A member of the group Mamamayan Ayaw sa Aerial Spraying (Maas), which advocates the banning of aerial spraying of pesticides on the city’s banana plantations, stage a demonstration in front of the Davao City office of the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA), the industry group. The association is asking a court injunction against the ban. (davaotoday.com photo by Barry Ohaylan)
An ukay-ukay vendor at the Agdao public market shows her ware. For as low as 150 pesos, a bargain hunter can have a branded, top-quality backpack. | 
Read the story (davaotoday.com photo by Barry Ohaylan).
A pupil does her homework on the sidewalks of C.M. Recto Street as she waits for her parents to pick her up. Classes in the city began last week, with several public schools lacking facilities. The Philippine educational system is once again facing the same set of problems that Filipinos face each beginning of the school year. (davaotoday.com photo by Barry Ohaylan) | Read Davao Today’s coverage of education issues
A Filipino domestic worker in Hongkong protests a pay increase implemented by the Hongkong government that she and hundreds of others like her consider an insult because it is way below their demand. Migrant groups in the Chinese territory are protesting the government’s piecemeal approach to wage increases for domestic workers. Hongkong is one of the top destinations for Filipino maids. (Photo: arkibongbayan.org)
Desaparecidos in the Philippines: A continuing nightmare
‘Miss-Ogyny’. Members of the Gabriela Network in New York held last week a “beauty pageant” to dramatize the killings of political activists, many of them women, in the Philippines. Photo shows a GABNet member dressed like a beauty queen, with a sash saying Miss-Ogyny, and holding a purple umbrella decked with small placards containing photos of Philippine women victims of political killings. (GABnet photo) | Read Davao Today’s coverage of the extrajudicial killings in the Philippines | 
More Davao Today photographs
Members of the party-list group Bayan Muna stage a protest rally in General Santos City on Thursday evening, calling on the military to release their colleague Gilbert Rey Cardio, who was abducted Wednesday by men believed to be government agents in Koronadal City. Related stories: Bishop Calang on abductions: We cannot allow the tragedy of silence to continue to befall us
| Bayan Muna leader cried Pulis! Pulis! | Davao Today’s coverage of human rights issues
According to officials from the mining inudstry, the Philippines’s potential for growth in the sector remains good. In fact, BHP Billiton, the world’s biggest miner, is interested in investing up to a billion US dollars in a nickel mine project in Mati, Davao Oriental, according to Benjamin Philip Romualdez, president of the Philippine Chamber of Mines. Romualdez said at the Asia-Pacific Mining Conference in Makati City this week that foreign companies have invested nearly $700 million in the Philippines in the past three years as a result, he said, of the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Mining Act of 1997 that opened the industry to foreigners. But environmentalists, who protested the conference, have warned of environmental destruction. (Photo: arkibongbayan.org)
In Solidarity. Filipinos in New York take to the streets this week to express support for the so-called “Sentosa 27++,” who were victims of alleged illegal recruitment by a major healthcare management company in New York that recruits nurses from the Philippines. Read the story.
Students in this classroom at the Daniel R. Aguinaldo High School in Matina Aplaya don’t seem to mind the water that is leaking not through the roof but through the floor. (davaotoday.com photo by Barry Ohaylan)
