Year: 2019

Babae, Bantayan ang Eleksyon (BaBaE!) Network, an alliance of women leaders and organizations that monitor fraud and violence during elections, unites with other election watchdogs to seal a commitment to watch fervently the 2019 Midterm National Elections on Monday, May 13.

Dubbed as “Our Vote, Our Voice: Poll Watchdogs’ Pact for a Transparent and Credible Elections”, the gathering is a rare opportunity to bring together election watchdogs. These include Kontra Daya, Worker’s Electoral Watch (WE Watch), Automated Election System Watch (AES Watch), and National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL).

 “Protecting the elections is not easy, especially when cheating, vote-buying, and political violence have become a norm. Collective effort is a requirement. As poll watchdogs, we need to work together and commit to fight electoral fraud and any attempt to disrupt elections,” Mary Joan Guan, executive director of Center for Women’s Resources and convenor of BaBaE! Network says.

 “We may have different nature and background, but our goal is very clear: we all demand for democratic, transparent, accountable, credible, peaceful, and fraud-free elections,” Guan adds.

The poll watchdogs insist that the Vote Counting Machines (VCMs) – formerly known as PCOS (Precinct Count Optical Scanner) – still lack the basic safeguards to ensure an accurate vote recording and counting. Yet, COMELEC remains adamant in its refusal for a genuine source code review. Coupled with the unreliability of vote transmissions, the automated election system (AES) is feared to disenfranchise millions of voters who will not be able to vote as a result of the biometrics system.

BaBaE! Network identifies the mode of 4Gs during elections – guns, goons, gold, and girls – used by traditional politicians to remain in power. Violence becomes a norm especially for women who actively participate in the campaigns.

At the close of the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) voting on May 14, 2018, the Philippine National Police reported that 35 individuals have been killed in incidents of suspected poll-related violence. Meanwhile, as the May 2019 elections draw near, 33 have already been killed since January 13 in Central Luzon alone.

In February, BaBaE! Network monitored about 12 mayors and seven vice-mayors killed under the Duterte administration. Family members and many unnamed and uncounted individuals – many of whom are staff, security aides and drivers – were also killed and became mere collateral damage.

Likewise, officers and leaders of progressive women”s political parties are subjects of political persecution, red-tagging, and vilification by state forces.

“We call on to the public, to the voters to help us in monitoring irregularities, fraudulent activities, and any form of violence by reporting it to us. We have our respective lines of communication, I hope the public takes advantage of that. As we protect our votes, we bring our voices together to get the kind of government, the leaders we all deserve,” Guan maintains.

EDITORIAL

It must be recalled that one of the key campaign promises of President Duterte was to improve the labor conditions for Filipino workers including the phasing out of contractualization. After three years in office, contractual labor continues to persist in the country. Once again, we hear Senatorial candidates making promises to push forward pro-worker policies like the banning of contractual employment. Indeed, labor issues have long been used as campaign slogans by candidates, but no action was ever being done to address the issue.

First, a “labor vote” will choose legislators who will understand the issues affecting workers; for instance, lawmakers who will support the passage of House Bill 7787 or the ₱750 National Minimum Wage Bill. According to research group IBON, the cost of living nationwide has soared to ₱1,168/day for a family of six. The highest minimum wage is ₱537 in the NCR and the lowest is ₱265 in ARMM. It is now time that workers be accorded a minimum wage that is commensurate to their labor. Workers need immediate relief in the form of a significant wage increase to cope with the rising prices of basic goods and payments of services.

Second, a “labor vote” will support candidates who will push for regular employment and security of tenure. We need lawmakers who will push for the passage of House Bill 556 or the Regular Employment Bill. Workers all over the country are frustrated with DOLE’s Department Order 174 and President Duterte’s Executive Order 51 because it did not actually abolish all forms of contractualization but only further legitimizes the practice. House Bill 556 on the other hand is seen as a good alternative because it will declare all contractualization schemes illegal. It will likewise criminalize and penalize the practice of all contractual employment schemes.

Lastly, a “labor vote” will endorse senatorial candidates who will push for the passage of House Bill 555 or the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill (GARB). This bill seeks to resolve centuries-old agrarian problem in the country by promoting rural development that will greatly benefit peasants and agricultural workers in the countryside.

Pro-people and pro-labor policies that will put an end to contractualization, create safer workplaces and living wages inevitably require legislation. Hence, candidates are urged to include the labor agenda in their platform.

Despite difficulties and challenges, elections provide a glimpse of hope for a new Philippines. Part of our Christian commitment is to support candidates who have the common good in mind. The struggle for dignified labor goes beyond the 2019 mid-year elections. Church-people are called to unite with Filipino workers in asserting their right to work, regular employment and decent wages and choosing lawmakers that will advance the labor agenda. As Bishop Pabillo pointed out: “our participation in the coming elections should not only be non-partisan. Let us get involved and engage in principled partisanship.”

OPINION

“The Blood of My Flock”

This is the clarion call today, Stop the Attacks: Defend Life and Rights! This is very personal on my part, sixty nine (69) persons killed in our beloved Negros island, remember the Sagay massacre last year, and just recently our state forces perpetrated the unjust killing of our farmers, of the so-called “Oplan Sauron” (Synchronized Enhanced Management Police Operation); fourteen (14) people of our island perished in this barbaric operation— they are part of my flock, their deaths pierced my heart with pain, I am mourning with their families and loved ones. More saddening is the grim attitude of our police officers, who until today callously claim of a consistent ‘nanlaban’ version; in repudiation, let me quote the words of Pope Francis: “I cannot fail to recall those who endure a multitude of violations of their fundamental rights in the tragic context of armed conflicts, while unscrupulous dealers of death enrich themselves at the cost of their brothers’ and sisters’ blood…” (Pope Francis, Human Rights in the Contemporary World: Achievements, Omissions, Negations, Rome, 10 December 2018)

May 4, 2019

Dear FRIENDS,

Peace flowing from the heart of Mother Earth and of the One who brought Her into being!

