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After calling out China, he is backing the pope’s call for a ceasefire as the world fights Covid-19

UCAN News
Michael Sainsbury
Myanmar
April 24, 2020

Unbowed, indeed perhaps emboldened, by the ill-informed attacks on him for calling out China for its role — by withholding information — in assisting the spread of Covid-19 and for its repressive murderous regime, Myanmar’s Cardinal Charles Bo has joined Pope Francis and others in calling for a global conflict ceasefire during the pandemic.

Just as he understands China better than his critics, the president of the Asian Federation of Bishops’ Conferences is also all too familiar with conflict. The country whose Church he has led so well as archbishop of Yangon for 17 years has been racked with conflict for the entire 72 years of its independence.

“I am convinced that continued military operations, precisely when the whole nation is suffering a crisis, will have catastrophic consequences for our nation,” the 71-year-old cardinal wrote in just the latest of so many missives he has released on the topic of peace.

“Now is the time for decisions that will build Myanmar as a united, peaceful, prosperous nation and member of the family of nations. Conflict makes Myanmar especially vulnerable.”

Cardinal Bo’s concerns, as a prince of the Catholic Church and leader of its Asian bishops, of course extend beyond the borders of his own country and across a region where peace has so frequently been interrupted.

His bid for peace in Myanmar has arguably been the most consistent thematic of his time as a prelate. In 1990, he was ordained as bishop of Lashio in Shan state, which shares a long border with China. It is a hub for trading with the Middle Kingdom, a battleground for drug lords — part of the notorious Golden Triangle — and home to several militias including the United Wa State Army, which has been reported to have 25,000 fighters but has now had 30 years of peace with the country’s military.

It is important to understand that Myanmar is the nation in South and Southeast Asia that has been most tortured by conflict since the Second World War. Civil wars have raged on and off for seven decades between dozens of ethnic militias, mainly in the seven ethnic-based states that surround the center of the country where the majority ethnic group, the Bamar, live.

Some critics of Cardinal Bo’s full-frontal speaking of truth to the power of the Chinese Communist Party did not take the time to understand how China is seen in Myanmar as a putative economic and cultural colonist.

Bo himself put it very neatly in a presentation he made in July 2019.

CENTER FOR TRADE UNION AND HUMAN RIGHTS (CTUHR)
Public Information and Education Department
April 17, 2020

On April 15, 2020, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) announced that its COVID-19 Adjustment Measure Program (CAMP) is now closed for new applications. OIC Assistant Secretary Dominique Tutay said that this is to give way to the transition to the wage subsidy for small business program of the Department of Finance.

The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights is strongly dismayed with this announcement. Since the lockdown was implemented, lots of families suffered from hunger as the promised assistance in the form of relief goods and cash aid comes slow or does not come at all. Displaced workers have been relying on DOLE’s P5,000 assistance for their families’ sustenance for the duration of the quarantine but have encountered numerous problems such as their employer’s non-compliance with the requirements, refusal of the company to apply, DOLE’s hotline that is not working, DOLE’s rejection of the company’s application and the slow and long process of the application with many workers not receiving anything even after a month of its implementation.

“This government is adding more harm than good to the workers and the poor, with their inconsistent and overly bureaucratic processes of giving the urgently needed aid. Why is the CAMP application being closed down when many workers are still in dire need of support? Why is the responsibility being transferred to the DOF who knows nothing about the workers’ situation? Instead of simply giving the promised assistance, this government is wasting precious time on its bureaucratic measures than providing urgently needed aid.” said Daisy Arago, CTUHR Executive Director.

The Labor Department estimates that around 1.6 million workers are affected by the lockdown due to COVID-19. It also reported that the CAMP has provided Php1.2 billion aid to 236,412 workers and is in the process of distributing aid to 85,563 more workers in the coming days. “We cannot fathom how they can afford to stop the assistance program when it has given aid to barely 15% of their conservative estimation. Providing assistance to displaced workers is under the mandate of DOLE. Transferring it to another department is simply unjust, irresponsible and pointless. Give the Php51 billion wage subsidy to DOLE and expedite the process of distributing the aid,” Arago added.

DOLE’s Estimate Number of Affected Workers in the Formal Sector

Arago also noted that the data of the Labor Department is conservative. According to think-tank Ibon Foundation, the number of workers who may be affected by the Enhanced Community Quarantine, both from the formal and informal sector is at 11 million. This is based on the 2018 labor survey force.  

CAMP is one of the promised financial assistance programs of the Duterte Administration amid this  COVID-19 pandemic through DOLE. Without economic activity, it is difficult for the workers to fend for their families needs. Thus, the P5,000 assistance from DOLE, insufficient as it may be, is a big help to meet the basic necessities of their families.

