Press Statement | Luisita landgrabbers cited “labor-law compliant” by DOLE

Posted by Belarmino Dabalos Saguing

Rome, Italy October 3 2014

Statement by FLORIDA SIBAYAN
Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang-Bukid sa Asyenda Luisita (AMBALA)

What kind of message is the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz sending to the public in conferring unprecedented distinction to the Luisita Industrial Park – a hub widely-known to be part of the still dispute-ridden and controversial Hacienda Luisita estate?

While it is up to the workers themselves in the Luisita Industrial Park (LIP) to contest the ostentatious designation made by the DOLE in naming the LIP as the very first “Labor Law Compliant Eco-zone” in the country, this does not belie the fact that aggressive land grabbing and brazen human rights violations are continuously being perpetrated by the LIP administration under the Luisita Realty Corporation (LRC).

The LRC is one among the many notorious corporate avatars of the Cojuangco-Aquino family in Hacienda Luisita, where presidential sister Ballsy Aquino-Cruz is director while Pinky Aquino-Abellada and Viel Aquino-Dee sit as top stockholders.

DOLE’s conferment may be used to prop up the LRC’s pending application before the Philippine Economic Zone Authority’s (PEZA) Board to incorporate 260.4 hectares of agricultural land in Barangay Balete, Luisita to the existing Luisita Industrial Park complex. The PEZA granted the LRC a pre-qualification clearance on February 13, 2014, barely a week after the Cojuangco-Aquinos ordered the burning of farmers’ homes and the bulldozing of crops within the contested property.  

Another Cojuangco-Aquino firm, Tarlac Development Corporation (TADECO) ordered the aggressive attacks against Hacienda Luisita farmers in Balete.  Violent eviction of farmers, bulldozing of ready-to-harvest palay crops and fencing off of the 260-hectare area from its tillers continued even after the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) affirmed the agricultural nature of the said property by issuing a Notice of land reform coverage (NOC) on December 17, 2013. The DAR did not lift a finger to stop TADECO's assaults against Luisita farmers.

The headquarters of the 31^st company of the 3^rdMechanized Battalion of the Philippine Army was constructed within this 260-hectare area last year with the blessings of the LRC. Soldiers have, since then, been practically deployed to serve in the Cojuangco-Aquino private army, intermitently mobilized to harass and evict farmers from the area. Bulldozers of the Cojuangco-Aquino family which were used to destroy farmers’ crops and homes are usually  parked right beside the army headquarters.

In successive incidents from September 2013 to March 2014, TADECO was able to evict tillers even without a court order through the deployment of private security guards, local police and fully-armed SWAT teams. The attacks resulted in the death of one of our members, Dennis dela Cruz, several cases of mauling, attempted murder and unlawful arrest, and the filing of harassment suits against hundreds of farmers.  

Personnel – thugs – hired by the Cojuangco-Aquino family from the Great Star Security Agency, one of the Luisita Industrial Park’s subcontractors, are directly responsible for the violent attacks against farmers in Barangays Balete and Cutcut.  Great Star Security Services, Inc. was also declared compliant with General Labor Standards and issued Certificates of Compliance (CoC) yesterday, October 1, in a high-profile ceremony at the LIP compound which was graced by Baldoz herself.

Security guards from the Great Star Security Services Inc. are also involved in the shooting of a group of farmers in disputed farmlands in Barangay Maimpis, San Fernando, Pampanga on July 28, 2014. It seems that violation of human rights is their forte. 

The Cojuangco-Aquinos are hell-bent on maintaining control of the Luisita estate and in implementing their grand master plan to convert the sugar plantation into a giant commercial hub, in contempt and complete reversal of the 2012 Supreme Court decision for total land distribution.

Ten years after the Hacienda Luisita Massacre, Luisita farmers are still denied land and justice. President BS Aquino’s alter-egos like Baldoz of  DOLE and Gil delos Reyes of DAR, act like extensions of this insatiable landlord family in ruthlessly extracting every last drop of blood, sweat and tears from Luisita farmworkers.

