Politics

Hostaging Highlights Worsening Education System


This Is the State of RP Education — in the Toilet. Public schools around the country are like this restroom in a Metro Manila school. (Bulatlat photo by Trina Federis)

It’s as predictable as it is insensitive — the Arroyo administration’s reaction to the hostage drama involving Jun Ducat, an owner ot a daycare center in Manila who took hostage 32 of his students and two teachers and complained about corruption in the Philippine government and the failure of the administration to provide adequate education. According to Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, the incident puts the country in a bad light, blaming the intense media coverage of the situation.

Never mind that the drama actually highlights one of the more depressing aspects of the Philippines — the deterioration of its education system and the sheer inability of poor Filipinos to send their children to school.

Check out this Davao Today story on the subject. Check out, too, our coverage of education issues, as well as this package of stories from Bulatlat.

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At UN Human Rights Council, Alston Blasts Arroyo, Military

Philip Alston, the UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings who visited the country in February to investigate the killings of political activists, said on Tuesday that he has little reason to be optimistic that the killings will stop.

He severely criticized the Philippine military, saying that there is a need for “fundamental change of heart on the part of the military or the emergence of civilian resolve to compel the military to change its ways. Then, and only then, will it be possible to make real progress in ending the killings.”

He likewise hinted that the military tried to manipulate him by relentlessly pushing the line that the killings were done by the New People’s Army. “I was provided a list of 1,227 names, dates, and places of individuals alleged to have been killed by the CPP or NPA. Despite numerous requests for any substantiating documentation of any of these cases, virtually none was provided. A list of unsubstantiated assertions is, needless to say, nearly useless,” Alston said.

The government, meanwhile, tried to save face by preempting Alston’s report to the UN Human Rights Council.

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Arroyo Regime’s Abuses Qualify as ‘Crimes Against Humanity’: Hague Tribunal


Verdict. Members of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal hearing the charges against Arroyo in The Hague, the Netherlands.(photo courtesy of arkibongbayan.org)

The Permanent Peoples’ Tribune, the same body that investigated and later denounced the atrocities of the Marcos dictatorship, has concluded that the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is responsible for the extrajudicial killings and human rights abuses in the Philippines. “The wealth and consistency of the oral and written documentation made available through witnesses and expert reports, has convinced the PPT that each and all of the three charges presented against Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her Government, and against George Walker Bush and his Government are substantiated,” the tribunal said in its verdict released today.

“The extension and the systematic nature of the violations of the rights of the Filipino people committed by the governments of Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and with the support and full awareness of the government of George Walker Bush, qualify the same violations as crimes against humanity,” it added.

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