Streetwise
by Carol Pagaduan-Araullo
Today is human rights day. Two nights ago, Marcelino “Ka Marcing” Beltran, president of Alyansa ng Magbubukid sa Tarlac, a survivor of the Hacienda Luisita massacre last November 16, was gunned down outside his house in barangay San Sotero, Sta. Ignacia, Tarlac.
Today is his birthday; the peasant leader would have turned 52.
Just three days earlier, Ka Marcing gave a team of lawyers his eyewitness account of that infamous day when striking farm and sugar mill workers, their families and supporters, were mowed down at the picket line by automatic gunfire, resulting in the confirmed deaths of seven and the wounding of more than a hundreds others. He was articulate, fearless, agitated, his words tumbling from his mouth as he narrated how he miraculously escaped the hail of bullets even as he helped carry the dying and the wounded to safety, away from the bloodthirsty police, military and private security forces who relentlessly pursued the fleeing strikers and rallyists with their guns, truncheons and boots.
Ka Marcing had no enemies save those he wittingly or unwittingly created by his unswerving leadership of the militant peasant organization in Tarlac as well as the larger alliance of peasants and farm workers called Alyansa ng Mag-uuma sa Gitnang Luson (AMGL).
Given this background and the circumstances of his death, it is reasonable to assume that his killing is intimately related to the latest labor disputes and festering land problem at Hacienda Luisita.
To date all that the Arroyo government has done about the massacre is to wash its hands of any responsibility. The undisputed fact however is that it was DOLE Secretary Pat Sto. Tomas’ assumption of jurisdiction over the labor disputes in a so-called “strategic industry” such as the Cojuangco-owned sugar plantation and mill, her return to work order and her deputization of both the police and the military to break up the picket line provided both the legal cover and the overwhelming firepower that triggered the massacre.
The latest statement of Mrs. Arroyo on the matter is revealing in its emptiness: “The labor department is doing its best to obtain a fair and peaceful settlement of the Hacienda Luisita dispute. Labor problems must be solved at the negotiating table. All parties must act responsibly so that tragedies can be averted.”
Completely oblivious is she, the President, to whom all Cabinet secretaries are directly accountable, and the Commander-in-Chief, the sole authority with the power to call out the troops in case of an outbreak of so-called “lawless violence,” to the facts of the matter. That management had engaged in unfair labor practices by illegally dismissing nine of the officials of the United Luisita Workers Union (ULWU) and replacing the union president with a man they had handpicked. That management then refused to negotiate with the legitimate leadership of the farm workers union and was deadlocked on the demands of both the farm and azucarera workers. That the PNP had earlier attempted three violent dispersals using truncheons, water cannons and tear gas but were turned back by the sheer number and assertiveness of the strikers and their supporters.
Witnesses’ testimonies and video footages of the Hacienda Luisita carnage point to premeditation and intent to kill on the part of the government security forces, private security guards and a number of eskirol. But all these are apparently mean nothing to Mrs. Arroyo and her cordon sanitaire who knows what it is that she wants to hear.
It appears that Mrs. Arroyo wants only to hear excuses and to find scapegoats for her government’s disastrous policies and overall criminal complicity with the greedy, heartless and ruinous ruling elite in this country and their rapacious foreign partners.
She is especially fond of using the New People’s Army (NPA) and other revolutionary forces as whipping boy for everything that is wrong with her government and the ruling system. In her speech on the occasion of human rights week she couldn’t resist taking a snipe at the so-called human rights abuses of “insurgents and terrorists” rather than taking a critical look at her government’s own human rights record. She takes the lead and provides the cue to her Cabinet who think nothing of pointing to the communist rebels as the masterminds and provocateurs whether it be cases of labor and peasant unrest, violent dispersals of protest mass actions, indiscriminate bombings and other alleged terrorist acts up to and including opposition to new, onerous taxes and unconscionable debt servicing in the face of unprecedented financial crisis, protest over massive use of government funds for Mrs. Arroyo’s reelection bid and assorted “destabilization plots” such as the ones hyped by her own generals to cover up rampant corruption in the AFP.
The President’s latest charge that the NPA are “illegal loggers” and, ergo, are mainly responsible for forest denudation and the wasteland that has become of several provinces in Luzon in the aftermath of the typhoons that hit the country is ludicrous except to the most rabid anti-communists like her who will believe anything evil of the revolutionary movement. The President’s propensity to blame the NPA for anything and everything that bedevils her regime ironically shows up the inutility of her brand of governance: it takes a major catastrophe for her clueless DENR Secretary to finally raid a handful of sawmills with illegally cut logs; for her to set up a new anti-illegal logging task force with an initial P100 million budget to determine who have been scalping the already bald mountains; and for Malacañang to declare a suspension in all logging activities minus the ones exempted by the DENR secretary.
The bad habit of passing the blame to an entity, the NPA, that the government cannot run after except through vilification and psywar campaigns and failed counter-insurgency programs, results objectively in a situation where the real culprits get away with their high crimes. Those who are really culpable can only include the Arroyo government, one that has not exhibited the moral courage to admit its failures nor the political will to institute the barest of genuine reforms. Worse, it is a government that looks the other way when the perpetration by state forces of gross human rights violations is fast becoming a hallmark of its insecure rule.
