Archive for February, 2007
Government data back UN findings
By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
Published: February 22, 2007
MANILA: Some senior members of the Philippine military could be held accountable for a recent wave of extrajudicial killings, a government- sponsored commission said Thursday in a report the military chief of staff denounced as “unfair.”
The previously classified report was given to reporters one day after a United Nations human rights expert wound up a fact-finding mission with harsh criticisms of the military, saying that it was in a “state of almost total denial” about the murders of political activists, and that the government of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had not done enough to stem the violence.
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Posted on February 23, 2007, and filed under International Herald Tribune, Stories |
By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
Published: February 21, 2007
MANILA: A United Nations human rights expert criticized the Philippine military and government Wednesday for not doing enough to solve a wave of political killings, many of which he said could be linked to government security forces.
“The armed forces remain in a state of almost total denial of its need to respond effectively and authentically to the significant number of killings which have been convincingly attributed to them,” Philip Alston, the UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, said at a news conference at the end of a 10-day fact-finding mission in the Philippines.
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Posted on February 21, 2007, and filed under International Herald Tribune, Stories |
Piracy, Hollywood competition and low incomes take their toll
By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
Published: February 11, 2007
MANILA: Dominic Du, a Chinese-Filipino businessman, stopped producing movies in 1996 because in the five years that he spent making mostly action films, he never made a profit.
“I lost a total of 100 million pesos,” Du said. “I lost my shirt. Those were the worst years of my life.”
But Du’s $2.1 million loss did not drive him out of the movie business. These days, he works at the National Cinema Association of the Philippines, an industry group. His main task is scheduling dates for movies that are to be shown around the country.
This is not to say, however, that his heart no longer bleeds. “What is written here,” Du said, jabbing his finger at a pile of movie schedules, “is a testament to the collapse of the Philippine movie industry.”
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Posted on February 11, 2007, and filed under International Herald Tribune, Stories |
By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
Published: February 8, 2007
MANILA: The Philippine Senate on Wednesday approved a far-reaching anti-terrorism bill despite opposition by politicians, leftist groups and human rights advocates who are fearful it might be misused to stifle civil liberties.
The bill must now be reconciled with legislation passed in the lower house last year, but no significant changes are expected before it is submitted to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for her signature.
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Posted on February 8, 2007, and filed under International Herald Tribune, Stories |
Despite move, rights groups are wary
By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
Published: February 5, 2007
MANILA: When President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo announced that she would ask European countries to help investigate a series of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines, it may have been her most important act to try and ensure justice for hundreds of victims of political murders here.
Much of that optimism rests on the fact that Filipinos view Europeans as serious about protection of human rights and that, more than most nations in the international community, they have been vocal in their outrage about the killings and demand for the violence to stop.
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Posted on February 5, 2007, and filed under International Herald Tribune, Stories |
By Carlos H. Conde
Frontline/World
It was a Saturday night and the open-air bar was filling up with young people. As they streamed in, their eyes fixed on the band playing a song by Coldplay, they seemed dazzled by the bright, colorful light emanating from the stage of Kanto Bar, one of the more popular hang-outs in this city on the island of Mindanao, in the southern Philippines.
“We should switch seats,” Omar Bantayan told me as I was about to sit with my back facing the wall. “I want to see the people entering the bar,” he explained. “It’s always better to be safe.”
Bantayan is only 28. In jeans and a white T-shirt, he looked like an ordinary person out to have some fun on the weekend. But Bantayan told me he was a marked man. As the local secretary-general of a leftist labor group called Kilusang Mayo Uno (May First Movement), Bantayan said he’s been in the crosshairs of the military for the past three years, with suspected military agents tailing him constantly.
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Posted on February 2, 2007, and filed under Frontline/World, Stories |