CTUHR also noted its continuous appeal to big companies to pay their workers despite work stoppage because of the enhanced community quarantine.###

Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura
Federation of Agricultural Workers | Philippines
APril 17, 2020

The Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura heavily criticized the Duterte government for threatening the Filipino people with further repressive measures such as explicitly placing the country under Martial Law instead of urgently providing them with aid.

According to UMA Chairperson, Antonio “Ka Tonying” Flores, “The primary reason why many are going against quarantine rules is the lack of prompt and adequate socio-economic aid. Many barangays have not yet received the already limited social amelioration.”

“Meanwhile, agriworkers have not been included in the Department of Labor and Employment’s Covid-19 Adjustment Measures Program (CAMP) as they are considered as informal sector workers, even if there are cases of work stoppage in plantations and mills. Neither were they able to access DOLE’s Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (TUPAD) project,” Flores added.

In the IATF’s third report to Congress, it boasted of providing assistance to 118,086 workers under CAMP and 167,941 workers under TUPAD.

Flores said, “The Bukidnon Sugar Milling Corporation (BUSCO) stopped its operation for about two weeks. In Agusan del Sur, Soriano Farms and Lapanday banana plantations in Cabadbaran and Jabonga reduced working days from six to three days a week. But none of their workers reported having received any aid from DOLE for not being able to work due to companies’ temporary closure or compressed work week.”

“The administration has given so many promises and targets undelivered. The least that agriworkers need are menacing remarks from the President as the country tries to survive a pandemic.”

“Instead of intimidation, why doesn’t the President present what he is going to do in order to protect our food frontliners? Why does he not talk about measures to ensure that their produce are bought at fair prices?”

In Cagayan Valley, traders bought rice farmers’ palay at P14/kilo taking advantage of their desperation to get their produce to the market. In Batangas, molasses were bought at P10/kilo instead of P40 because only one trader was buying molasses from small sugarplanters, while sugar plummeted from P1,500 to P1,200 per bag (50 kilos).

“What can the President say about the fact that only agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) from 2010 to the present are the only ones who will be given IDs, which will be used to access much needed services to increase their farm production? This resulted to thousands of ARBs not being included in the cash assistance and seedlings program by the DAR. A case in fact are Hacienda Roxas ARBs in Nasugbu who are already at about 1,500. Meanwhile, none of our member farmworkers in rice fields have reported of getting assistance from the Department of Agriculture.”

“The President seems to think that he and his Cabinet members’ ineptitude in addressing the pandemic can be covered up by militaristic solutions and verbal abuse. He undermines the public in misleading them that it is the “quarantine violators” who are responsible for the country having the highest number of Covid-19 cases in Southeast Asia, when he allowed more than 500,000 Chinese into the country in failing to declare a travel ban immediately just to please China. For all these reasons, he should already resign together with DOH Secretary Duque.”

“If the President continues to fail to heed the people, this will only lead more people to support the call for his ouster,” Flores ended.

Military ops continue under Covid-19 quarantine in North Negros

Northern Negros Alliance of Human Rights Advocates
April 17, 2020

Civilians in North Negros continue to fear combat operations of combined forces of the 79th Infantry Battalion (79th IB) and the Special Action Forces (SAF) of the Philippine National Police (PNP) even as the whole province of Negros Occidental came under the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) to control the Covid-19 pandemic.

Based on initial reports gathered by the Northern Negros Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (NNAHRA), military operations have continued in rural areas of Escalante City, Calatrava and Toboso despite the province-wide implementation of the ECQ.

In Toboso town, the home of Quintin Palay and other members of the Palay clan in Sitio Odiong, Barangay Bandila was forcibly entered and ransacked by elements of the 79th IB and SAF last April 15, around 6:30 in the morning.

The military threatened and interrogated a 12-year old minor who was in the house while other family members were out working in their monggo fields. The child reportedly fainted due to intense pressure.

The particular combat operation had been going on for several days in the upland areas of Barangay Pantao and Bandila, where the soldiers also engaged in betting and cockfighting. The soldiers who ransacked the Palay home were reportedly in civilian clothes. Other soldiers nearby were busy gambling.

This April, combat operations were also monitored in upland barangays of Marcelo, Minapasuk, Cambayubo, Winaswasan, Macasilao, Cruz, Malatas, Pantao and Paghumayan in Calatrava; Bug-ang, San Isidro, Bandila and Tabun-ac in Toboso, and many other barangays in Escalante City where the so-called National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict of the Duterte administration (NTF-ELCAC) continue to engage in their rabid campaign to force ordinary civilians and peasants to surrender en masse and admit to their links to the armed communist movement.

Particularly in Barangay Bug-ang, Toboso and Barangay Malasibog, Escalante City, operators of the NTF-ELCAC continue to coerce peasants to break up their cooperatives and surrender their lands back to landlords and corrupt brokers of anomalous financial grants endorsed by the military.