For Reference:

FLORIDA SIBAYAN

c/o AMBALA - Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura
56 K-9 St., Kamias, Quezon City

Contact Number: +639293201477

DECLARATION:| Taking the Law into the People’s Hands: Declaration of the Mindanao People’s Legislative and Policy Agenda for Human Rights and Peace

Posted by Belarmino Dabalos Saguing

Rome, Italy September 27. 2014 

DECLARATION: Mindanao Human Rights and Peace Conference 2014

Declaration of the Mindanao People’s

Legislative and Policy Agenda for Human Rights and Peace

We, delegates to the Mindanao Human Rights and Peace Conference, hereby declare our strong opposition to IMPERIALIST PLUNDER AND MILITARIZATION IN MINDANAO.

We declare our condemnation of and resistance to the anti-human rights, anti-peace, and anti-people OPLAN BAYANIHAN of the Aquino Government.

After sharing on our experiences of facing trumped up charges, illegal arrests and detention, internal displacements, torture and enforced disappearances, attacks and encampments on schools, hamletting, and other forms of human rights violations, we resolve to seek accountability from a government that has further engendered the culture of impunity in Mindanao and the whole country.

The BS Aquino Regime is responsible for the 83 extrajudicial killings of Mindanawon activists, indigenous, environmental, and community leaders; the 508 individuals filed with 608 trumped up charges all over Mindanao; attacks on dozens of community schools affecting thousands of indigenous children; and the displacement of 200,000 individuals all over Mindanao.

These are the direct results of his deployment of around 50% of the combat forces of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in Mindanao--- 4 Infantry Divisions and 45 Infantry Battalions--- which have used as added instruments more than 20 indigenous paramilitaries and warlord armies, to sow fear, terror, and domination over urban and rural communities.

Instead of taking the path to peace by resuming the GPH-NDFP peace talks and seeking to resolve the roots of armed conflict, this government has obsessed itself with war. It has militarized civilian functions like rural education and alternative learning systems, relief and disaster response, and conditional cash transfer schemes, using them for counterinsurgency purposes. 

But the people of Mindanao are courageously resisting the state terrorism of the BS Aquino Regime.

Indigenous communities, peasants, the Moro people, and other basic sectors are resisting landgrabbing of ancestral domains by mining companies, notably of TVI in Bayog, Zamboanga del Sur, Xstrata mining in SOSCSKARGEN, Apex Mining and Agusan Petroleum in Compostela Valley, Taganito mining in Caraga, by agribusiness plantations in Northern and Southern Mindanao, and the natural gas and oil in Liguasan Marsh and the Sulu Sea.

1.       Strategic Lawsuits Against People’s Participation (SLAPP)

·         Enact the Anti-SLAPP Bill; empower the people to SLAPPback NOW!

·    Raise the standards for investigations and resolutions and the strictest adherence to due process concerning charges against human rights defenders and ordinary individuals at the level of the Department of Justice

·       Prohibit the establishment of government mechanisms for SLAPP and political repression such as the Inter-agency Legal Action Group (IALAG), now resurrected by Oplan Bayanihan

2.       Attacks on Schools

·        Prosecute state security forces using schools and communities as encampments, violating prohibitions within their vicinity, and tagging teachers and students as ‘rebels’

·        Scrap Department of Education Order No. 221 and AFP Letter Directive 25 which allows the militarization of the educational system

3.       Indigenous Paramilitarism and Warlordism

·        Disband all the indigenous paramilitaries and private armies such as Alamara, Black Fighter, Mapando, Bagani, Laplap, NIPAR, Wild Dogs, BULIF, BIN, Black Shirt, K9, SCAA, Blue Guards, and Kalpet which are reportedly aided, funded, and controlled by the AFP, PNP and other state security forces, and by modern warlords and political dynasties

·         Disband all private armies of mining companies and other extractive industries

4.       Miitarization and Internal Displacement

·         Pull out all military troops from peasant and indigenous communities

·         Prosecute state security forces engaged in the political repression of trade unions, urban poor communities, schools, and other sectors

We call on Congress to investigate these atrocities being suffered by grassroots communities and leaders.