As President and Commander-in-Chief, Mrs. Arroyo’s hands are bloodied by the murders of the Hacienda Luisita protesters, the assassination of Ka Marcing Beltran and all other leaders of the exploited and oppressed masses, and the unabated killings of human rights workers.
Similarly, she must also be held accountable for the devastation and massacre of entire communities by her government’s criminal negligence in allowing destructive commercial logging to go on unabated until the mind boggling man-made catastrophe that followed the fury of nature’s typhoons.###
Friday, December 10, 2004
Monday, December 06, 2004
Uncle Sam Has His Own Gulag
Behaving like the Soviet secret police won't make America safer, Eric Margolis says.
By ERIC MARGOLIS
12/05/05"Canoe.Ca" -- The Lubyanka Prison's heavy oak main door swung open. I went in, the first western journalist to enter the KGB's notorious Moscow headquarters -- a place so dreaded Russians dared not utter its name. When they referred to it at all, they called it "Detsky Mir," after a nearby toy store.
After interviewing two senior KGB generals, I explored the fascinating museum of Soviet intelligence and was briefed on special poisons and assassination weapons that left no traces. I sat transfixed at the desk used by all the directors of Stalin's secret police, on which the orders were signed to murder 30 million people.
Descending dimly lit stairs, I saw some of the KGB's execution and torture cellars, and special "cold rooms" where naked prisoners were beaten, then doused with ice water and slowly frozen.
Other favoured Lubyanka tortures: Psychological terror, psychotropic drugs, prolonged sleep deprivation, dazzling lights, intense noise, days in pitch blackness, isolation, humiliation, constant threats, savage beatings, attacks by guard dogs, near drowning.
Nightmares from the past -- but the past has returned.
According to a report leaked to the New York Times, the Swiss-based International Red Cross has accused the Bush administration for a second time of employing systematic, medically supervised torture against suspects being held at Guantanamo Bay, and at U.S.-run prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The second Red Cross report was delivered to the White House last summer while it was trying to dismiss the Abu Ghraib prison torture horrors as the crimes of a few rogue jailers. According to the report's allegations, many tortures perfected by the Cheka (Soviet secret police) -- notably beating, freezing, sensory disorientation, and sleep deprivation -- are now routinely being used by U.S. interrogators.
The Chekisti, however, did not usually inflict sexual humiliation. That technique, and hooding, were developed by Israeli psychologists to break resistance of Palestinian prisoners. Photos of sexual humiliation were used by Israeli security, and then by U.S. interrogators at Abu Ghraib, to blackmail Muslim prisoners into becoming informers. All of these practices flagrantly violate the Geneva Conventions, international, and American law.
The Pentagon and CIA gulags in Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan have become a sort of Enron-style, off-the-books operation, immune from American law or Congressional oversight.
Suspects reportedly disappear into a black hole, recalling Latin America's torture camps and "disappearings" of the 1970s and '80s, or the Arab world's sinister secret police prisons.
The U.S. has been sending high-level anti-American suspects to Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and, reportedly, Pakistan, where it's alleged they are brutally tortured with violent electric shocks, savage beatings, drowning, acid baths, and blowtorching -- the same tortures, ironically, ascribed to Saddam Hussein.
Protests over this by members of Congress, respected human rights groups, and the public have been ignored.
President George W. Bush just named Alberto Gonzales to be attorney general, his nation's highest law officer. As White House counsel, Gonzales wrote briefs justifying torture and advised the White House on ways to evade or ignore the Geneva Conventions.
Grossly violating the Geneva Conventions undermines international law and endangers U.S. troops abroad. Anyone who has served in the U.S. armed forces, as I have, should be outraged that this painfully won tenet of international law and civilized behaviour is being trashed by members of the Bush administration.
Un-American behaviour
If, as Bush asserts, terrorism suspects, Taliban, and Muslim mujahedeen fighters not in uniform deserve no protection under the laws of war and may be jailed and tortured at presidential whim, then what law protects from abuse or torture all the un-uniformed U.S. Special Forces, CIA field teams, and those 40,000 or more U.S. and British mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan euphemistically called "civilian contractors"?
Behaving like the 1930s Soviet secret police will not make America safer. Such illegal, immoral and totally un-American behaviour corrupts democracy and makes them no better than the criminals they detest.
The 20th century has shown repeatedly that when security forces use torture abroad, they soon begin using it at home, first on suspected terrorists, then dissidents, then on ordinary suspects.
It's time for Congress and the courts to wake up and end this shameful and dangerous episode in America's history.
Copyright © 2001, Sun Media Corporation
By ERIC MARGOLIS
12/05/05"Canoe.Ca" -- The Lubyanka Prison's heavy oak main door swung open. I went in, the first western journalist to enter the KGB's notorious Moscow headquarters -- a place so dreaded Russians dared not utter its name. When they referred to it at all, they called it "Detsky Mir," after a nearby toy store.
