger on the father. In dire attempts to cover up their crime, the helpless military cannot even get its own story straight.?
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MANILA -- Residents of various Metro Manila communities together with the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan and Karapatan faced off with the Armed Forces of the Philippines National Capital Region Command in…
By Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno
Supreme Court
(Delivered on April 18, 2007 on the occasion of the conferment of the
honorary degree of Doctor of Laws by the University of the East.)
?Tomorrow begins in the East,? trumpets the motto of this venerable
institution of learning. In his last moments in Bagumbayan, our national
hero Jose Rizal stared at tomorrow in the eye, veered his bullet-riddled
body to the right and fell lifeless on the ground ?face turned towards
the rising sun in the east. From the cradle to the grave, Rizal
consecrated his life to fight for the human rights of our people.
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MANILA — ?It?s double standard and there?s no other way to call it.?
This was according to GABRIELA Secretary General Emmi De Jesus who accosted the Macapagal-Arroyo administration for its quick responses when it comes to complaints and requests from US citizens yet plays blind and deaf to the murder and rape of its own people.
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MANILA — The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is grossly deceptive in its latest scheme to hold so-called awareness drive to justify continuing military presence in urban communities during the elections. Instead of rounding up urban poor communities and universities to lecture against cause-oriented groups, the AFP should focus awareness drive on human rights among its ranks. This election season, they should all go back to the barracks and take a study leave on human rights. We don’t need them dictating upon the people the AFP’s choice of candidates in the guise of ‘awareness drive’ which actually consists of lectures against activist groups as what they did at the Philippine Normal University, Philippine Christian University and other schools and communities. We join the various groups in demanding immediate and total pull-out of AFP troops who will likely repeat the scenario of active military role in the fraudulent 2004 elections.
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