Extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances, political persecution, baseless accusations, and arbitrary arrest and detention have no place in a democracy. These are contradictory to it. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Norberto Gonzales, Raul Gonzalez, and the AFP cannot claim to be defending democracy, for they are a curse to it.
The U.S. government has been criticized for its inconsistent human rights policy and for using it as part of its proverbial "carrots and stick" strategy chiefly to gain concessions from…
DAVAO CITY -- On the day that Gemma Bagauaya of Newsbreak was arrested for libel, we were made to strip inside the Davao city jail in Maa just to visit…
COTABATO CITY — What a bloody red carpet our government had given to Professor Philip Alston! Not only was the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings criticized by the head of the Senate Committee on Justice, Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, for his comment on the dismal human-rights situation in the Philippines — a trail of blood followed Alston in his visit to the country.
It takes convincing the electorate who have long been sickened by elections that mean nothing to their lives and future that this one is more than just a choice between Estrada’s candidates and Arroyo’s candidates and is, therefore, different. The opposition should be able to show that this is beyond ousting Arroyo and beyond retaking power.
