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Int’l press group urges PH gov’t to protect journalists
Days after a veteran journalist was abducted and held incommunicado in Mindanao, the IFJ in an urgent motion also called on the Philippine government to take “concrete and credible steps and actions to resolve the killing of Filipino media workers and prevent further attacks.”
MIGRANTE swipes at Duterte anew for neglecting OFWs as war ravages deeper inside Saudi territory
Precisely as how we saw it coming, the US-Saudi conflict with Yemen has now escalated into a full-blown ground battle advancing ever deeper into Saudi’s inland territory.
Yet despite our repeated warnings in the past few weeks, the Duterte regime is proving to be even more retrogressive in handling an imminent humanitarian disaster that now threatens almost 40 thousand Filipinos in the border regions of Asir, Jizan and Najran. Up to this very moment, the Duterte regime is still unable to present clear and concrete contingency measures to bring safety and security to imperiled OFWs.
Right at the beginning of June, the Yemeni Houthi forces were reported to have already crossed the Saudi border seizing 20 positions as a retaliation to the numerous airstrikes in Yemen conducted by the US-Saudi military coalition. The surprise attack is believed to have claimed hundreds of troop casualties from the Saudi side according to major news outlets.
On monday, a short video clip was released by the Houthi-operated Al Masirah TV suggesting more strikes on Saudi airports and even possible attacks in the UAE. Last week, a Japanese tanker employing 21 Filipino seafarers was hit by a strong blast. The tanker was navigating at the Strait of Hormuz and as contradictions in the US-claim of Iranian involvement in the attack are getting pointed out, it is apparent that this false flag incident was meant to justify a US imperialist war of aggression in the region against Iran and Yemen. All 21 Filipino sailors were rescued by the Iranian navy.
Time waits for no one and the clock ticking to its deadliest last moment does not seem to ring any sound of alarm on Duterte’s stone-deaf ears as doom appears to lunge towards land-based and sea-based OFWs in the Gulf region. Has the government never really learned anything from the lessons of Libya and Iraq? Or is it really addicted to scrambling at the last minute?
Instead of burying their noses preparing for the worst possible outcome of this flaring Saudi-Yemen conflict, Philippine embassy and consulate officials in Saudi Arabia have been exhausting several weeks of their energy in conducting seminars to rally support for the US-Duterte regime’s brutal counterinsurgency program. OFWs who were present in the seminars recounted how consulate officials demonized and red-tagged progressive groups like Gabriela and Migrante as legal fronts of armed Communist insurgent groups.
This blatant use of people’s resources like consulate facilities to propagate the regime’s lies and falsehoods will in no way address the miseries of OFWs who have long suffered under the government’s corrupt labour export program. It does not in any way unify members of the Filipino community who might need to be mobilized soon for emergency relief and evacuation.
The US-Duterte regime is hell-bent in using all forms of deception to conceal its gross inutility in safeguarding the welfare of Overseas Filipino Workers. The more he vilifies the legitimacy of progressive groups championing the democratic interests of the Filipino people, the more that Duterte exposes himself as a worthless fool spawned by a corrupt and dysfunctional system. One can’t help but ask as to where his moronic thoughts are wandering anew at this time when thousands upon thousands of OFWs are facing a clear and present danger on the other side of the world.
We will never allow the Duterte regime and his slavish minions in government to be rendered blameless in their gross indifference. The day of reckoning will come. For our part, Migrante International will continue to advance the rights and welfare of Filipino migrants wherever they may be in the world today.
Plea of victims under siege must be fully heard – NUPL
During the first hearing of the amparo case filed by our clients Karapatan, Gabriela and Rural Missionaries of the Philippines yesterday, the 14th Division of thd Court of Appeals unfortunately disallowed them from fully presenting evidence and supporting their legitimate claims.
The Court, over the vigorous objections from petitioners’ counsel led by NUPL Secretary General Atty. Ephraim B. Cortez, ruled that they have already waived their submission of their judicial affidavits because they failed to attach them at once in their petition and were unable to present them yesterday,. The Court reasoned that it is bound to hear the case summarily and proceeded to hold oral arguments between the parties, notwithstanding that petitioners have not even received respondents’ verified return (it was sent via the snail-paced registered mail).
