On the Violent Death of Hon. Bernardino ‘Toto’ Patigas, Sr.

In the name of the Church community of the Diocese of San Carlos, allow me to offer our sincerest condolences to the family of Bernardino ‘Toto’ Patigas, Sr., a martyr of the sugarworkers’ struggles in the island of Negros. He died violently from the assassin’s bullets last Easter Monday, April 22, 2019 in Escalante City, Negros Occidental, just a few weeks since the killing of Negros 14.

In sadness, we all are crying out: End the Killings! These barbaric and calculated assassinations must end! We should not tolerate this kind of crime.

Tay Toto was a dedicated human rights worker who himself became a victim by these uncontrolled killings of Filipinos.

He was a devoted church worker. He was a mission partner of the Carmelites in Escalante City and a Parish Pastoral Council (PPC) President of St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Old Escalante. He tirelessly worked for the Basic Ecclesial Communities (BEC) program of the parish.

His faith moved him to serve his poor brothers and sisters and was admired by the locals because of his humility and simplicity. He was a veteran grassroots activist, an active campaigner against coal in Northern Negros, and it was ironical that he was mercilessly killed on Earth Day!

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 Greetings of Peace! 

The Church People Workers’ Solidarity will be organizing a forum on Workers’ Situation under the theme “Workers’ prospects, hopes and chances in the coming midterm election” this coming April 29, 2019, 8:00 am-11:30 in the morning at CARITAS ET VERITAS Hall, College of the Holy the Spirit, Mendiola, Manila. The gathering aims to tackle the pressing issues and demands of the Filipino workers amidst the upcoming 2019 midterm elections. It is a venue to hear testimonials and calls for solidarity from workers who are defending their rights for dignified work. We are expecting 80 participants from church people to attend this important event. 

A press conference will be organized after the forum proper to highlight the solidarity and support of church people leaders to the demands of the Filipino workers for just wage, security of tenure and respect to the right to organize. 

In line with this, we are inviting you to attend this very important gathering on the said date and time. Attached herewith is the activity concept note/invitation. A registration fee of 50.00 for snacks. 

For more information and other details, we are glad to personally discuss this matter with you. Please contact us at (02) 584.3190, or at our Mobile: Tony-0942.1986.383, Melona-0945.120.2343 and Email: churchfortheworkers@gmail.com. 

Thank you very much and we are hoping for your positive response. 

All Photos by Kale Luaton, PMPI Comms Unit.

Quezon City, Philippines – A book entitled, “The Number You Have Dialed cannot be Reached: The Social Life of Retired Cell Phones” highlighting the problem of electronic waste in the Philippines and its global character was launched today April 22 in time for the Earth Day celebration.

The research paper was done under the auspices of Philippine Misereor Partnership Inc. (PMPI) by Prof. Eli Guieb III of the University of the Philippines.

The PMPI is conducting a campaign to push for alternatives to mining – urban mining in particular – which seeks to recycle and recover minerals inside discarded electronic products particularly cellphones, the most popular electronic products in the Philippines.  The research tried to uncover the afterlife of cellular phones and other Waste Electrical & Electronic Equipment (WEE) through the eyes of informal and formal WEE collectors, recyclers, & traders.

According to Prof. Eli Guieb III, “These vigorous informal trading of e-waste supports our argument that to many, an old cellular phone is poised for the trash bin but for communities of Aroma and Payatas, e-waste are re-used and recycled, and are therefore rendered different, if not, better socio-economic values. He said, “We propose the term E-Scrap as the more appropriate term in this context.”

Moreover, the book explains the nexus of mining and production of electronic gadgets, citing minerals inside a cellular phones “…contain(s) 3,800 milligrams (mg) (or 0.0038 kg) of silver, 1,500 mg (0.0015 kg) of gold, 300 mg (0.0003 kg) of palladium, and 330,000 mg (or 0.33 kg) of copper.”

