October, 2008

It was a term I had never heard used against me before. Whether or not the
maker knew that his words stung, I shall never know. It was said to me in
response to an off‐hand comment I made on a first date conversation with a man
whose ancestors hailed from the land of the potato famine (Ireland), before
stumbling across our great Southern land. “If I could have everything my own

New York - In response to allegations from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) last month that Gloria Macapagal Arroyo would file claims against the New Peoples Army (NPA) and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) for purportedly recruiting child soldiers into their combat ranks while in the United States, a local rights group met with Human Rights Watch (HRW) October 8 to refute the charges, and condemn the scheme as “a tactic of the Arroyo government to sanitize its image to the international human rights community instead.”

Contrary to Pres. Arroyo’s statement that the ratification of Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) will protect the country from the global financial crisis, research group IBON Foundation says it will make the country more vulnerable to economic shocks.

Different green groups headed by Kalikasan People's Network for the Environment (Kalikasan-PNE) with the mining-affected residents of Rapu-rapu, Albay staged a protest action October 10 in front of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). This is to mark the third year anniversary of the massive mine spill caused by Australian-owned Lafayette Mining Limited.

For the past months, Gov. Grace Padaca has been actively campaigning against illegal logging in Isabela, and has in fact successfully confiscated logs worth millions of pesos. But for Kalikasan-PNE, a militant environment group, efforts to curb forest denudation must be focused on big-time loggers and the politicians behind them.

"We challenge the governor to expose and persecute big-time loggers and corrupt politicians instead of going after poor communities doing small-scale logging in her province. She has the authority and responsibility to do this. In addition, statistics and studies have shown that the major denuders of forest are the big-time legal commercial loggers who are also the main financiers and buyers of illegal logging in the country," Kalikasan-PNE National Coordinator Clemente Bautista Jr.

According to a study made by Center for Environmental Concerns, an environmental education and research NGO, legal or government-sanctioned logging accounts for 68% of the total forest cover loss from 1981 to 2002, while illegal logging accounts only for 2%.

"Facts show that the big-time commercial loggers in Isabela are the ones who cleared vast tracts of forest and even up to now are the main culprits of forest destruction in the province. In 2006, one logging company in Isabela was allowed by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to log 25,887 hectares of forest; this is already way more than the declared forest reserve in the province. Also, in 2006, there were 7 logging companies which have Industrial Tree Plantation Agreement (ITPLA) which allow them to exploit a total of 62,266 hectares of forest areas. This reflects how the policy of Arroyo government and the DENR favors commercial logging over forest conservation and rehabilitation," explains Mr. Bautista.

October 2008

Environmental activists, mining-affected communities, indigenous peoples, and Church representatives staged a demonstration October 14 in front of the Sofitel Philippine Plaza in protest of the ongoing 8th Asia Pacific Mining Conference. The conference is organized by the ASEAN Federation of Mining Associations (AFMA), Philippines Chambers of Mines, and the Minerals Development Council of the Department of Natural Resources.

October 2008

If Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño were to have his way, he wants P160.46
billion in budgetary allocations either slashed or realigned to other
items in the 2009 General Appropriations Act.

In his proposed amendments to the GAA (House Bill 5116) submitted to the House Appropriations Committee, Casiño moved for the following cuts in next year's budget:

October 2008

Youth activists led by Anakbayan and League of Filipino Students (LFS) staged a protest action at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) in Manila on October 17 to mark the beginning of a series of protests set against the upcoming Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) to be held in Manila on October 27-30, 2008.

With the recent ruling of the Supreme Court officially linking the abduction and torture of brothers Raymond and Reynaldo Manalo of Bulacan to retired Army General Jovito Palparan, local rights group New York Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines (NYCHRP) challenged the Supreme Court (SC) to take the landmark verdict to the next level and pursue justice by "arresting Palparan and his comma

By Bernardo Arellano III

by Marge Francia

Quezon City, Philippines - The office of Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño, in cooperation with the House Committees on Information and Communications Technology and on Trade and Industry, is sponsoring a week-long exhibit of free/open source software (FOSS) at the North Wing Lobby of the House of Representatives from Sept. 15-18.

Donor governments have failed not only to improve the quality of aid but also even to make progress towards delivering committed amounts, according to independent think-tank IBON Foundation.

The Children’s Rehabilitation Center (CRC), a non-government organization helping children in armed conflict cope with trauma, deplored the military’s aerial attack on civilians in Datu Piang, Maguindanao. As a result, at least 4 children and a pregnant woman were killed in the attack.

The urgency for real transparency in the Philippine oil industry remains despite the recent rollback in oil prices, and vital information needs to be disclosed for the public to be assured that the “monopolized” domestic oil industry is not profiting at their expense, says an economic analysis group.

The Arroyo government’s dissolution of its panel in the peace negotiations with the MILF signals government’s arbitrary and unilateral shift to its doomed all-out war approach using the “demobilization, disarmament and rehabilitation” (DDR) framework, says militant lawmaker Satur Ocampo.