The first hearing turned out to be the last too as the Court quite precipitously deemed the case already submitted for decision even without hearing the petitioners’ testimonies and receiving its supporting documents.
We respectfully take exception. And we are compelled to state our position for the record on a matter of public interest and import to correct misimpressions generated by spinmasters
While the Court, under the Rules on the Writ of Amparo (AM No. 07-9-12-SC) is indeed mandated to hear the case in a “summary” manner, nowhere in the said Rules are petitioners proscribed from fully presenting evidence. Neither are they required to already attach judicial affidavits to their petition or present the same during the first scheduled hearing. In fact, it is respondents government officials who must submit supporting affidavits to their verified return.
Petitioners have nonetheless begun feverishly preparing their judicial affidavits in the face of constant security threats to their witnesses, one of whom, Karapatan-Sorsogon member Ryan Hubilla, was murdered by suspected military elements only last June 15. Thus, what respondent Lorraine Badoy would pompously describe as “sloppy work” are actually earnest efforts on the part of petitioners to prove their case, and in the process, to brave the very perils that they are seeking protection from.
It must be noted that only a few weeks ago, the NUPL, which also filed its own petition for writs of amparo and habeas data, has begun submitting and presenting the testimonies of its petitioners and their witnesses before the Special 15th Division of the same Court.
In a number of other cases where petitioners were actually granted protective writs (e.g. NUPL client Raymund Manalo, the key witness in the conviction of Gen. Jovito Palparan, and NUPL officer Atty. Catherine Salucon, who continues to be under attack), they were able to testify before the Court and undergo a full-blown, albeit expedited, trial similar to a habeas corpus proceeding.
This lack of uniformity and consistency in the amparo proceedings before our courts seems to put petitioners at an unfair disadvantage even if they are seeking essentially the same redress and are suffering from even more vicious attacks, under similar circumstances of intensifying political repression and relentless red-tagging (which is a legally actionable wrong and a crime in itself).
As long as the petition is sufficient in form and substance which the Supreme Court recognized when it remanded it to the Court of Appeals “to hear,” we respectfully but firmly submit that there is no onus on petitioners to establish their full array of evidence at the get-go, much less when they are the ones being harassed, chased and killed in broad daylight.
To hold otherwise based on arguable procedural nuances is essentially a denial of due process and would defeat the very purpose of the protection of the extraordinary writs and to exact less from a State that threatens the lives and liberties of its very own citizens.
We thus ask our courts to be more sensitive and forebearing to victims who come before them for judicial protection and redress.#
Reference:
Atty. Ephraim B. Cortez
NUPL Secretary General
+639175465798
Atty. Josalee S. Deinla
NUPL Spokesperson
+639174316396
Academic unfreedom and states of repression: On the case of Leloy Claudio
By ROBYN MAGALIT RODRIGUEZ*
Recently, Philippine scholars, Walden Bello and Patricio Abinales, have published editorials dismissing 467 signatories on a petition opposing the consideration of Dr. Lisandro Claudio for a tenure-track position in the Department of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Both have come to Claudio’s defense claiming that the petition is based on speculation and goes against academic freedom. Their op-eds exonerate Claudio, an historian by training who has repeatedly expressed opinions about activists, scholars and even students sympathetic with the Philippine left and critical of the Duterte administration. Claudio’s commentary invites harm and violence by President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration which has engaged in extra-judicial killings numbering in the thousands. Many of those killed include its critics. Human rights advocates across the globe have raised concerns about the Duterte administration’s rabid impunity.