Meanwhile, there are also reports of abuses in Covid-19 checkpoints where personal belongings of civilians are searched and intensely inspected by police and military personnel without protective gear, while some civilians are ordered to remove their face masks to identify them. Authorities have also been arresting so many civilians who break the curfew and other additional restrictions of the quarantine implemented by local governments.

NNAHRA noted that while civilians are strictly barred from crossing town and city borders to avoid the spread of the Covid-19 virus, the army and police on combat operations can freely enter quarantined barangays without any personal protective gear and without notifying local officials of their activities.

Human rights advocates call on authorities to seriously address the Covid-19 situation and pull-out military troops from communities. Aside from causing abuses and rights violations, the unhampered movement of police and military personnel can potentially unleash the outbreak of the virus in upland areas where health services are scarce, if not completely unavailable.

#FightCovid19
#DuterteVirus
#SerbisyoMedikalHindiMilitar
#TulongHindiKulong
#MassTestingNow

By CBCP News
April 17, 2020
Manila, Philippines

The spread of coronavirus into a congested jail facility has triggered deep concern from the bishops’ prison ministry.

Nine detainees and nine personnel at the Quezon City Jail have tested positive for the virus, the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology said.

The BJMP said it is now conducting extensive contact tracing to contain the contagious respiratory disease.

The infected inmates were brought to a quarantine facility in Payatas.

The prison employees afflicted with the virus were also advised to undergo home quarantine as they do not have sever symptoms.

Bishop Joel Baylon of the Episcopal Commission on Prison Pastoral Care said they are hoping that all measures taken by the BJMP will stem the spread of the virus.

“We hope and pray that the protocols which have been set in motion will help these patients to recover fast and further prevent the spread of the disease,” Baylon said.

Bishop Pablo Virgilio David of Kalookan, meanwhile, described the detainees’ situation as a ‘nightmare’.

“The nightmare for prisoners has begun. That makes all of them inside PUIs (persons under investigation) and PUMs (persons under monitoring),” he said.

Bishop Gerardo Alminaza of San Carlos has earlier demanded for the government “to act with urgency” to decongest prisons and conduct mass testing.

“Or else, God forbid, prisons and those in them may sink like ill-fated Diamond Princess and other cruise ships, as physical distancing and self-isolation are spatially impossible,” Alminaza said.

“Political prisoners, the sick, the elderly and those detained on petty crimes and misdemeanor may all be considered for release – this is a matter of life and death, calling for extraordinary measures,” he said.

Statement on Earth Day celebration

Human life depends on the well-being of the planet and all of its inhabitants. The more we disturb biodiversity, the more we put our lives and health in danger.

A study conducted by the Harvard Medical School said that “when we develop an infectious illness, we tend to believe that we caught it from another person, who in turn caught it from someone else, and that germ that made us ill had never resided in any species other than our own.”

The study revealed that this belief is false more times than not. “For most human infectious disease – some 60 percent – the pathogen has lived and multiplied in other organisms before having been transmitted to people,” the study said.

Today, as we celebrate Earth Day, we must expand the COVID-19 pandemic narrative beyond health and economic issues. We must look at environmental destruction as the root cause of the global pandemic. Humans take wildlife out of their natural habitats and exploit finite resources. Human activities – destructive extraction, coal projects, large-scale logging, mono-cropping plantation, among others – destroy biodiversity as if we are not part of it.

The COVID-19 pandemic not only calls for a deep social and structural conversion but for a very intimate ecological conversion and change in our ways toward the environment.  Our fight against the COVID-19 pandemic is in the hands of us all but to prevent more pandemics and crises in the future will depend on how we take care of Our Common Home.

Our remaining forests and biodiversity are continually being threatened by extractive mining operations and the building of dams. Respect for God’s creation is disregarded when irresponsible mining practices are allowed to continue. Land and life are desecrated when almost two-thirds of the ancestral domains of indigenous peoples and more than half of protected and key biodiversity areas are directly threatened by mining applications and operations. Despite shreds of evidence against 26 mining operations ordered closed or suspended last February 2017, not one mine has stopped extracting because of technical administrative loopholes. Social justice is not served when only the few mining companies, many of which are also owned by political leaders, reap the benefits from mineral extraction.

Another problem related to mining is the phenomenon of our country’s growing dependence on fossil fuel-based energy, such as coal. There are at least 23 existing coal-fired power plants operating across the country; 28 more may be operational this year. To support and sustain this dependence, a huge number of coal power plants involved in extensive coal extraction has to be put in place. Thus, coal mining projects have been allowed to increase to 186, including small-scale ones. Worse is, most of these coal projects are located within the vicinity of communities of indigenous Filipinos and are supported by rich ecosystems and biodiversities.

