Politics

Mindanao group slams recruitment of lumads to fight the NPAs

By GERMELINA A. LACORTE | Davao Today

Lumads belonging to the Mindanao-wide indigenous peoples? group Kalumaran claim they?re being recruited to fight the NPAs against their will. (davaotoday.com photo by Barry Ohaylan)

Lumads are made to fight against each other so that big mining companies and plantations can come in and take control of the ancestral domain, said Norma Capuyan, Kalumaran vice chairperson. Dulphing Ogan, secretary-general of the indigenous peoples? group Kalumaran, said that militarization remains to be the greatest problem facing the lumads, who are also fast losing their ancestral lands to big mining and plantation companies without their consent. ?In other places, a mining firm operates but there are no plantations,? he said, ?But in all places, the military presence brings about widespread fear.?Read on.

Continue ReadingMindanao group slams recruitment of lumads to fight the NPAs

My father was tortured, says Ka Emong?s daughter

By GRACE S. UDDIN and GERMELINA LACORTE | Davao Today The daughter of the captive New People?s Army leader Regenaldo Alicaba, Sr. alias Ka Emong said her father could have been tortured during the early part of their ordeal in the hands of the armed men who took them away from their house in Panabo at half past midnight of January 18. His ears, his knees and feet were swollen, recalled Rizalyn Manguilimotan, 28, when he saw his father for the first time at the Eastern Mindanao Command?s headquarters on Camp Panacan.Read on.

Continue ReadingMy father was tortured, says Ka Emong?s daughter

Supreme Court dissenters expose unequal Philippine-U.S. ties

By the Policy Study, Publication, and Advocacy (PSPA) Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG)
The ?dissenting opinions are valuable because, for once, significant parts of an institution of this country, the Supreme Court, exposed the narrative of inequality between the contracting parties of the Visiting Forces Agreement.Read on.

Continue ReadingSupreme Court dissenters expose unequal Philippine-U.S. ties