Academics wield tremendous power. Indeed, academic freedom as a concept was introduced precisely to protect academics from threats to their work particularly from the state. Critical academics’ work–whether it is their research and scholarship or their publicly articulated opinions–in exposing the excesses of state power have led not only to their loss of livelihood and employment but threats to their very lives. At the same time, academics who espouse views–scholarly or personal–that align with the state, can be deployed against those who would critique it. Dr. Claudio’s commentary, accusing his colleagues as well as students and activists of being “commies” are hardly statements to be glibly made or easily dismissed. Within the context of increasing state repression and concomitantly the erosion of academic freedom on both sides of the Pacific, the targets of Dr. Claudio’s work are put directly into the crosshairs of the Duterte and even the Trump regime. Dr. Claudio produces conditions of academic unfreedom for those he attacks. Students of Filipino American history are too familiar with the long-arm of the repressive Philippine state–one bankrolled and enabled in many ways by the US state. Filipinos in America, scholars and activists alike, have been subject to surveillance, threats and in some cases death at the hands of Philippine state agents. Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes, for example, Filipino immigrants and labor leaders with the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen’s Union in Seattle, were killed because they were organizing against the Marcos dictatorship in 1981. Meanwhile, scholars, students and activists of color alike, have long contended with surveillance, threats and death at the hands of US state agents.“Red-tagging” or “red-baiting” (the attribution of communist membership, affiliation, or sympathy to people for the purpose of harrassing and persecuting them) and communist witch-hunts have led to the murder of Bobby Hutton and Eldridge Cleaver, leaders of the Black Panther Party in Oakland in 1968. Carlos Bulosan, a canonical Filipino American author, was tagged as a communist and subject to FBI surveillance for his radical writing and activism, rendering him unemployable and forcing him to a life of poverty. He died in his early 40s. Hutton, Cleaver, Bulosan, Domingo and Viernes are real people whose lives were ended prematurely because of careless fear-mongering. Claudio’s actions can have the same fatal and chilling consequences.
There are both professional and ethical modes of intellectual critique that Claudio fails to engage. He resorts instead in libelous and threatening name-calling that can have deleterious effects on scholars and others critical of Duterte. Claudio’s opinions are neither academic nor are they evidence-based. His tweets and status updates are not part of an academic project: they do not begin with research objectives emerging from scientific literature; they are not formulated as research questions; there are no methodological designs or data collection to back his opinions; they are not scientifically rigorous; they are not vetted blindly by peers for publication. They are simply opinions sounded off on media platforms. “Don’t be dumb, commies are morons” is not an academic intervention to be protected by academic freedom. Indeed, even in academic spaces, I have directly observed how Claudio resorts to the same kinds of tactics and attempts to make interventions that are both theoretically and methodologically ill-informed. Nevertheless, regardless of how poorly informed his opinions and academic interventions may be, his prospective affiliation with UC Berkeley will lend him the veneer of legitimacy that can prove dangerous. I am joined by 467 scholars, academics, faculty members, and professors, in academic institutions all over the Philippines, across the United States have signed on in protest of Claudio’s candidacy because we all recognize that the words of academics like Claudio have become weaponized against anyone who criticizes the status quo and they will be further weaponized if he is given the privilege of an academic position at such a prestigious institution. As the bastion of the free speech movement aimed at protecting the speech of those who would speak truth to power as well as the flagship University of California campus and my alma mater, I am deeply disappointed in the Department of Southeast Asian Studies’ failure to properly vet Claudio’s candidacy.
At a time of great polarization in the US and the Philippines, rising authoritarianism and repression, words by academics aligned with the state wield great power and have potentially lethal consequences. This is not speculation. Opposing Claudio’s hiring at Cal is a refusal to support conditions that produce academic unfreedom at a time we need genuine academic freedom the most. 
* The author is chairperson and professor at the Department of Asian American Studies, University of California, Davis and director of Bulosan Center for Filipinx Studies.
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An appeal for sobriety and prudence
In the book “The Reactionary Mind” (2011), Robin describes how “[e]very once in a while … the subordinates of this world contest their fates. They protest their conditions, write letters and petitions, join movements, and make demands. Their goals may be minimal and discrete—better safety guards on factory machines, an end to marital rape—but in voicing them, they raise the specter of a more fundamental change in power. They cease to be servants or supplicants and become agents, speaking and acting on their own behalf. More than the reforms themselves, it is this assertion of agency by the subject class—the appearance of an insistent and independent voice of demand—that vexes their superiors.”
But what exactly takes place when this act of contestation vexes colleagues or a group of people relatively well known in specific academic circles?