After interviewing two senior KGB generals, I explored the fascinating museum of Soviet intelligence and was briefed on special poisons and assassination weapons that left no traces. I sat transfixed at the desk used by all the directors of Stalin's secret police, on which the orders were signed to murder 30 million people.
Descending dimly lit stairs, I saw some of the KGB's execution and torture cellars, and special "cold rooms" where naked prisoners were beaten, then doused with ice water and slowly frozen.
Other favoured Lubyanka tortures: Psychological terror, psychotropic drugs, prolonged sleep deprivation, dazzling lights, intense noise, days in pitch blackness, isolation, humiliation, constant threats, savage beatings, attacks by guard dogs, near drowning.
Nightmares from the past -- but the past has returned.
According to a report leaked to the New York Times, the Swiss-based International Red Cross has accused the Bush administration for a second time of employing systematic, medically supervised torture against suspects being held at Guantanamo Bay, and at U.S.-run prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The second Red Cross report was delivered to the White House last summer while it was trying to dismiss the Abu Ghraib prison torture horrors as the crimes of a few rogue jailers. According to the report's allegations, many tortures perfected by the Cheka (Soviet secret police) -- notably beating, freezing, sensory disorientation, and sleep deprivation -- are now routinely being used by U.S. interrogators.
The Chekisti, however, did not usually inflict sexual humiliation. That technique, and hooding, were developed by Israeli psychologists to break resistance of Palestinian prisoners. Photos of sexual humiliation were used by Israeli security, and then by U.S. interrogators at Abu Ghraib, to blackmail Muslim prisoners into becoming informers. All of these practices flagrantly violate the Geneva Conventions, international, and American law.
The Pentagon and CIA gulags in Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan have become a sort of Enron-style, off-the-books operation, immune from American law or Congressional oversight.
Suspects reportedly disappear into a black hole, recalling Latin America's torture camps and "disappearings" of the 1970s and '80s, or the Arab world's sinister secret police prisons.
The U.S. has been sending high-level anti-American suspects to Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and, reportedly, Pakistan, where it's alleged they are brutally tortured with violent electric shocks, savage beatings, drowning, acid baths, and blowtorching -- the same tortures, ironically, ascribed to Saddam Hussein.
Protests over this by members of Congress, respected human rights groups, and the public have been ignored.
President George W. Bush just named Alberto Gonzales to be attorney general, his nation's highest law officer. As White House counsel, Gonzales wrote briefs justifying torture and advised the White House on ways to evade or ignore the Geneva Conventions.
Grossly violating the Geneva Conventions undermines international law and endangers U.S. troops abroad. Anyone who has served in the U.S. armed forces, as I have, should be outraged that this painfully won tenet of international law and civilized behaviour is being trashed by members of the Bush administration.
Un-American behaviour
If, as Bush asserts, terrorism suspects, Taliban, and Muslim mujahedeen fighters not in uniform deserve no protection under the laws of war and may be jailed and tortured at presidential whim, then what law protects from abuse or torture all the un-uniformed U.S. Special Forces, CIA field teams, and those 40,000 or more U.S. and British mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan euphemistically called "civilian contractors"?
Behaving like the 1930s Soviet secret police will not make America safer. Such illegal, immoral and totally un-American behaviour corrupts democracy and makes them no better than the criminals they detest.
The 20th century has shown repeatedly that when security forces use torture abroad, they soon begin using it at home, first on suspected terrorists, then dissidents, then on ordinary suspects.
It's time for Congress and the courts to wake up and end this shameful and dangerous episode in America's history.
Copyright © 2001, Sun Media Corporation
Butas na Batas ng Gubat
ni: Tata Raul G. Funilas
UP-Diliman
Disyembre 2, 2004
Dumayo ang bagyo ng siklo’t
Tinahak ang landas ng Pilipinas,
Mabugso ang nabuyong alimpuyong
Nagwasiwas at naglaglag ng mga patak;
Hinahalo ng umaalipatong ipu-ipo
Ang wasak na gubat na umiiyak.
Bumaha ang luhang saganang sagana,
Hindi naawat ng mga nautas na ugat
Niyong kahoy na pinulpol ng ungol
Ng mga tampalasang halimaw na humalihaw
At gumanot sa panot na panot nang bundok.
Niyong mga nagkamal ng makakapal na yaman
Nalunod at inianod ang punggok na himutok,
Nawasak ang pangarap sa butas na batas ng gubat.
© 2004 Bulatlat ■ Alipato Publications
UP-Diliman
Disyembre 2, 2004
Dumayo ang bagyo ng siklo’t
Tinahak ang landas ng Pilipinas,
Mabugso ang nabuyong alimpuyong
Nagwasiwas at naglaglag ng mga patak;
Hinahalo ng umaalipatong ipu-ipo
Ang wasak na gubat na umiiyak.
Bumaha ang luhang saganang sagana,
Hindi naawat ng mga nautas na ugat
Niyong kahoy na pinulpol ng ungol
Ng mga tampalasang halimaw na humalihaw
At gumanot sa panot na panot nang bundok.
Niyong mga nagkamal ng makakapal na yaman
Nalunod at inianod ang punggok na himutok,
Nawasak ang pangarap sa butas na batas ng gubat.