We also make our resounding call for the resumption of the GPH-NDFP peace talks to advance the Mindanao People’s Peace Agenda, to address violations of the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) and all previously-signed agreements, and to move forward with the agenda for Comprehensive Social and Economic Reforms (CASER).

But we realize that these legislative and policy agenda for human rights and peace will not be effective without a militant and strong people’s movement that will enact these proposals and actions through the parliament of the streets. Knowing that the poor are on the fringes of the legislative and policy-making processes, we “take the law into the people’s hands” by pushing for the above agenda as concrete proposals for policy reforms, as discussion points for the peace process, and as rallying calls in schools, communities, and workplaces.

Thus, this conference declares the following actions, in addition to our current efforts in our communities and regions:

1.      We will stage another Manilakbayan ng Mindanao to expose and oppose Oplan Bayanihan in the national capital region and bring our protest before Malacanang

2.     We will hold the commemoration of the D’yandi Peace Pact among indigenous leaders in Mindanao to declare opposition to mining and militarization in ancestral domains

3.      We will conduct an International People’s Tribunal against Imperialist Plunder to bring our voices to the international community

This we declare today, as the Mindanao Human Rights Parliament culminates our Mindanao Human Rights and Peace Conference held from Sept 18-20, 2014.

Signed by 144 delegates this 20^th of September, 2014 at the Homitori, Davao City, Philippines.

News Release | SELDA hit BS Aquino’s claims board "Never again will we become victims," Martial law victims sa

Posted by Belarmino Dabalos Saguing
%Rome, Italy 18 September 2014

Selda Philippines: Sep 17 11:11PM -0700 News Release  18 September 2014   Reference: Marie Hilao-Enriquez, SELDA chairperson, +6325466573          SELDA criticized the Human Rights Victims Claims Board (HRVCB) for continuously refusing to state categorically that it recognizes as victims the 9,539 members of the class suit against former Pres. Marcos in 1986.Aside from the 9,539 class suit members, there are also 24 direct action plaintiffs who have been recognized and verified by the US Federal Court in Hawaii. “The HRVCB itself is violating the law. Conclusive presumption becomes disputable presumption in their denial to recognize the victims who have time and again proved they suffered abuses and rights violations under the Marcos dictatorship,” said SELDA chairperson Marie Hilao-Enriquez. “The framework of the HRVCB in its process of accepting applications is not aimed at recognizing the most number of martial law victims. The actual conduct of the claims board on the ground is also not encouraging either for them to file. They are treated like persons who are only after money, of a very small amount that can never make up for their sacrifices and sufferings as victims. They are after justice and reparation,” Enriquez said. “Survivors of martial law are being victimized again, this time by a body formed by Pres. Aquino led by a former state agent with lack of sense of history and complete knowledge of martial law. Their actions and pronouncements lead to disenfranchisement of victims,” Enriquez added. The group said Pres. Aquino is the one to blame that he appointed a former PNP general as head of the HRVCB. Martial law victims previously condemned the appointment of Sarmiento, saying it is an insult to victims that a former member of the Philippine Constabulary, forerunner of the PNP which led and implemented the worst form of rights abuses under martial rule. “We were victims of martial law under the Marcos dictatorship. Never again do we become victims, this time of BS Aquino!”### --- The Samahan ng Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto (SELDA) is an organization of former political prisoners in the Philippines. Founded on December 4, 1984, SELDA was initiated by newly-released political prisoners of the martial law period. SELDA’s primary task is to work for the release of all political prisoners and to see to it that humane treatment of those who are still in detention are complied with by the Philippine authorities. SELDA advocates justice for current and former political prisoners. It calls for the mobilisation of resources in support of political prisoners, former detainees and their families. It carries out legislative advocacy for the indemnification and rehabilitation of political prisoners. SELDA goes into partnership and builds solidarity with concerned individuals and groups for the freedom and welfare of political prisoners and all victims of tyranny. SELDA National Office: 2/F, Erythrina Bldg., #1 Maaralin corner Matatag Streets, Brgy. Central District, Diliman, Quezon City 1101, Philippines Tel: 632-4347486 Fax: 632-4354146 Email: selda.phils@gmail.com, selda_phil@yahoo.com.ph Web: www.seldapilipinas.wordpress.com