The burning of coal and other fossil fuels and the destruction of nature are natural consequences of extractive mining. Needless to say, these industries are pursued primarily for profit accumulation and rarely, if at all, in response to peoples’ needs. This is the root cause of the continuous escalation of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere which, in turn, is causing the climate crisis.

The prevalent anthropocentric and utilitarian perspectives tend to negate our ethical role of responsible stewardship and deny the reality that humans are part of nature. We need a paradigm shift in order to reestablish our sacred relationship with nature. Pope Francis in the Encyclical Laudato Si underlines that: “Nature cannot be regarded as something separate from ourselves or as a mere setting in which we live. We are part of nature, included in it and thus in constant interaction with it.” (Laudato Si, #139).

A paradigm on ecological conversion needs to usher in a new awareness: that the earth and all of nature is our common home. We are part of nature and we need to respect and protect our home – the entire ecosystem, the habitat and biodiversity of the planet. As Rachel Carson reminds us: Man is part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.”

Father Edwin Gariguez
Executive Secretary
National Secretariat for Social Action (NASSA)/ Caritas Philippines
Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines

Vatican City | Apr 19, 2020 | (CNA).

Here is the full text of Pope Francis’ homily on Divine Mercy Sunday, delivered April 19 at Santo Spirito in Sassia, Rome.

Last Sunday we celebrated the Lord’s resurrection; today we witness the resurrection of his disciple. It has already been a week, a week since the disciples had seen the Risen Lord, but in spite of this, they remained fearful, cringing behind “closed doors” (Jn 20:26), unable even to convince Thomas, the only one absent, of the resurrection. What does Jesus do in the face of this timorous lack of belief? He returns and, standing in the same place, “in the midst” of the disciples, he repeats his greeting: “Peace be with you!” (Jn 20:19, 26). He starts all over. The resurrection of his disciple begins here, from this faithful and patient mercy, from the discovery that God never tires of reaching out to lift us up when we fall. He wants us to see him, not as a taskmaster with whom we have to settle accounts, but as our Father who always raises us up. In life we go forward tentatively, uncertainly, like a toddler who takes a few steps and falls; a few steps more and falls again, yet each time his father puts him back on his feet. The hand that always puts us back on our feet is mercy: God knows that without mercy we will remain on the ground, that in order to keep walking, we need to be put back on our feet.

You may object: “But I keep falling!”. The Lord knows this and he is always ready to raise you up. He does not want us to keep thinking about our failings; rather, he wants us to look to him. For when we fall, he sees children needing to be put back on their feet; in our failings he sees children in need of his merciful love. Today, in this church that has become a shrine of mercy in Rome, and on this Sunday that Saint John Paul II dedicated to Divine Mercy twenty years ago, we confidently welcome this message. Jesus said to Saint Faustina: “I am love and mercy itself; there is no human misery that could measure up to my mercy” (Diary, 14 September 1937). At one time, the Saint, with satisfaction, told Jesus that she had offered him all of her life and all that she had. But Jesus’ answer stunned her: “You have not offered me the thing is truly yours”. What had that holy nun kept for herself? Jesus said to her with kindness: “My daughter, give me your failings” (10 October 1937). We too can ask ourselves: “Have I given my failings to the Lord? Have I let him see me fall so that he can raise me up?” Or is there something I still keep inside me? A sin, a regret from the past, a wound that I have inside, a grudge against someone, an idea about a particular person… The Lord waits for us to offer him our failings so that he can help us experience his mercy.

Let us go back to the disciples. They had abandoned the Lord at his Passion and felt guilty. But meeting them, Jesus did not give a long sermon. To them, who were wounded within, he shows his own wounds. Thomas can now touch them and know of Jesus’ love and how much Jesus had suffered for him, even though he had abandoned him. In those wounds, he touches with his hands God’s tender closeness. Thomas arrived late, but once he received mercy, he overtook the other disciples: he believed not only in the resurrection, but in the boundless love of God. And he makes the most simple and beautiful profession of faith: “My Lord and my God!” (v. 28). Here is the resurrection of the disciple: it is accomplished when his frail and wounded humanity enters into that of Jesus. There, every doubt is resolved; there, God becomes my God; there, we begin to accept ourselves and to love life as it is.

Dear brothers and sisters, in the time of trial that we are presently undergoing, we too, like Thomas, with our fears and our doubts, have experienced our frailty. We need the Lord, who sees beyond that frailty an irrepressible beauty. With him we rediscover how precious we are even in our vulnerability. We discover that we are like beautiful crystals, fragile and at the same time precious. And if, like crystal, we are transparent before him, his light – the light of mercy – will shine in us and through us in the world. As the Letter of Peter said, this is a reason for being “filled with joy, though now for a little while you may have to suffer various trials” (1 Pt 1:6).