© 2004 Bulatlat ■ Alipato Publications
Thursday, December 02, 2004
SC Reversal on Mining Act is Treason: KPNE
PRESS RELEASE/December 1, 2004
Reference: Clemente Bautista, 09185539682
The Supreme Court reversal on Mining Act is Treason, PGMA's hand seen in court's decision.
The Kalikasan People's Network for the Environment (KPNE) charged as "treason" the act of Supreme Court justices who voted to reverse the court's earlier decision on the constitutionality of the Philippine Mining Act. It also hit the SC for being blind to the fact that nowhere in R.A. 7942 as well as in existing mining agreements of the government with foreign mining firms is it guaranteed that the government retains control of mining operations as mandated by the Constitution.
"The SC acted in blind haste, most probably succumbing to the treasonous agenda of the Arroyo government to sell-out our mineral resources to rapacious foreign transnational mining firms in a desperate move to revive a moribund industry whose collapse is directly the result of an anti-Filipino mining policy of a pro-mining TNC government," Clemente Bautista, KPNE National Coordinator, said.
"This only goes to show that we cannot rely on this government to even uphold the remaining nationalist provisions of our Constitution. This government is totally bereft of a moral authority to govern for and in behalf of the Filipino people," he added.
Bautista said that the SC decision appears to be in line with the latest moves of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in lowering the initial capital requirements for Foreign Technical and Assistance Agreements from $50 million to $4 million.
Gerardo Gobrin of the Kalipunan ng mga Katutubong Mamamayan sa Pilipinas (KAMP) stressed that not only will the SC decision result into a flood of mining TNC operations in the country but in human rights violations against indigenous peoples and peasant settlers, where most mining applications are located, as well.
The KPNE also warned of more devastating natural disasters like flashfloods and landslides once the government's thrust to revitalize a liberalized mining industry as a result of the SC decision takes full swing. Bautista, however, warned the government, saying the people will not take this sitting down. "As the government and the elite in the mining industry and mining TNCs celebrate, they might as well brace for a stronger resistance from an enlightened citizenry who have had enough of the duplicitous and treasonous agenda of the government."
Reference: Clemente Bautista, 09185539682
The Supreme Court reversal on Mining Act is Treason, PGMA's hand seen in court's decision.
The Kalikasan People's Network for the Environment (KPNE) charged as "treason" the act of Supreme Court justices who voted to reverse the court's earlier decision on the constitutionality of the Philippine Mining Act. It also hit the SC for being blind to the fact that nowhere in R.A. 7942 as well as in existing mining agreements of the government with foreign mining firms is it guaranteed that the government retains control of mining operations as mandated by the Constitution.
"The SC acted in blind haste, most probably succumbing to the treasonous agenda of the Arroyo government to sell-out our mineral resources to rapacious foreign transnational mining firms in a desperate move to revive a moribund industry whose collapse is directly the result of an anti-Filipino mining policy of a pro-mining TNC government," Clemente Bautista, KPNE National Coordinator, said.
"This only goes to show that we cannot rely on this government to even uphold the remaining nationalist provisions of our Constitution. This government is totally bereft of a moral authority to govern for and in behalf of the Filipino people," he added.
Bautista said that the SC decision appears to be in line with the latest moves of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in lowering the initial capital requirements for Foreign Technical and Assistance Agreements from $50 million to $4 million.
Gerardo Gobrin of the Kalipunan ng mga Katutubong Mamamayan sa Pilipinas (KAMP) stressed that not only will the SC decision result into a flood of mining TNC operations in the country but in human rights violations against indigenous peoples and peasant settlers, where most mining applications are located, as well.
The KPNE also warned of more devastating natural disasters like flashfloods and landslides once the government's thrust to revitalize a liberalized mining industry as a result of the SC decision takes full swing. Bautista, however, warned the government, saying the people will not take this sitting down. "As the government and the elite in the mining industry and mining TNCs celebrate, they might as well brace for a stronger resistance from an enlightened citizenry who have had enough of the duplicitous and treasonous agenda of the government."
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
5th Chapter Assembly Held: New Set of Officers Elected
The All U.P. Workers Union, Manila Chapter succesfully held its 5th Chapter Assembly on November 26, 2004 at 8:00 - 1:00 PM at the UP Manila Social Hall, 8/F PGH Central Block Bldg. This year's theme was aptly titled: "Papaigting na pakikibaka para sa sahod, benepisyo at karapatan sa harap ng papatinding krisis." It was attended by 107 members, the most attended so far in the history of the chapter.
Keynote speaker for this year's triennial assembly was Dr. Gene Nisperos, Secretary General of the Health Alliance for Democracy. Dr. Nisperos presented a lively analysis of the national political and health situation. His crisp delivery and witty anecdotes were received well by the audience.
The Keynote speech was followed by the three (3) year Accomplishment Report by Mr. Jossel Ebesate, Chapter President who concurrently is also the National P.R.O. of the union. It was followed by the 3 year Treasurer's Report from Mr. Edgardo Enagan.
Mr. Clodualdo "Buboy" Cabrera, National President also came with a coterie of National and U.P. Diliman chapter officers, and delivered a brief message.