Message | On NUPL's 7th anniversary: Keeping the faith and the fires in our bellies

Posted by Belarmino Dabalos Saguing
Rome, Italy September 18, 2014

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	On NUPL's 7th anniversary: Keeping the faith and the fires in our bellies
Date:	Wed, 17 Sep 2014 18:46:55 +0800
From:	National Union of Peoples' Lawyers <nupl2007@gmail.com>

Keeping the faith and the fires in our bellies --

All in a day’s work

Amidst the intensity of work, whirlwind of deadlines, and fierce slaying of the evil dragons on every front, the 7th Founding Anniversary of the NUPL passed us by.

Yet without fuss and fanfare, each of us were actually commemorating without the floodlights out there in the trenches of the fight for justice for the people.

We've been together seven years in struggle with the people, on the frontlines, on the ground - with hope, in solidarity, with a vision.

To all the best lawyers and law students that money can not buy, carry on despite the challenges, frustrations and our trials. We can not put the expectations and needs of so many who depend on us, for a sliver of promise, down. Indeed, the harder the struggle, the sweeter the victory.


17 September 2014

--

National Secretariat
National Union of Peoples' Lawyers (NUPL)
3F Erythrina Bldg., Maaralin corner Matatag Sts. Central District,Quezon City, Philippines
Telefax no.920-6660
Email addresses: nupl2007@gmail.com and nuplphilippines@yahoo.com

Follow us on twitter @nuplphilippines and facebook @https://www.facebook.com/nuplphilippines
Visit the NUPL website at http://www.nupl.net/

"By calling yourselves the ‘people’s lawyer,’ you have made a remarkable choice. You decided not to remain in the sidelines. Where human rights are assaulted, you have chosen to sacrifice the comfort of the fence for the dangers of the battlefield. But only those who choose to fight on the battlefield live beyond irrelevance.”

- Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno, in his message at the NUPL Founding Congress, September 15, 2007

"After long years of experience as a people’s lawyer, I can honestly say it has been a treasured journey of self-fulfillment and rewarding achievement. I know it will be the same for all others who choose to tread this path."  

- Atty. Romeo T. Capulong, NUPL founding chairperson, in his keynote address at the Fifth Conference of Lawyers in Asia Pacific ( COLAP V), September 18, 2010

6 years of disappearance of JAMES BALAO

Posted by Belarmino Dabalos Saguing
Rome, Italy September 18, 2014

  (International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines)

To president Benigno Aquino III,to the former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of Philippines, mass media, trade unions and to the international democratic public, to the human rights organizations- please forward this email wherever and whenever you can to strengthen the international protest and solidarity movement for human rights in the Philippines, which people needs for their life in standing up to fight for a liberated world!

On the last Monday-demonstration in Stuttgart, 15^th of September 2014, we made a little party to the 10^thanniversary of the fight against the unsocial law Hartz 4 and other issues.

On this anniversary we continued as well our vigil for James Balao. We counted- as it was decided in October 2008 in the partnership agreement between the Monday-Demonstration Movement Stuttgart and the family Balao and Cordillera People Alliance (CPA) the days of the disappearance of James Balao. James Balao was a founding member of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance and a fighter for freedom and against the plundering of nature by open-pit mining. It is now the 6^th year of the disappearance of James Balao. This means 6 years of waiting, 6 years of tears and remembrances and 6 years of international protest, 6 years of demanding justice and for demanding to stop impunity. The killers and murders are still living among us and they think, that they could go on with their counter insurgency US made plan „ Oplan Bayanihan“.

After 6 years we still want to know, what happened to James and we demand that the responsible persons and authority will be jailed into prison like the former dictators in Argentina. More than 30 years the Mothers of the Placo de Mayo demand for the truth and for stopping impunity. They have been successful and we will be successful as well, there is no doubt!

