2 Farmers Shot in Capiz Province

Peasant group condemns continued attacks on peasants, says former landlord’s greed, oppression must end now

Task Force Mapalad
May 25, 2021

National peasant federation Task Force Mapalad on Tuesday condemned the violence and lawlessness being carried out by anti-agrarian reform forces in a sugar plantation in Capiz province that have kept farmers in the area in constant fear, danger, and hunger.

“These brazen acts of injustice and mockery of the rule of must stop now. The greed of landlords has reached the level of madness. They have taken the law into their own hands. They are acting like oppressive mini-gods in their bailiwicks, fearing no one, threatening, hurting, and killing anyone who catches their ire,” said Teresita Tarlac, president of TFM’s Negros-Panay Chapter.

TFM issued the statement following the May 24, 2021 shooting of two of its farmer-members, Jose Sony Billonid, 49, and Bernard Amistoso, 51, in Brgy. Dulangan, Pilar, Capiz by assailants believed to have links with the former owner of a 188-hectare hacienda in the area.

The plantation, used to be owned by Nemesio Tan and managed by his administrator Ferdinand Bacanto, who is also the village chief of Culilang, is already owned by about TFM 100 farmers belonging to the Montecarlo Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Organization (Montecarba).

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SemNet’s call for a clean, honest, accurate, meaningful, and peaceful election

We are once again at a crucial point in history. Under the helm of Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines had been living in a bed of untruths. The last presidential election saw the rise to political power of Rodrigo Duterte, a man who touted himself as capable of saving the Filipino people from the country’s longstanding problems of inequality and poverty. A plurality of 16 million Filipinos believed that Duterte was the man who will give voice to their desire for a better future. But his self-fulfilling prophecy was a big lie and his promises were empty rhetoric. Instead of uniting the Filipino people in a massive war against a dehumanizing poverty, Duterte divided the nation by creating a moral “us” against an immoral “them,” thus treating human life arbitrarily. This narrow moral worldview motivated Duterte to demonize minorities, silence dissent, weaken checks and balances, repress media freedom, and pursue discriminatory legalism. Yet Pope Francis sends out a strong reminder in Fratelli Tutti: We are either all saved together or no one is saved (FT 137).

The raging pandemic is an eye-opener to the catastrophic hubris of Duterte. The population is starving, people are dying, and Filipinos are desperate. Every Filipino bears the brunt from the consequences of our poor choice of leadership. But in the bleakness of our situation, a few good Filipinos choose to respond with empathy. The valor of our self-sacrificing frontliners and the emergence of kindness stations and community pantries all over the country has rekindled the bayanihan spirit that empowers communities to take responsibility for their most vulnerable members. The power to transform hopeless circumstances lies within ourselves. This grassroots effort is an antidote to apathy and frees us from dependence on savior figures. We need to establish a network of empowered communities, and they need to be sustained by national leaders who will build the enabling structures that provide communities the agency to improve their situation for a long-term common good. This is a mission which our Church shares, and we can make significant contributions.

We, the Seminarians’ Network of the Philippines, believe in the capacity of the Filipino’s bayanihan spirit to restore the civil society that Duterte sought to dismantle. The national elections in 2022 offer us the opportunity to embark on a common project of rebuilding our nation based on high principles (FT 178). The values of honor, integrity, compassion, and solidarity that have always sustained the Filipino spirit are at stake. We need to go beyond short-sightedness, petty provincialism, and mere superficiality in order to make better choices with far-reaching responsibilities and impact.

We call on all theology seminarians in the country to exercise their right to suffrage by registering and voting in the coming elections. We encourage each seminary to work with the local governments, social action centers, and communities to ensure that the election will be clean, honest, accurate, meaningful, and peaceful. We urge everyone to engage their circles of influence, especially our youth, in conversations that will help form their conscience in choosing leaders who live out their values. We enjoin each one to help build communities of solidarity and form leaders who will enable their flourishing. We need to learn from this populist regime how to build an inclusive political system in which no voice is silenced and wherein no Filipino is left uncared for. Only then can the Filipino nation reclaim its soul that was lost under the failed messiah that is Duterte. The Filipino is not a lost cause.

Seminarians’ Network of the Philippines
13 May 2021

PMPI Statement on construction of a mega vaccination hub in Nayong Pilipino

The Partnership Mission for People’s Initiatives (PMPI) is concerned about the recent decision of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Disease (IATF) to construct in Nayong Pilipino a mega vaccination hub funded by billionaire Enrique Razon Jr.’s International Container Terminal Services Inc (ICTSI). The proposed facility if erected in one of the remaining green spaces in Parañaque is set to destroy the existing grassland ecosystem, mangrove and the beach forests that function as habitat, nutrient sink and filter to land-based pollutants aside from acting as buffer and natural defense against storm surges as many have seen after Typhoon Yolanda.

We find the decision unreasonable given that many open spaces like arenas, empty hotels and even malls are opening up to a vaccination center, so why construct a new one that would again destroy the few remaining ecosystems in cities like Paranaque? Replicating the idea behind existing city vaccination hubs like Makati Coliseum, Ospital ng Maynila, Ayala Malls Manila Bay, and such would be much more time efficient, cost effective, and accessible, and thus more apt in the nation’s interest to be COVID19-free.

A plan that would involve loss of green spaces and disruption of ecosystems is a plan that is doomed to fail. This apparent disregard for ecosystems and nature only confirms that even after a year in the pandemic, this administration has yet to understand COVID-19 and its zoonotic nature. Its misplaced priorities reflected how it failed to comprehend the interconnected strings of societal issues — overwhelmed health care system, low vaccination rate, failed education system, lost livelihoods, and deepened economic and social inequality — that have made the country a most favorable hotspot for the spread of the disease.