I am talking about the red tagging and red bashing by some people, namely, Vicente Rafael, PhD, Patricio Abinales, PhD, Walden Bello, PhD (labeled the national democratic (ND) left, Marxist-Leninist-Maoist as “extremist left”), Sylvia Claudio, PhD (labeled the NDs as “fascist left”) and Lisandro Claudio, PhD,notorious for tagging mass organizations as “front organizations” of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and for supplementing Duterte’s terrorist tag on communists. Lisandro Claudio, PhD asserts communists are morons. Another academic by the name of Peter Zinoman, PhD joins what is beginning to sound like an anticommunist chorus by hinting that communist recruitment is happening in the US, particularly in his own campus, UC Berkeley.
It is astonishing to see academics defend Lisandro Claudio’s relentless attacks on activists as members of communist fronts by affirming the same claim as we all witness the rise of right wing authoritarianism worldwide. Duterte’s counterinsurgency program as implemented by Oplan Sauron has killed more than 200 farmers and mass leaders suspected as communists. The defense for Lisandro Claudio, PhD is an opportunistic reaction to a petition signed by 467 academics, artists and activists. The petition rightly argues that an academic who is engaged in tagging activist organizations as communist fronts is doing something unbecoming. It correctly articulates the global and local contexts in which such disposition is lamentable at the very least.
I have carefully studied how this petition locates itself in the scheme of things deemed academic.
First, while it aimed at weighing in on the hiring process, not a single petitioner has a say in the same process—not a party to any process of screening and evaluation, no voting powers and the like. Outsiders are not part of any hiring and firing committee in any academic institution.
Second, the petitioners are concerned enough to bring in an important facet of Lisandro Claudio’s academic disposition. And this is one that, for obvious reasons, will not figure in any of the documents Claudio submitted for application at The University of California-Berkeley (UCB). This is Lisandro Claudio’s pernicious and relentless act of tagging Philippine activist organizations as communist fronts. That this second point is non-academic is farthest from the truth. Lisandro Claudio, PhD engages in red baiting and red tagging without having to claim that he is different from the Lisandro Claudio PhD the academic. In other words, his hatred for communism and communists, which extends to non-communist activists carries the full weight of his academic achievements. After all, don’t his academic works, in varying degrees, make the same anti-communist claims? However, the petitioners neither besmirch nor contest his academic work. The petition is clearly focused on his disposition toward activists. He is not the first and only avowed anti-communist academic. But not all anti-communist academics are engaged in red tagging and red baiting, at least not in the same magnitude that he is.
Third, the petition, contrary to claims made by a few activists that Lisandro Claudio’s disposition should have been dealt with ideological struggle, is in itself a brave and brilliant articulation of ideological struggle. This is an ideological struggle waged at the height of relentless attacks on the people’s democratic rights.
Recently, an essay by Teo Marasigan triggered another wave of communist witchhunting from the same figures. Marasigan argues that socialist principles do not warrant petitions of that nature. Does Marasigan, like his ideological rivals, presume that petitions which challenge red tagging and communist withchhunting are actions that can only come from an organized socialist bloc? Abinales, Bello, and Claudio (the mother) have now been posting speculations about how 1) the petition is probably initiated by the CPP and Bello speculates that with their pushback, the Party now wants to disassociate itself from it, and thus Marasigan’s essay, and; 2) the petition is initiated by careerists, who according to Abinales, should be reported by Marasigan to the CPP for disciplinary action and sued by Lisandro Claudio, PhD.
The speculation about the CPP orchestrating such an action is an underestimation of the Duterte regime’s discredit. Lisandro Claudio, PhD mouths the Duterte regime’s official position on activists. One does not have to be a card-carrying Party member or a cadre to figure that out. If Professor Bello honestly thinks that Marasigan’s take on the issue, which challenges the validity of the petition based on socialist principles, is indicative of the effective ways in which they have defended Lisandro Claudio, PhD, he can reflect on the difference between 467 and 5. Unfortunately, I did not have the benefit of insight that I have right now when I first encountered this petition in March. I sincerely self-criticize for this and would certainly want to add my name to that list if I may do so.