On this Monday-demonstration we remembered as well that on the 14^th of September 1973 the revolutionary singer and songwriter Victor Jara was murdered together with thousands of other freedom fighters in Chile by the US-leaded counterrevolution against Salvador Allende and the progressiv government. It was said, that in fighting for a bright future with bread and roses our killed brothers and sisters accompany us always. We are proud to held up the banner of humanity all around the world and we know, that we will hold and close the line, if one of us is murdered or enforced disappeared:

Touch one-touch all!

Long live international solidarity.

If the President Aquino III visits Germany and Europe in these days we protest against this visit. If he shakes hand with Chancellor Angela Merkel we know, that there is blood and repression in his hand! We accuse Chancellor Angela Merkel for peace- and human right washing with Aquino III while in the Philippines a lot of human right and trade union activists are jailed into prison, killed or enforced disappeared like James Balao. We know as well that they are talking about preparing next wars in the Chinese Sea together with the USA.

German Philippines Friends and the Monday-demonstration in Stuttgart demand

• Surface all the truth of James Balao
• Stop the killings
• Stop impunity
• Free all political prisoners

On behalf of the Monday-demonstration of the 15^th of September 2014, Stuttgart, Germany

Excuse me, but, what are BS Aquino’s true motives in his trans-Atlantic outing?

Posted by Belarmino Dabalos Saguing

Rome, Italy September 18,2014

What is behind Aquino's trans-Atlantic jaunt? Could it be to project him as a world-class statesman worthy of international note for his sage of handling peace and emergency situation?

How will Aquino respond, if asked how he has cared for the Yolanda victims? One can only speculate.

If Aquino is looking for work for jobless Filipinos, he may have gone to talk to the wrong people in the wrong places. Except for Germany, whose economy remains more vibrant than the rest of Europe, the countries on his itinerary are in economic decline, with record-high unemployment rates. The only jobs available there are low-paying ones rejected by the natives.

People in the trans-Atlantic trip. I am sure have heard of the country’s much ballyhooed economic growth, but they must also have heard of its crude shift to one-man rule, its unending corruption scandals, its shabby infrastructure, its infernal red tape, its permanent traffic jams, its electric power shortages and second to none public utility prices, and its ever-widening poverty and inequality indices, and ever increasing human rights abuses.


Banking on the “colonial mentality” of many Filipinos, Aquino could use his five-nation visit to procure the impression, no matter how false, of strong foreign support for his “continued stay” in office beyond 2016. No one can discount the possibility of Aquino telling US President Barack Obama after he crosses the Atlantic that his government supports without any qualification the US and European sanctions against Russia, and whatever action Obama chooses to take against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. He could even propose that his government be considered a major non-NATO ally, just like Mrs. Arroyo did when President George W. Bush invaded Iraq.


If this is a campaign to open the European market to Philippine products and services, as officially announced, the Europeans will want to know exactly what we have to export apart from our skilled and unskilled manpower, which now contributes $25 billion a year to our Gross Domestic Product.

As far as we know, our manufacturing is dead. We manufacture nothing but outrageous political lies, corruption scandals and man-made calamities. These add to our natural calamities, the most devastating of which has been super typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda, which drew the whole world to our side, but whose financial donations have gone undisclosed, unaccounted for and kept in shady bank accounts, while some of their relief items were allowed to spoil in transit or in storage or distributed to the wrong parties.



Nevertheless, I cannot help but wonder what B. S. III could be saying to his Spanish, Belgian, French, German and American hosts on this 12-day trans-Atlantic trip. I am sure they all have heard of the country’s much ballyhooed economic growth,





But how can he do it? The entire government is a mess, Metro Manila is a permanent traffic jam, getting to Heaven, quips a wag, is now easier for a reprobate than for a law-abiding citizen to get an MRT ride, power blackouts turn daytime into midnight, and local government officials can frustrate an important project approved by the national government. In its latest report, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ranks the Philippines as “the most restrictive” among 64 economies.