Thus if multiplied to 41 million subscribers in the Philippines, PMPI said that it can recover a sizeable amount of minerals if proper technology is applied. Moreover, if these mineral can be mined, recycled, and re-used in future manufacturing of products this will lessen the need to open new mines.”

E-Waste is a Global Problem

It’s either thrown as residual waste, incinerated, or disposed in land-fills in higher income countries, while the rest are traded, collected, and recycled in alarming conditions. The amount of e-waste generated at the global level was about the same size as 4,700 Eiffel Towers, but only 20% end up in landfills or incineration facilities.

The United Nations University Global E-waste Monitor published in 2017 also report that e-waste generation have reached 44.7 Million Metric Tonnes but 80% end up in undocumented places.

The same report said that Asia is the largest producer of e-waste in 2016, with China being the highest in the region and the world, producing an average of 7.2 Metric Tonnes, while the Philippines produced just under 3 kgs. per inhabitant.

The E-scrap book by Guieb III and PMPI states otherwise, “The Philippines is an importing country of e-waste from neighboring Asian countries and the U.S, citing several studies, the research reveal – 300,000 units of used mobile phones from Hongkong, 50,000 mobile phone parts and 10,000 pre-owned computers from South Korea in 2009 alone”.

Extended Producers Responsibility Bill Important

In response to another potentially growing environment and health hazard in the form of e-waste, the Philippine Misereor Partnership, Inc. and other environmental groups Ban Toxics, EcoWaste Coalition, and Greenpeace Philippines will lobby for the passage of the “Extended Producers Responsibility Bill” this coming 18th Congress. The bill seeks to broaden the responsibility of electronic and electrical manufacturers to engineer long-lasting and higher quality products and materials and effective policies for re-use, recycling, and reduction of wastes’ impact on the environment.

Yolly Esguerra, National Coordinator of PMPI during the book launch stated, “The results contained in this book is our contribution to the on-going public discussion on the protection of our environment. She added, “There are no current environmental policy in the country that governs the nature of e-scrap and its potential environment and the health risks.

We also hope that this becomes part of the agenda of candidates from the local to the national electoral arena. We intend to share this to our legislators and hopefully become the basis for the passage into law the “Extended Producers Responsibility Bill” Esguerra added.

Thony Dizon of EcoWaste Coalition added, “Our proposal is a partnership between the National Government, business sector, environmental groups, and informal and formal recyclers on the take-back of discarded electronics and electrical equipment under a more environmentally-responsible, humane and healthy conditions.“

Call to Protect our Common Home

Fr. Edu Gariguez, CBCP/NASSA Caritas Executive Secretary, a known environmental advocate, during the book launch said, “We are one with Pope Francis in critiquing the culture of consumerism which promotes irresponsible use and disposal of gadgets, with no plan for recycling. This so called throw-away culture has to stop, and recycling strategy such as E-Scrap has to be pursued.

PMPI in its statement also echoed Pope Francis’s call for protecting our common home and an ecological conversion, “There are many things that need to change course, but it is we human beings above all who need to change. We lack an awareness of our common origin, of our mutual belonging and a future to be shared by everyone. This basic awareness would enable the development of new convictions, attitudes and forms of life: “A great cultural, spiritual and educational challenge stands before us, and it will demand that we set out to on the long path of renewal to protect our common home”

The E-Scrap campaign also calls for personal change in lifestyle, a Sapat-Lifestyle campaign where the rich are called to divest and share its excess while the poor should have more towards sufficiency.

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The Philippine Misereor Partnership Inc. (PMPI) is a social development and advocacy network of 250 plus Philippine church/faith-based groups, non-governmental organizations and people’s organization spread all over the country, in partnership with Misereor, a social development arm of the German Bishops based in Aachen, Germany.