What these anti-ND and anti-communist academics deny is the fact that while the ND mass organizations supported the National Democratic Front and Government of the Republic of the PH’s Peace Talks, and even launched a massive campaign for peace based on social justice, the NDs more than their favored anti-ND social democrats and anti-ND Rejectionists have mustered the most organized and politicized anti-Duterte alliances both here and in different parts of the world since the Peace Talks were cancelled by Duterte. Is not the petition that exposes Lisandro Claudio’s modus operandi a symptom and a strong indicator of such painstaking organizing and unity against state-sponsored violence against above-ground activists?
To imply that people who support endeavors initiated by ND organizations are the unthinking kind is incorrect on at least 2 points:
1) NDs always initiate alliances in partnership with non-ND orgs, institutions and individuals. To my knowledge, no anti-Duterte alliance has been initiated by the NDs alone. I was, for example, in NYC when the Malaya Movement was conceptualized and built. I am a national democrat and an organizer for ACT and ILPS, and 2 years ago, for Malaya. I can attest to the fact that the very first meeting of Malaya was attended by journalists, academics, artists, activists of various ideological persuasions yet united against Duterte’s tyranny. We are all founding organizers of the US-based Malaya Movement. My academic work at times prevented me from contributing as significantly as my non-ND colleagues did. But it only pushed me to aspire to be a better comrade for that particular cause, which we still strongly share.
2) In connection with 1), where ever there is injustice, people find a way to self-organize and form broad alliances, even organizations. This is true based on the history of political movements worldwide. These anti-communist and anti-ND academics must be narcissistically assuming that non-NDs and non-communist haters are extensions of their beings. For why would they even dare question the critical faculties of people who defend and work with NDs against political persecution?
I have been blessed with the most satisfying friendship, camaraderie and support by people who do not necessarily share my communist view of the world. A significant number of these people are insulted and incensed by how they have been painted by these academics who have reduced debate to unbridled bashing and namecalling.
It is most unfortunate that some academics, such as the ones I have mentioned above, have used the petition as an opportunity to unleash the most raucus and jarring anti-communist and anti-ND tirades at this point when mass movements struggle to survive powerful men like Duterte, Modi, Bolsonaro, Orban, Netanyahu, Trump, etc. In my view, they could have, at the very least, criticized Lisandro Claudio, PhD for wrongly and unnecessarily tagging activist organizations as communist fronts as they fixate on meritocratic credentialism.
The University of the Philippines Diliman’s Dean Sylvia Claudio, PhD and Pinoy Weekly’s Teo Marasigan both ended their interventions with “bring it on,” meaning, to continue the ideological struggle. There is hardly any ideological struggle that can be gleaned in discourses that assume the Communist Party as the center of gravity of all political actions and criticisms.
Instead of challenging anti-NDs and anti-communists to a debate, I strongly appeal to their sense of sobriety and prudence. Please stop red tagging and red bashing. Members of ND organizations are not mere pawns of the CPP. There is no need to assume that communist parties are in an incessant search for pawns and exist to prey on clueless target party members.
The literature on socialism and communism, as well as communist movements, are quite rich and diverse. There is no need to warn people from exploring discourses other than one’s own by demonizing and invalidating the communist movement. There is a need for academics to trust colleagues and non-academics in their political choices. There is no need to sound like “vexed superiors” as one’s fellow human beings assert agency amidst political repression. There is no need to discourage and even threaten people’s desire to come to conciousness and be a comrade.
The Low Road
What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can’t walk, can’t remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can’t stop them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.
But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.
Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund-raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.
It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.
“The low road” is from The Moon Is Always Female by Marge Piercy.
photo credit: https://www.iconspng.com/image/38311/bread-and-roses
Sarah Raymundo teaches at the University of the Philippine Diliman-Center for International Studies. She is the Chairperson of the Philippines-Venezuela Bolivarian Friendship Association. She also chairs the International Committee of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT). She is also the External Vice Chair of the Philippine Anti-Imperialist Studies (PAIS) and a member of the Editorial Board of Interface: A Journal for Social Movements.