The election of a new set of officers (CY 2005 - 2007) was held through viva voce presided over by the Search and Election Committee headed by Mr. Eliseo Estropigan. Those elected for a 3 year term of office (with their respective position in the hospital/university) are as follows:
President - Jossel Ebesate, Nurse IV, DNRD, PGH
Vice President - Jesusa Besido, Administrative Officer IV, UPCM
Secretary - Rosamond Mary Olivar, Nurse II, LCB 1 4/F, PGH
Treasurer - Edgardo Enagan, Utility Worker IV, CVS, PGH
Auditor - Belinda Jubilo-Santos, Social Welfare Officer IV, MSSD, PGH
Public Relations Officer - Benjamin Santos, Utility Worker IV, Ward 12, PGH
Board of Director Members: Erlinda Bilog, Clerk IV, UPCN,
Freddie Waje, Student's Record Evaluator, CPH and;
Ma. Corazon Brito, Clerk IV, University Library.
The assembly also adopted that all newly elected and outgoing officers and the current unit representative committee chairs as the official delegates of the chapter to the 5th General assembly which will be held on December 3, 2004 (whole day) at Bulwagang Tandang Sora, College of Social Work and Community Development, U.P. Diliman. The chapter was entitled to 46 delegates based on June 2004 membership of 1,225.
The chapter assembly was capped by a simple but delectable lunch catered by the PGH Dietary Department.
Keynote speaker for this year's triennial assembly was Dr. Gene Nisperos, Secretary General of the Health Alliance for Democracy. Dr. Nisperos presented a lively analysis of the national political and health situation. His crisp delivery and witty anecdotes were received well by the audience.
The Keynote speech was followed by the three (3) year Accomplishment Report by Mr. Jossel Ebesate, Chapter President who concurrently is also the National P.R.O. of the union. It was followed by the 3 year Treasurer's Report from Mr. Edgardo Enagan.
Mr. Clodualdo "Buboy" Cabrera, National President also came with a coterie of National and U.P. Diliman chapter officers, and delivered a brief message.
The election of a new set of officers (CY 2005 - 2007) was held through viva voce presided over by the Search and Election Committee headed by Mr. Eliseo Estropigan. Those elected for a 3 year term of office (with their respective position in the hospital/university) are as follows:
President - Jossel Ebesate, Nurse IV, DNRD, PGH
Vice President - Jesusa Besido, Administrative Officer IV, UPCM
Secretary - Rosamond Mary Olivar, Nurse II, LCB 1 4/F, PGH
Treasurer - Edgardo Enagan, Utility Worker IV, CVS, PGH
Auditor - Belinda Jubilo-Santos, Social Welfare Officer IV, MSSD, PGH
Public Relations Officer - Benjamin Santos, Utility Worker IV, Ward 12, PGH
Board of Director Members: Erlinda Bilog, Clerk IV, UPCN,
Freddie Waje, Student's Record Evaluator, CPH and;
Ma. Corazon Brito, Clerk IV, University Library.
The assembly also adopted that all newly elected and outgoing officers and the current unit representative committee chairs as the official delegates of the chapter to the 5th General assembly which will be held on December 3, 2004 (whole day) at Bulwagang Tandang Sora, College of Social Work and Community Development, U.P. Diliman. The chapter was entitled to 46 delegates based on June 2004 membership of 1,225.
The chapter assembly was capped by a simple but delectable lunch catered by the PGH Dietary Department.
Saturday, November 27, 2004
Reviving the Aquino-Galman Murder Case: Smokescreen to the Hacienda Luisita Massacre - Beltran
Mula sa Tanggapan ni Anakpawis Rep. Crispin B. Beltran
News Release/November 26 , 2004
House of Representatives, South Wing Rm 602931-6615
Ina Alleco R. Silverio, Chief of Staff
Email: paggawa@edsamail.com.ph, anakpawis2003@yahoo.com
Celphone number 09213907362
Visit: http://www.geocities.com/ap_news
Solon critical of motives behind moves to revive Aquino-Galman murder case; pushes for the reopening of investigations into Olalia-Alay-ay murders and Mendiola Massacre, among others.
Anakpawis Representative Crispin Beltran today said that the moves to reopen the Aquino-Galman murder case were connected to the ongoing investigations on the Hacienda Luisita Massacre last November 16 which claimed the lives of 14 farmwrorkers and wounded scores of others. Beltran said that the Cojuangco family led by former congressman Jose "Peping" Cojuangco, former president Corazon C. Aquino and Tarlac 2nd District. Rep. Benigno C. Aquino III were trying to divert the public's attention from the brutality they ordered to be unleashed against the workers and farmworkers of Hacienda Luisita and Central Azucarera de Tarlac, and turn the spotlight once more on the martyred Ninoy Aquino.
"It's impossible not to see a connection between these two developments. The investigations on the Luisita Massacre have been gaining headway and moving on towards the divulging of reasons why there is widespread discontent among the farmworkers and workers of Hacienda. The massacre is deeply rooted in the decades-long struggle for land and the Cojuangco's refusal to surrender what rightfully belongs to the thousands of farmworkers and their families. The Cojuangcos are deliberately trying to illicit sympathy from the public by reviving the Aquino-Galman case," he said.