Danny Pilario·Sunday, April 21, 2019

The women with spices for him did not find his body. Peter and John ran to the tomb. Jesus was not there. Instead, he saw the burial cloths. Mary of Magdala saw the stone removed. She thought someone stole his body. She complained to the gardener. But something different happened. Two disciples was so disappointed. They thought they were mistaken in trusting the young preacher Jesus. They were ready to go back to their old lives until…

Two years ago, these orphans were distraught. After the brutal killing of their fathers, life drastically changed for them. Life was hard before. But it became harder now.

There were days that they had nothing to eat, said one. Many of them blamed God. At their very young age, they quarrelled with God: “Why my father? What about us? Who will take care of us?” Some stopped schooling. When we first journeyed with them, they were not talking. All they had were tears and blank stares. One or two were just looking far at nowhere.

But something changed. Something different happened.

They still cry when they remember him. They still feel the pain. Life is still so precarious. No one is really sure what the future brings. Justice is still not being served. And maybe not in the near future.

But light appears somewhere. They feel something hopeful, something joyful. Now they can smile. Now they can play. Now they can sing.

Thanks to Baigani and Bawat Isa Mahalaga for inviting them and teaching them to sing. Credits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKH3xisSP-c

I did not deliver my homily at the Easter vigil. I just requested them to sing a song composed for them, and share their story of hope.

Their song is brave and courageous. And to hear it from the mouth of children, it becomes prophetic.

“Bayan ko’y sakal ng hambog, ganid at hangal
Panaigan nawa ng may dunong at dangal
At kung bawat isa’y tumayo’t manindigan,
ang kapwa magiging ating kanlungan.”

“Ang wasto’y gagawin, ang mali ay uusigin
Bawat naliligaw kapit-bisig na akayin
Bawat isip ay buksan, bawat puso ay baguhin
Dahil ang bawat isa’y mahalaga sa atin.”
 (Composer and lyricist: Julius Fernandez)

While they were singing and sharing, I was looking at their mothers sitting at the pews. They were crying. But this time, these are also tears of joy. They also feel something hopeful. For themselves. For their children.

I asked the children to light their candles from the Paschal candle and distribute it to the people. Like Magdalene, they are the new messengers of the resurrection. With our lighted candles, we all stood up and joined them in singing their song.

I told the parish community gathered for the Easter vigil:

“These children are our present witnesses to the resurrection. They underwent death. All they saw for now are the burial cloths. But their lives already tell us that Jesus is truly risen!”

Happy Easter to all!

From the children of Project SOW (Solidarity with Orphans and Widows)

Ina ng Lupang Pangako Parish, Payatas B, Quezon City

April 4-8, 2019

Context

On March 30, 2019, between 2:00am to 5:30am, fourteen (14) persons were killed by State security forces during their operations in Canlaon City, Manjuyod, and Sta. Catalina towns in Negros Oriental province in the Philippines. At least fifteen (15) persons were also reportedly arrested in the said localities, according to relatives of the victims and peasant organizations in the province.

In a report by Bombo Radyo Cebu, the PNP Region 7 said that it launched its Simultaneous Enhanced Managing Police Operations (SEMPO) or Oplan Sawron in Negros Oriental. Central Visayas Police Regional Office (PRO-7) Chief Debold Sinas said that the police served 37 search warrants to “various personalities due to illegal possession of firearms.” He also said that they were able to serve 31 search warrants; 14 were killed when these personalities resisted arrests, while 12 others were arrested.¹

In another article, Sinas also reportedly said that those who were killed were members of the CPP-NPA and that the 14 refused to surrender and engaged the police in a shoot-out. “They really fought. Even in Oplan Sauron Part 1, there was a directive from the top leadership of the rebels to fight it out with the police. They were not ready to surrender because they were hardcore rebels,” Sinas said.²

On April 1, 2019, PNP Chief Oscar Albayalde and Presidential Spokesperon Salvador Panelo said that these are legitimate police operations.³

The mass killings and illegal arrests of farmers in Negros Oriental are the latest of the attacks against human rights defenders and of the long list of human rights violations documented under the Duterte administration.