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First Person | Notes of a non-lawyer: How the CA’s 14th Division is acting in favor of the respondents President Duterte et al in the petition for writs of amparo & habeas data
By CRISTINA PALABAY*
Bulatlat.com
In the first 30 minutes of the hearing on our petition, I felt violated twice over by a court which is mandated to make available a remedy for violations or threats of violations on my life, security and liberty and that of my fellow human rights workers. Not only were there persistent death threats against me and my colleagues, but our human rights workers Ryan Hubilla and Nelly Bagasala were killed barely three days ago. And there we were, expecting a court to look at the cause and effect of red tagging and public pronouncements/exhortations of the President and his men to kill us, yet we found ourselves wondering, in the first 30 minutes of the proceedings – is the court blatantly acting in favor of Duterte et al?
The court ruled that yesterday’s proceedings will be a summary hearing, as in a three-hour hearing, without the benefit of having a preliminary conference like what has been done in the case of National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers vs Duterte et al where they, the aggrieved lawyers, were made to line up their witnesses and evidence and to receive the return of writ (reply) of the respondents. Such was also done in the other amparo hearings, including that of Atty. Catherine Salucon. We were not accorded with the same treatment – we didn’t receive the reply of the respondents, we were not given the chance to submit and present our testimonies. Last I heard, there should be uniformity in proceedings of courts to ensure that due process is observed. Porke ba’t hindi kami abogado, hindi n’yo kami mabigyan ng panyero/panyera treatment? O dahil ba natatakot ang korte at ang respondents na ilantad ng witnesses ang katotohanan? O dahil ba mas gigil ang mga hinahabla namin sa aming mga human rights workers na naglalantad ng mga krimen sa loob at labas ng korte?
We were ready. We will were set to submit our judicial affidavits and additional documentary evidence, after what should have been the preliminary conference where hearings should have been scheduled and the evidence admitted. But alas, the court was so hasty, not because they were concerned with the threats against us, that they struck down our counsel’s plea to include our testimonies. In the first 30 minutes of the hearing, the court was acting like the legal counsels of respondents Duterte et al. Will the court be at a disadvantage if we had been given time to submit them? No, but they violated our right to due process anyway.
The court justices parroted the line of questioning and the issues raised by the respondents – issues which we know nothing of because we didn’t receive their reply. Sa totoo lang, pakiramdam namin, hindi man lang binasa ng korte ang petisyon namin. They asked why Duterte was impleaded and why he shouldn’t be accorded immunity. They muddled the issue on how victims of rights violations have sought remedies from the police and the Commission on Human Rights and why were complaints filed at the UN. They muddled the issue on who are the petitioners and are themselves confused (or at least they are acting like it) and did not address the cause and effect of red tagging. They did not even ask clarificatory questions when the respondents’ lawyers alleged, without the benefit of police or an independent investigation, that the killing of Ryan Hubilla and Nelly Bagasala were probably due to purging of the CPP-NPA, as if these are foregone conclusions and as if State agents have nothing to do with it. Sa madaling salita, mas matagal pa ngang dininig ng korte ang pang-aatake sa amin ng respondents.
Sa madaling salita, tingin naming petitioners, niluluto ang kaso. We won’t be surprised if the 14th Division dismiss our petition. While we will fight it out and still avail whatever remedy there is, we are inclined to affirm the view that courts in especially with those appointed by the current President and his allies are severely compromised. We are inclined to believe that even these so-called remedies for victims of human rights violations are discouraging and thus are rendered inutile.
Nevertheless, we are grateful that regardless of the court’s blatant disregard of our rights, we have the support of the people and communities whom we serve. Mas nanggagalaiti pa nga ang mga kaanak ng biktima at mga dating bilanggong pulitikal kahapon. We remain committed and ever more determined to continue defending and upholding people’s rights within and most especially outside the courts.
* The author is the secretary general of human rights alliance Karapatan. Her group, Gabriela and the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines filed the petitions for writ of amparo and writ of habeas data with the Supreme Court.
The post First Person | Notes of a non-lawyer: How the CA’s 14th Division is acting in favor of the respondents President Duterte et al in the petition for writs of amparo & habeas data appeared first on Bulatlat.
US Ambassador wants full investigation on WPS incident
United States Ambassador to the Philippines wants a full investigation of Chinese ship ramming the Filipino boat F/B GEMVIR1 at the disputed waters that endangered the lives of its 22-man Filipino crew.