Beltran said that if the martyred senator and acknowledged hero of the anti-dictatorship struggle were alive today, he would not have condoned what the Cojuangcos have done to the farmworkers.
"What is most important now is that not only should the perpetrators and masterminds of the Luisita Massacre be sacked and punished - among them labor secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas - but the roots of the land conflict in the Hacienda be arrived at.
The Stock Distribution Option (SDO) program in the Hacienda should be reviewed and then abolished, and the land genuinely and evenly distributed among all the farmworkers of the hacienda," he said.
The labor leader turned lawmaker said that if the Aquino-Galman case would be revived, then he is also pushing for the revival of the double-murder of labor leader Rolando Olalia and his aide, worker-activist Leonor Alay-ay who were both killed by the military in November 1996, a few months after Cory Aquino was installed in Malacanang.
"Ka Lando was became the president of the KMU after his father, Ka Bert Olalia died in 1983. He became the legal counsel of National Federation of Labor Unions (NAFLU). He also became the president, both of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN), and Partido ng Bayan.
Because of his unflinching criticism of the continued exploitation that workers suffered even under the supposed 'revolutionary government' of President Corazon Aquino, Ka Lando like his father before him was targeted by military forces allied with the government.
Together with Alay-ay, Ka Lando was abducted on the night of November 13, 1986. The following day, their dead bodies were found. They bore signs of vicious torture. Ka Lando sustained four gunshots in the head, and six stab wounds in his torso. His mouth was stuffed with newspapers, his hands tied closely together with his own belt.
On the day of his burial, more than 600,000 workers and people from all walks of life joined the funeral march and demanded justice for his brutal murder. Work stoppages took place in 217 workplaces.
Beltran also said that the Mendiola Massacre case has not been resolved either - "Pres. Aquino did not push as hard as she should have for the resolution of the Mendiola Massacre, not even when it was made known that a large number of the participants to the rally that was attacked were from Tarlac and other provinces in Central Luzon." #
News Release/November 26 , 2004
House of Representatives, South Wing Rm 602931-6615
Ina Alleco R. Silverio, Chief of Staff
Email: paggawa@edsamail.com.ph, anakpawis2003@yahoo.com
Celphone number 09213907362
Visit: http://www.geocities.com/ap_news
Solon critical of motives behind moves to revive Aquino-Galman murder case; pushes for the reopening of investigations into Olalia-Alay-ay murders and Mendiola Massacre, among others.
Anakpawis Representative Crispin Beltran today said that the moves to reopen the Aquino-Galman murder case were connected to the ongoing investigations on the Hacienda Luisita Massacre last November 16 which claimed the lives of 14 farmwrorkers and wounded scores of others. Beltran said that the Cojuangco family led by former congressman Jose "Peping" Cojuangco, former president Corazon C. Aquino and Tarlac 2nd District. Rep. Benigno C. Aquino III were trying to divert the public's attention from the brutality they ordered to be unleashed against the workers and farmworkers of Hacienda Luisita and Central Azucarera de Tarlac, and turn the spotlight once more on the martyred Ninoy Aquino.
"It's impossible not to see a connection between these two developments. The investigations on the Luisita Massacre have been gaining headway and moving on towards the divulging of reasons why there is widespread discontent among the farmworkers and workers of Hacienda. The massacre is deeply rooted in the decades-long struggle for land and the Cojuangco's refusal to surrender what rightfully belongs to the thousands of farmworkers and their families. The Cojuangcos are deliberately trying to illicit sympathy from the public by reviving the Aquino-Galman case," he said.
Beltran said that if the martyred senator and acknowledged hero of the anti-dictatorship struggle were alive today, he would not have condoned what the Cojuangcos have done to the farmworkers.
"What is most important now is that not only should the perpetrators and masterminds of the Luisita Massacre be sacked and punished - among them labor secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas - but the roots of the land conflict in the Hacienda be arrived at.
The Stock Distribution Option (SDO) program in the Hacienda should be reviewed and then abolished, and the land genuinely and evenly distributed among all the farmworkers of the hacienda," he said.
The labor leader turned lawmaker said that if the Aquino-Galman case would be revived, then he is also pushing for the revival of the double-murder of labor leader Rolando Olalia and his aide, worker-activist Leonor Alay-ay who were both killed by the military in November 1996, a few months after Cory Aquino was installed in Malacanang.
"Ka Lando was became the president of the KMU after his father, Ka Bert Olalia died in 1983. He became the legal counsel of National Federation of Labor Unions (NAFLU). He also became the president, both of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN), and Partido ng Bayan.
Because of his unflinching criticism of the continued exploitation that workers suffered even under the supposed 'revolutionary government' of President Corazon Aquino, Ka Lando like his father before him was targeted by military forces allied with the government.
Together with Alay-ay, Ka Lando was abducted on the night of November 13, 1986. The following day, their dead bodies were found. They bore signs of vicious torture. Ka Lando sustained four gunshots in the head, and six stab wounds in his torso. His mouth was stuffed with newspapers, his hands tied closely together with his own belt.
