Politics

Surveillance, abductions: Bayan bucks emerging police state in Philippines

The umbrella group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) was not the least surprised that the phone of former president Corazon Aquino was bugged.

?We are not surprised. Killings, abductions, surveillance; these are clear signs that we are now living in a police state. All our movements are being watched by a paranoid and unstable government. Just imagine how things will be when the anti-terror law is implemented in July,? said Bayan secretary general Renato M. Reyes, Jr.

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Philippines’s First Gentleman drops all defamation suits against journalists

Reporters Without Borders today welcomed the news that Mike Arroyo, the husband of President Gloria Arroyo, has decided to drop all law suits against the country’s journalists and publishers.

The worldwide press freedom organisation hailed the exemplary campaign waged by Philippines’ journalist organisations and called for press offences to be decriminalised.
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Thanks to Army, ComVal Remains ‘Valley of Death,’ Karapatan

DAVAO CITY — Compostela Valley Province still bears the name it earned a long time ago for what could only be blamed on the military — the Valley of Death, the human-rights group Karapatan said.

This, the group said, is a result of the continued rule of military brutality and fascism in the area under 1001st Brigade-Philippine Army (PA) of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
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Moro groups hit AFP deployment in Mindanao as stage for massive fraud

Moro groups are wary that electoral fraud will occur again in ARMM.

This after Armed Forces Chief of Staff Hermogenes Esperon declared that more checkpoints will be established on electoral hotspots to ensure peaceful and orderly elections.

Suara Bangsamoro Partylist chair Zaynab Ampatuan said “General Esperon is merely justifying stronger military presence in Mindanao this elections to repeat what happened in 2004.”
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The fight goes on: Press freedom in South Asia 2006-2007

Although another tumultuous year has passed in South Asia, overshadowed by political instability, poverty and state repression, journalists and media workers throughout the region have continued their battle for a free press.

?It is clearer than ever that it takes extraordinary courage, dedication and commitment for journalists to tell the essential stories of our communities in the region,? said Jacqueline Park, director, International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Asia-Pacific.
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