The location of Nayong Pilipino is an apt ecological buffer zone to protect the Las Piñas–Parañaque Critical Habitat and Ecotourism Area (LPPCHEA), a Ramsar site declared for conservation under the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). A projected environmental degradation in the area will strip off its natural barriers against hazards, making the already vulnerable reclaimed land of Parañaque even more prone to disasters..

Additionally, it is counterproductive to construct the proposed mega vaccination hub in an area that is inaccessible to individuals without a private car. Further, the likelihood of virus spread is high due to the proximity of the hub to a quarantine facility also located in Nayong Pilipino. Too far from being able to manage the pandemic, plummeting economy, and increasing higher rate of poverty, this administration does not have the luxury to undertake reckless decisions anymore.

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Online Conversations on the 2022 National Elections

Sangguniang Laiko

One of the main concerns that we should be updated and be prepared upon is the forthcoming 2022 National Elections. The result of next year’s election will once again shape our nation’s being and future. We hope that this conversation will inspire and moved us to do our part in effecting authentic social transformation in the field of governance.

Journalists and the Truth under Threat

Shay Cullen
8 May 2021

A Japanese journalist has been arrested and held in prison in Myanmar for reporting the news. He is accused of reporting “fake news” under the tough restriction on reporting by the military junta.

PREDA

The killing goes on but it is not mainstream journalists that are widely reporting it. A new generation of amateur volunteer journalists- the civil reporters- who are often in the thick of the demonstrations reporting live over the internet when it is not shut off.

Two Spanish journalists, David Beriain and cameraman Roberto Fraile, were killed last month in an ambush attack against an army convoy in the tri-border Sahel zone of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso in the African Sahel region.

They were on the way to a national park where poachers and armed groups are active killing wildlife like elephants and rhino.

Life for professional journalists is increasingly precarious and dangerous. Many countries have introduced draconian anti-terrorist laws and media restriction laws that consider criticism of the government an act of subversion or even terrorism. Many professional journalists, while trying to report the news, have been arrested, jailed, and killed.

In 2015, there were 73 journalists killed, in 2018, as many as 56 were killed. In 2019, there were 26 killed. In 2020, another 32 killed and so far in 2021there have been 5 killed, according to the Committee to Defend Journalists (CDJ). Shocking records of violent response against the Free Press, most have been murdered for reporting unfavorably about corruption among politicians and criminal gangs. Others were caught in the crossfire in war zones.

That is not all. Hundreds have been jailed. Since 2020, the number of incarcerated journalists is 274 in jails around the world for their work telling the truth. The majority are in prisons in China and Turkey. There are 30 plus journalists jailed in each. These countries are among the most severe violators of human rights and free speech. They are oppressors of journalists and manipulators of the truth. Many more journalists are imprisoned in India, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, and Syria. In Belarus, 10 are in prison for reporting on the demonstrations.

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Pope sends message to Vatican conference on Mind, Body and Soul

Pope Francis underlines the importance of interdisciplinary research for a better understanding of our human nature, in a video message for the Fifth International Conference dedicated to “Exploring the Mind, Body and Soul.”

By Vatican News staff writer

Pope Francis on Saturday sent a message to the participants at the 5th International Conference taking place from 6 – 8 May under the theme: “Exploring the Mind, Body & Soul. How Innovation and Novel Delivery Systems Improve Human Health.”

Organized by the Pontifical Council for Culture, and co-hosted by the Cura Foundation, the virtual conference brings together scientists, physicians, ethicists, religious leaders, patient right advocates and policy makers to discuss breakthroughs in medicine, healthcare delivery and prevention, as well as the cultural impact and human implications of technological advances.

The organizers are also promoting a roundtable on “Bridging Science and Faith” aimed at exploring the relationship of religion and spirituality to health and wellbeing, including the relationship between mind, body and soul.

In the video message, Pope Francis acknowledged all who are personally and professionally committed to the care of the sick and the support of those in need, particularly in these recent times of the Covid-19 pandemic which continues to claim lives and challenge our sense of solidarity and authentic fraternity.

He also highlighted that the conference unites philosophical and theological reflection to scientific research, especially in the field of medicine.

Divisions

Considering the theme of the conference, Pope Francis noted that it is centered on mind, body and soul – three fundamental areas that differ somewhat from the “classical” Christian vision which understands the person as “an inseparable unity of body and soul, the latter being endowed with intellect and will.”

Moreover, St. Paul speaks of spirit, soul and body (1 Thess 5:23), a tripartite model that was taken up by Church Fathers and various modern thinkers.

These divisions, said the Pope, “rightly indicate that certain dimensions of our being, nowadays all too often disjoined, are in fact profoundly and inseparably interrelated.”

We are a body

He went on to explain that the biological stratum of our existence, expressed in our corporeity, represents the most immediate of these dimensions, even if it is not the easiest to understand.

“We are not pure spirits; for each of us, everything starts with our body, but not only: from conception to death, we do not simply have a body; we are a body,” Pope Francis affirmed, adding that Christian faith tells us that this will also be true in the Resurrection.

In this regard, the history of medical research presents us with one dimension of the “fascinating journey of human self-discovery” which is the case not only in “Western” academic medicine but also with the rich diversity of medicines in various civilizations all over the world.

Interdisciplinary studies

Bringing to the fore the importance of interdisciplinary studies, the Pope noted that thanks to them, we can come to appreciate “the dynamics involved in the relationship between our physical condition and the state of our habitat, between health and nourishment, our psycho-physical wellbeing and the care of the spiritual life – also through the practice of prayer and meditation – and finally between health and sensitivity to art, and especially music.”

It is, therefore, no accident “that medicine serves as a bridge between the natural and the human sciences, so much so that in the past it could be defined as philosophia corporis – medicine as philosophia corporis,” he said.

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