On the day of his burial, more than 600,000 workers and people from all walks of life joined the funeral march and demanded justice for his brutal murder. Work stoppages took place in 217 workplaces.
Beltran also said that the Mendiola Massacre case has not been resolved either - "Pres. Aquino did not push as hard as she should have for the resolution of the Mendiola Massacre, not even when it was made known that a large number of the participants to the rally that was attacked were from Tarlac and other provinces in Central Luzon." #
Monday, November 22, 2004
There's The Rub: Broke
Updated 01:09am (Mla time) Nov 22, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Note: Published on page A14 of the November 22, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
"HERE is a land in which a few are spectacularly rich while the masses remain abjectly poor. Gleaming suburbia clashes with the squalor of the slums. Here is a land consecrated to democracy but run by an entrenched plutocracy. Here, too, are a people whose ambitions run high, but whose fulfillment is low and mainly restricted to the self-perpetuating elite. Here is a land of privilege and rank-a republic dedicated to equality but mired in an archaic system of caste."
The one who said this was not Ka Paeng or Ka Pepe, it was Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino. He said this in an article in 1968 in the US journal Foreign Affairs. This was typical of what politicians and radicals alike were saying before martial law, particularly to warn that the country was a "social volcano" all set to explode. Aquino himself suggested the way by which the explosion might be averted: "The wealth that the oligarchy rapaciously covets and hoards must get down to the masses in the form of roads, bridges and schools; these are what the tao understands as good or bad government."
I remarked in the book "Dead Aim": "Caught in the rapture of his eloquence, Aquino forgot that his in-laws owned a hacienda that stretched as far as the eye could see. And one that would remain untouched by land reform two decades later."
The past comes back to haunt. As indeed do Cory's own words, when she promised during the "snap elections" that the first thing she would do was subject Hacienda Luisita to land reform. What a difference a month makes, which was all the time it took from the "snap elections" to Cory replacing Marcos, which turned out to be a sea change not just in the political landscape of the nation but in the moral outlook of the new governors. That was all the time it took for Cory to forget her vow.
Hacienda Luisita will always be a festering sore. It will always be the symbol of the failure of Edsa to move the country from tyranny to democracy, if by democracy is also meant-as Ninoy argued-the pushing back of oligarchic rule. You can't have a more oligarchic rule than feudal rule, which takes place in Hacienda Luisita notwithstanding its seemingly capitalist conversion into an industrial enclave. All the conversion shows is that, as in the days of the feudal manor, serfs are owned by their landlords body and soul. They can be told to do anything, including to agree to "stock option." Their well-being is a matter of manorial beneficence. They have no more power to determine the future of Hacienda Luisita, or their share of its profits, than beggars have the power to determine the amount of alms they can get from prospective donors.
Noynoy Aquino says leftists goaded the workers in Hacienda Luisita, who have been complaining about their lot, to strike. Well, so what? At the very least, try goading workers who have no deep-seated grievance to strike and see how far you'll get-these days, particularly, when work is harder to come by than honesty in GMA's government. May be leftists goaded the workers in Hacienda Luisita to strike-I can believe it-but they could not have succeeded if the workers were not ripe for the goading.
At the very most, workers have a right to strike. One would imagine congressmen would know that. A strike is neither illegal nor immoral, it is sanctioned by the Constitution and enshrined in the tradition of the workers' movement. Only Lucio Tan and now Ninoy's namesake think it is not.
While at this, if leftists had not goaded workers, farmers, students and other sectors to mount national strikes, or "welgang bayan," during martial law, the Aquinos would not be there. It was the efforts of the leftists to goad Filipinos to fight sleep in the early years of martial law that assured they would be awake to react to the murder of Ninoy much later.
Cory cannot understand why the workers refuse to accept her offer of sympathy and prayers for the dead? Well, if I recall right, Cesar Virata had to scurry away from Sto. Domingo Church after conveying to her the sympathy and prayers of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos for the death of her husband. He feared being torn limb from limb. The sympathy and prayers of the one who caused you grief are never welcome. The life of Ninoy is not more important than the lives of the 14 workers who died in the blaze of gunfire from goons in the uniforms of cops and soldiers last Tuesday. Other than in oligarchic reckoning, which deems the lives of serfs as nothing compared to that of the lord of the manor.
"If it ain't broke," says Department of Agrarian Reform chief Rene Villa, "why fix it?" That is his reaction to calls for a review of the "stock option" plan.
What, the corpses of 14 workers strewn over a dusty road in Hacienda Luisita are not a sign something is broke? Again, maybe it's true leftists goaded the workers to strike. But as I wrote a long time ago, when Isidro Cariño, then the education secretary, said the same thing about the 3,000 public school teachers who went on strike against him, and vowed to hunt the goaders down, the words of leftists are nothing compared to the flailing of hunger. And hunger has no address.
But the 14 corpses lying on the ground point to something broke that's even bigger than that Hacienda Luisita hasn't been land-reformed. That is, that the foundations of democracy in this country are crumbling. No, more than that, that is, that the moral foundations of this country are crashing. Power has made people forget what it means to lose a loved one to tyranny.