Backdrop of a Bloodbath: Poverty and Landlessness in Negros

Throughout decades, Negros has been known as an island of impoverished and landless peasants and farmworkers in the Philippines. Government neglect, exploitation of sugar workers, the dominance of landlords and warlords, and neoliberal policies have altogether created and contributed to the grinding poverty and hunger experienced by the poor in the island, despite the vast tracts of land and resources of its two provinces.

At least 56% of the country’s sugarcane produce come from the Negros island, where 54% of the country’s sugar mill and plantation workers are found. More than 335,000 sugarcane workers in Negros, out of 780,000 nationwide figures, are subjected to slave- like economic conditions.⁴

The average monthly income of a sugarcane worker in Negros is at PhP1,500 (or $27.96) to PhP2,000 ($37.28), which translates to PhP50 ($0.93) to PhP67 ($1.24) a day.⁵ The said levels are a far cry from the daily minimum wage rates of sugar workers in the province which is at PhP303.00 ($5.65) a day⁶, or from the National Capital Region wage rates at PhP512 ($9.54) a day.⁷ Comparing the said figures with the average family living wage as estimated by Ibon Foundation at PhP1,001 ($18.66)⁸, it would give the picture of the sheer destitute state of the sugar workers’ families.

Such a situation exists with the concentration of land to a few elites on the island. The Unyon ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura said that of the 424,130 hectares of sugar lands in Negros, 40% are owned by 1,860 big landlords, while 30% are owned by 6,820 small landlords.⁹ UMA named the landlord families of the Cojuangcos, Aquinos, Roxases, Aranetas, Torreses, Teveses and others, as among those with vast tracts of land in the region.¹⁰

Meanwhile, the failure of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), under which some 427,656 hectares of land in the Negros region was to be distributed, have so far resulted to the distribution of 302,377 hectares in its three decades of implementation. In an article by Arnold Padilla, Programme Coordinator of the Pesticide Action Network- Asia Pacific, at least 125,279 hectares in land acquisition and distribution (LAD) are yet to be distributed. Negros island accounts for 21% of the national LAD balance of 602,306 hectares – the largest among all regions. It has the second lowest LAD accomplishment rate at 71%, just behind the 67% of another impoverished region, the ARMM.¹¹

¹⁸

With very meager wages from their work in farms, farmers and farmworkers are forced to take on other informal or odd jobs to feed their families, especially during the Tiempo Muerto season or the period between the planting and harvesting seasons of sugarcane where no work is available in the haciendas for six months.

This is the reason why farmworkers organize themselves to cultivate undistributed CARP lands to ease the problem of hunger especially during Tiempo Muerto season, by planting crops that their families can eat. The farmworkers came up with a Bungkalan campaign (land occupation and collective cultivation) which was organized to assert their rights to the land they till and for genuine agrarian reform.¹²

Negros Oriental’s main produce are its sugarcane, coconuts, and bananas.¹³ Yet with its 1.35 million population¹⁴, the province has been considered as among the poorest in the country¹⁵, with 45% poverty incidence among its population, compared to the national average of 21.6%.¹⁶

The areas affected by the mass killings on March 30, 2019, registered high poverty incidence rates with Manjuyod having 33.6%, 43.1 % in Santa Catalina and Canlaon City at 42.3%.¹⁷

Human rights violations: State response to the peasants’ struggle for land

In Negros, killings, massacres, and other rights violations related to the peasants’ struggle for land and rights have marked the island’s history.

