Human Rights

Aerial bombs launched by government troops against Muslim rebels and more fires in Barangay Santa Catalina Monday worried displaced residents who said relatives and neighbors were trapped there.

Brad Adams, Asia director of HRW reacted over this report. “Government forces should not be making blanket assumptions about whether individuals are rebels based on whether they have proper documents or not. Officials can check those leaving the conflict zone, but they need to ensure that civilians have safe passage and are not put at unnecessary risk.”

“It’s frustrating how the government has handled the security, why the coasts weren’t secured and could not prevent the MNLF from entering,
and how they are handling the situation right now. We don’t know what areas are safe, which roads are secured and which establishments are
open,” a debater from the Ateneo de Zamboanga team said.

by JOHN RIZLE. L. SALIGUMBA Social Welfare Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman said 62,000 people have fled from barangays affected with…

Benjie Planos, a Bisaya settler living among the Manobos, and other leaders of KASAKA had been receiving death threats from the Philippine Army’s 26th Infantry Battalion and the paramilitary group Bagani. the militarization, KASAKA leaders said, is linked with the entry of New Britain Palm Oil Ltd, which is eyeing KASAKA’s ancestral domain.

“It can happen to any of us. Even because of a mere police story. As long as someone wants to silence you.” So says multi-awarded journalist and editor-in-chief Stella Estremera after a trial court found her and former publisher Antonio Ajero guilty of libel for publishing an alleged one-sided news article 10 years ago.

The country’s largest oil palm plantation based in Agusan del Sur rehired its 293 workers who were ‘unjustly’ terminated last year after a 62-day strike, the Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) reported.

While an international monitoring group points to increased armed conflict between the military and the communist rebels
as the culprit of the Lumads’ dislocation, the heart of the matter is the Lumads’ right to control over their rich ancestral domain.

Before the Agusanon Manobos were displaced due to intense military operations in this province, they were Typhoon Pablo survivors who had to rebuild all over again their ravaged houses and damaged farms.

“Unsaon namo pag-uli nga naa pa may gyera didto sa amoa?(How are we going home when there’s still a war going on there?)” said Jocely Andaliki “At least diri, safety among paminaw, di pareha didto sa amoa nga giabog mi mismo sa among gobernor, (Here, we feel safe, not like there where our governor drove us out).”