Ninoy Aquino might have been talking of today when he said: "Here is a land consecrated to democracy but run by an entrenched plutocracy. Here is a land of privilege and rank-a republic dedicated to equality but mired in an archaic system of caste."
If that ain't broke, what is?
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Note: Published on page A14 of the November 22, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
"HERE is a land in which a few are spectacularly rich while the masses remain abjectly poor. Gleaming suburbia clashes with the squalor of the slums. Here is a land consecrated to democracy but run by an entrenched plutocracy. Here, too, are a people whose ambitions run high, but whose fulfillment is low and mainly restricted to the self-perpetuating elite. Here is a land of privilege and rank-a republic dedicated to equality but mired in an archaic system of caste."
The one who said this was not Ka Paeng or Ka Pepe, it was Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino. He said this in an article in 1968 in the US journal Foreign Affairs. This was typical of what politicians and radicals alike were saying before martial law, particularly to warn that the country was a "social volcano" all set to explode. Aquino himself suggested the way by which the explosion might be averted: "The wealth that the oligarchy rapaciously covets and hoards must get down to the masses in the form of roads, bridges and schools; these are what the tao understands as good or bad government."
I remarked in the book "Dead Aim": "Caught in the rapture of his eloquence, Aquino forgot that his in-laws owned a hacienda that stretched as far as the eye could see. And one that would remain untouched by land reform two decades later."
The past comes back to haunt. As indeed do Cory's own words, when she promised during the "snap elections" that the first thing she would do was subject Hacienda Luisita to land reform. What a difference a month makes, which was all the time it took from the "snap elections" to Cory replacing Marcos, which turned out to be a sea change not just in the political landscape of the nation but in the moral outlook of the new governors. That was all the time it took for Cory to forget her vow.
Hacienda Luisita will always be a festering sore. It will always be the symbol of the failure of Edsa to move the country from tyranny to democracy, if by democracy is also meant-as Ninoy argued-the pushing back of oligarchic rule. You can't have a more oligarchic rule than feudal rule, which takes place in Hacienda Luisita notwithstanding its seemingly capitalist conversion into an industrial enclave. All the conversion shows is that, as in the days of the feudal manor, serfs are owned by their landlords body and soul. They can be told to do anything, including to agree to "stock option." Their well-being is a matter of manorial beneficence. They have no more power to determine the future of Hacienda Luisita, or their share of its profits, than beggars have the power to determine the amount of alms they can get from prospective donors.
Noynoy Aquino says leftists goaded the workers in Hacienda Luisita, who have been complaining about their lot, to strike. Well, so what? At the very least, try goading workers who have no deep-seated grievance to strike and see how far you'll get-these days, particularly, when work is harder to come by than honesty in GMA's government. May be leftists goaded the workers in Hacienda Luisita to strike-I can believe it-but they could not have succeeded if the workers were not ripe for the goading.
At the very most, workers have a right to strike. One would imagine congressmen would know that. A strike is neither illegal nor immoral, it is sanctioned by the Constitution and enshrined in the tradition of the workers' movement. Only Lucio Tan and now Ninoy's namesake think it is not.
While at this, if leftists had not goaded workers, farmers, students and other sectors to mount national strikes, or "welgang bayan," during martial law, the Aquinos would not be there. It was the efforts of the leftists to goad Filipinos to fight sleep in the early years of martial law that assured they would be awake to react to the murder of Ninoy much later.
Cory cannot understand why the workers refuse to accept her offer of sympathy and prayers for the dead? Well, if I recall right, Cesar Virata had to scurry away from Sto. Domingo Church after conveying to her the sympathy and prayers of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos for the death of her husband. He feared being torn limb from limb. The sympathy and prayers of the one who caused you grief are never welcome. The life of Ninoy is not more important than the lives of the 14 workers who died in the blaze of gunfire from goons in the uniforms of cops and soldiers last Tuesday. Other than in oligarchic reckoning, which deems the lives of serfs as nothing compared to that of the lord of the manor.
"If it ain't broke," says Department of Agrarian Reform chief Rene Villa, "why fix it?" That is his reaction to calls for a review of the "stock option" plan.
What, the corpses of 14 workers strewn over a dusty road in Hacienda Luisita are not a sign something is broke? Again, maybe it's true leftists goaded the workers to strike. But as I wrote a long time ago, when Isidro Cariño, then the education secretary, said the same thing about the 3,000 public school teachers who went on strike against him, and vowed to hunt the goaders down, the words of leftists are nothing compared to the flailing of hunger. And hunger has no address.
But the 14 corpses lying on the ground point to something broke that's even bigger than that Hacienda Luisita hasn't been land-reformed. That is, that the foundations of democracy in this country are crumbling. No, more than that, that is, that the moral foundations of this country are crashing. Power has made people forget what it means to lose a loved one to tyranny.
Ninoy Aquino might have been talking of today when he said: "Here is a land consecrated to democracy but run by an entrenched plutocracy. Here is a land of privilege and rank-a republic dedicated to equality but mired in an archaic system of caste."
If that ain't broke, what is?
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