Now, Mr. President, what are you up to with this PhP31.9M trip?. Are you just doing a fishing expedition for salvation of your sinking political boat? Your salestalks on your PPP is seen by us as putting the country in deals which the everyday street Filipinos will be the losers in the long run. You might as well have stayed in the country and saved the money for something more benefical to the people.

Carlos Bulosan legacy lives on

Posted by Belarmino Dabalos Saguing
Rome, Italy September 17, 2014

Carlos Bulosan legacy lives on 
By Gabriel Cardinoza |Inquirer Northern Luzon
10:00 am | Wednesday, September 17th, 2014

Carlos Bolosan ( downloaded photo from internet)

TERESITA DACPANO, head of the information and publication office of the University of Eastern Pangasinan, with the memorabilia on Carlos Bulosan displayed at the UEP Museum in Binalonan, Pangasinan. photo by Gabriel Cardinoza

TERESITA DACPANO, head of the information and publication office of the University of Eastern Pangasinan, with the memorabilia on Carlos Bulosan displayed at the UEP Museum in Binalonan, Pangasinan. photo by Gabriel Cardinoza

Fifty-eight years after his death in 1956, writer Carlos Bulosan continues to inspire his town mates in Binalonan town in Pangasinan province.

“Of course, we are very proud of him. He is our hero and he is an inspiration to the people,” said Teresita Dacpano, head of information and publication office of the University of Eastern Pangasinan (UEP), a local government-run institution here.

On Sept. 11, Binalonan commemorated the writer’s death anniversary as Carlos Bulosan Day.

Dacpano said like in the previous commemorations, literary contests on Bulosan among the town’s high school and elementary students were held.

“We are doing this to show to the people that he is really a hero worth remembering,” she said.

Bulosan, who was born in a farming village known then as Mangusmana (now Mangcasuy), was among the young Filipino migrant workers who arrived in the United States in 1930.

Bestseller

While there, he did menial jobs, working in restaurants, plantations and canneries. In 1943, he wrote “My Father Goes to Court,” his first short story published in the New Yorker Magazine.

The following year, American book publisher Harcourt, Brace and Co. compiled Bulosan’s stories in a single volume titled, “The Laughter of My Father,” which became a bestseller.

In 1946, his autobiography, “America is in the Heart,” which was about his life as a migrant worker in the US, was published.

‘Great influence’

Local fiction writer Manuel Diaz said Bulosan had been a “great influence” on him as a writer. “I was only in high school in the early 1950s when I read ‘My Father Goes to Court’ and I was amazed by the simplicity of his style,” Diaz, 75, said.

From that time on, he said, he would read every article that Bulosan wrote, including poems, short stories and essays, that he found in the library of what was then the Binalonan High School.

“He was my idol as a writer because of the local color [in his stories]. He had a great influence on me because I’m also a writer in Ilocano and English and I also used local color in my stories,” he said.

Diaz had published three books—“Rice for the Moon and Other stories (1984),” “Ilocano Harvest (1988),” and “Paraiso a Papel (Paper Paradise) (2005)”—and had written about 150 Ilocano stories.

In 2007, he translated Bulosan’s “America is in the Heart” into Ilocano language through a grant from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.

The Ilocano translation, “Adda iti Puso ti America,” was also serialized in the Ilocano weekly magazine Bannawag for 47 weeks. Two years later, the translation was published in book form.

Original letters

To keep Bulosan’s memory among Binalonan residents, a part of a museum at UEP displayed original copies of letters that Bulosan sent to his brother and to then First Lady Aurora Quezon, Dacpano said.

“We hope to exhibit his original manuscripts and other memorabilia here,” she said.

After Bulosan’s death in Seattle, Washington, the literary pieces he wrote since 1914, which consisted of short stories, poems, plays and essays, have been kept in seven boxes, a folder and 17 microfilm reels at the University of Washington Libraries in Seattle.

Dacpano said a three-unit subject, “Life and Works of Carlos Bulosan,” has been offered as a required course at UEP starting this school year after the Commission on Higher Education approved it.

“We have also met with division office officials to work out the inclusion of Bulosan’s stories among the readings in elementary and high schools here,” she said.

###