You are cordially invited to the Deep Journey into Laudato Si Symposium which will be offered in Malate Church, Our Lady of Remedies Parish, M.H. Del Pilar Street, Malate Manila on May 18, 2019, 8:00AM-12:00.

The purpose of the Deep Journey into Laudato Si Symposium is to RAISE AWARENESS ON THE URGENCY TO RESPOND TO THE CALL OF LAUDATO SI’ TO CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME. It is a modification of Pachamama Alliance’s Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream Symposium launched in 2005 with the purpose of bringing forth an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, socially just human presence on this planet.

Since Pope Francis issued his encyclical, Laudato Si, On Care for our Common Home in 2015, GCCM-Pilipinas has been sharing and propagating the symposium. Malate Church-Our Lady of Remedies Parish has joined us in this advocacy. Now more than ever, the urgency to engage and inform our people about our planet in crisis cannot be emphasized enough. All of us can do our share in saving our Mother Earth.

Enclosed is our event poster. Kindly invite your friends and family to this symposium. Please help us promote this event by sharing it with your friends, partners and network and posting it on your bulletin boards, website, FB Page/accounts.

We would deeply appreciate if you could come and join us in this event. Please get in touch with anyone of the following: Marge: 09397714656, Ruby: 09178355768, Malate Church 02- 5232593, or Karen of GCCM-Pilipinas at (02) 372-3257; 0917-862-4008. You may also visit FB: GCCM-Pilipinas or Website: catholicclimatemovement.global.

Bobi Tiglao used to understand that. And used to think it was a good thing.

By Sheila S. Coronel*

A long time ago, when we were young and foolish, Malou Mangahas and I were booted out of The Manila Chronicle for standing up for Bobi Tiglao.

We had wanted Bobi to succeed Amando Doronila as editor of the newspaper. We thought he had the chops to lead the Chronicle, a paper shuttered by martial law but which had reopened months after the fall of Ferdinand Marcos.

How wrong we were.

Since then, Bobi has morphed from being a fact-based journalist to an intellectual apologist for a clampdown on our hard-won freedoms. As a columnist for The Manila Times, he wants us shut down or in jail, based on spurious claims that we are somehow violating the Constitution and are “tools to advance U.S. hegemony over Filipino consciousness.”

This is really more than just a story of a friendship gone sour. It is an assault on the idea of an independent press and on the role of journalists as watchdogs of society.  Bobi’s attack on us, since echoed by Yen Makabenta, another Times columnist, is straight from the playbook of Russian President Vladimir Putin. It softens the ground for a clampdown on the press and civil society.

In 2012, Russia passed a law that branded certain NGOs as “foreign agents” simply because they received foreign funding. In 2015, Putin signed an even more restrictive law that would allow the government to shut down foreign-backed groups it – and no one else – deemed “undesirable.” The Putin playbook — aimed at crushing critical voices and silencing civil society – has been used in several other countries, including Hungary and recently, Brazil. Now Bobi wants to bring it to the Philippines.

April 30, 2019, 1:49 PM
By Leslie Ann Aquino  Manila Bulletin

For Catholic prelates, the best gifts that the government can give to workers on May 1, Labor Day will be more jobs in the country, and an end to contractualization.

“For me the best gifts are: first to create jobs here so that they will never be forced to find work in foreign lands, be separated from their families and to avoid brain and manpower drain,” Balanga Bishop Ruperto Santos said in an interview.

“Second is to end contractual which there would be stability, mutual benefits,” he added.

Bishop Santos said this is also to show our appreciation for the sacrifices of the country’s workers.

“To be grateful and be appreciative of their sacrifices and services is to promote their wellbeing, make their jobs safe, stable and secured. Workers are the builders of the country, agents of progress and development,” he said.

Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo agreed with Santos.

By CBCP News
April 30, 2019
Manila, Philippines

In his Labor Day message, a Catholic bishop in Negros Occidental paid tribute to the province’s farmers who fell victims to violence in their struggle for their rights.

Bishop Gerardo Alminaza of San Carlos particularly remembered the nine sugar farmers killed at a hacienda in Sagay City in 2018 that are still awaiting justice.

“The impunity in senseless killings resulting from the landlessness of our agricultural and farm workers are sad manifestations of where we are in our journey towards God’s kingdom of love, justice and peace,” he said.

As a Christian response, Alminaza called on the Basic Ecclesial Communities to have a “pastoral accompaniment” among the Sagay massacre survivors and families of those killed.

The land issue, he said, must be part of reflections among the BEC cluster groups “so that our poor farmers may not feel alone in their plight”.

“Communal action on day-to-day economic life must be discerned in BEC meetings and activities,” Alminaza said.

The bishop also called on leaders of peasants’ groups to make paramount the well-being of their fellow farmers “rather than resort to adventurist steps”.

Addressing the land owners, the prelate urged them to prioritize the interest of common good and denounce violence and greed.

Bishop Alminaza also reiterated his call for justice for the Sagay 9 massacre victims and for the government to address land reform desputes.