During the Marcos dictatorship, the massacre of 20 peasants, known as the Escalante Massacre, marked the Negrense’s protest action on September 20, 1985. Prior to this bloody incident, soldiers and paramilitary forces conducted combat operations in rural communities of Negros, stealing from the people, burning villages, kidnapping and assassinating local leaders. When the sugar crisis exploded in the late 1970s, the sacadas, and even a small number of enlightened landowners said they have had enough. This triggered many protest marches, demanding agrarian reform and land distribution, fair wages and improved government services.¹⁹

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The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has been bringing out statements to guide the people on issues that affect the country. There have been voices, even among the bishops, questioning if these statements are being heeded at all. In spite of the doubts about the effectivity of these statements, the CBCP has decided once more in its plenary session last January to issue another statement on the forthcoming elections, with a faint hope that at least some people may be guided by it and act on it. Its statement, released last January 28, 2019, is entitled: “Seek the Common Good.” Among other things, it paints the crucial situation we are in: 
“The midterm election on May 13 is crucial. In our country today the checks and balances in the government are being undermined. So far the senate is the institution in the government that is holding out as our country is inching towards total control. It is very crucial therefore that we elect candidates who are principled, courageous and who have the common good as their main concern and not their own political interests.”
So it encouraged lay people to bond and reflect together to pick the right candidates:
“We encourage voters to be very discerning in their votes. Let the lay groups engage in discernment circles to help one another know the candidates well and choose the candidates with the common good of the whole country in mind and not according to what the candidates promise, much less according to what they have received from these candidates.”
Then it pointed out a type of engagement that lay people can engaged in:
“Participation in politics for Christian lay people is not just to be limited to non-partisan involvement. Christians are also encouraged to engage in principled partisan participation. This means that they can campaign for good candidates as an exercise of their Christian faith.”
A not insignificant group of some 130 lay Christian leaders heeded the call. They organized themselves and discerned together the best senatorial candidates to support among the 62 contestants. Since 2015 these Christian leaders from the Catholic, Evangelical and Protestant persuasions have come up with GABAYKRISTO, a set of Christian criteria by which to measure the politicians. They researched the stance of the 62 candidates on various important national issues. They got the profiles of the candidates and they met several times to set up the criteria for screening the candidates. This is a serious kind of discernment circle that the bishops have been calling out. They call themselves the PEOPLE’S CHOICE MOVEMENT.
They came out with two layers of screening. The first screening is to vet the candidates on two knock-out issues: belief in God and federalism/charger change. They believe that a person who does not have the fear of God in him can easily abuse others. They also believe that the present state of the country is not ready for federalism and charter change. 30 candidates were eliminated on these two knock-out issues. 
The 32 candidates who remained in the pool were then subjected to the second screening. They were rated using criteria based on GabayKristo, a guide of 20 specific questions which are divided into four categories –

• Character & Honor, 
• Competence & Abilities, 
• Faithfulness to public service, 
• Faithfulness to God, the Constitution and the laws.
Each of the 20 questions was graded from 1 to 5, 1 being the lowest and 5 the highest. The ten candidates with the highest scores were declared the selected candidates.
The following were the selected “10 BEST SENATORIAL CANDIDATES THAT OUR COUNTRY & PEOPLE NEED DURING THESE TIMES”. They are presented below in alphabetical order – –
1. Alejano, Gary
2. Aquino, Bam
3. Cominares, Nery
4. Diokno, Chel
5. Gutoc, Samira
6. Hilbay, Pilo
7. Macalintal, Romy
8. Poe, Grace
9. Roxas, Mar
10. Tanada, Erin

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Probe Productions Inc. in partnership with The Climate Reality Project Philippines presents the television airing of the documentary

‘OUR POWER‘  on 14 April 2019, 5:00 – 5:30 PM, on GMA News TV, Channel 11.

This documentary features veteran journalist Cheche Lazaro as she investigates the impacts of coal-fired power plants on local communities in Bataan, Cebu, and Negros Island. Her journey takes her to the stories of local heroes who had struggled for their well-being against coal giants.

The documentary aims to show the resiliency of the Filipino spirit in the face of not only natural hazards due to climate change but also adversity from harmful practices that come with dirty energy.

We invite all Filipinos to watch this documentary and to stand in solidarity with our fellow countrymen during one of the most critical periods in our history.