9/29: Land is Life: Reflections on Climate Change in the Global South
September 28, 2014
May will be discussing various campaigns that Panalipdan are working on in addition to the rehabilitation efforts after Typhoon Haiyan.
Monday, 9/29 6:30pm
—
Bio:
May Vargas has been an indigenous people’s advocate since 2001. She has held various positions in the Alliance for the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples (a Manila – based IP advocacy group from 2001 to 2004, the Moro-Christian People’s Alliance from 2004 to 2006 and the Solidarity Action Group for Indigenous Peoples (SAGIP) from 2006 to 2009 upon her transfer to work in the Davao Region.
She co-founded the Exodus for Justice and Peace together with religous peoples from the roman catholic and protestant congregations and churches in 2008 at the height of the massive militarization and mining and logging onslaught against the Mandaya IPs in Davao Oriental, and the Manobos of Compostela.
Since the formation of EJP, she was also part of the secretariat for the Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation of the UCCP – SEMJUR under the leadership of Bishops Claro and Villasanta.
This JPIC endeavor expanded and thus gave way for the reactivation of Panalipdan-Southern Mindanao, an ecological justice network based in Southern Mindanao whose main focus is the empowerment of IP and farmer communities facing threats of development aggression such as largescale and foreign mining, coal plants and coal mining among others. The JPIC – UCCP became a major player in Panalipdan – SMR giving it a big space in its endeavors.
In 2012, May Vargas was invited to attend the Alternative Mining Indaba in Cape Town, South Africa. Here she became a member of the WCC-Ecological Debt Team together with key persons from Latin America and South Africa led by Athena Peralta. In 2012, she represented WCC Eco-Debt Team in Justica Global’s Meeting of people affected by Brazil’s largest mining corporation Vale. She also participated in the Cupula Dos Povos, a people-led gathering parallel to the UN RIO +20 Summit.
Her work with ecumenical movements continue as she perseveres with her natmin, and ecological justice work.
With Panalipdan SMR, she also contributed to church-led endeavors in response to climate change and disasters. When Category 5 storm Typhoon Pablo (Bopha) hit Southeastern Mindanao, Panalipdan together with churches and other NGO’s formed Bulig Alang sa Mindanao, or HELP for Mindanao (Balsa Mindanao).
Together with the various people’s organizations, NGOs, and various religous congregations, they led in the rebuilding of disaster stricken communities through a comprehensive rehabilitation program, beyond emergency and relief.
BALSA-MINDANAO has led in rebuilding efforts in Typhoon Pablo areas through the School Rebuilding program, sustainable agriculture and rainforestation programs, climate justice advocacy and community empowerment. These services continue up to the present.
In 2014, when Yolanda devastated the Visayas, BALSA MINADANO launched waves of missions to assist in the emergency and rehabilitation of communities. The Pilgrimage Ground Zero (PGZ), composed of 39 roman catholic congregations and some 30 members of various protestant churches was one of the biggest church-led responses to Yolanda focusing on psycho-social intervention and sustainable agriculture.
This year, she was part of the World Council of Churches’ delegation to the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples (WCIP) and the People’s Climate Justice March in New York.#
“For air to breathe and water to drink…
May 1, 2013
“For air to breathe and water to drink,
And no more poison from the kitchen sink.
For land that’s green and life that’s saved
And less and less of the earth that’s paved.No more women who are less than free,
Or men who cannot learn to see
Their power steals their humanity
And makes us all less than we can be.For teachers who learn and students who teach
And schools that are kept beyond the reach
Of provosts and deans and chancellors and such
And Xerox and Kodak and Shell, Royal Dutch.”
On May Day 1980 the Green and Red themes were combined when a former Buick auto-maker from Detroit, one “Mr. Toad,” sat at a picnic table and penned these lines. Find the full verse and more in “The Incomplete, True, Authentic and Wonderful History of May Day” by Peter Linebaugh at http://libcom.org/history/incomplete-true-authentic-wonderful-history-may-day-peter-linebaugh
Press Release
November 21, 2012
A network of environment and indigenous peoples’ rights advocates wants a probe on a retired Philippine Army colonel, who is also security consultant of the Sagittarius Mines-Xstrata, for his involvement in the massacre of the family of Blaan anti-mining leader Daguil Capion.
The Justice for Capion Family, Justice for All Movement said that prior to the Capion massacre, Ret. Col. Dan Balandra was with the Capions.
This was revealed during the network’s peace and solidarity mission to Kiblawan, Davao del Sur on November 17, where witnesses told mission delegates that Balandra went to the Capion farm for three consecutive days prior to the massacre.
Balandra was said to have approached Daguil in the family’s farm to convince him to surrender after his pangayaw (tribal war) against the intrusion of SMI-Xstrata into their ancestral lands. Witnesses said Balandra brought alcoholic beverage for Daguil and provided cash worth 7,500 pesos to Juvy as part of SMI’s potato plant project.
The mission called for the relief and prosecution of the 13 soldiers involved in the killing of the Capions, their commanding officer Lt. Dante Jimenez and the 27th Infantry Battalion Commander Col. Alexis Bravo. It also holds SMI-Xstrata accountable for violations against the communities and collective rights of the indigenous peoples, among those are the murder of Blaan members of the communities, the formation of a ‘tribal council’ to approve the companies’ entry, and the exploration drills on sacred burial grounds.
Witnesses believed that Balandra’s motive was to confirm Daguil’s presence in his farm and provided such information to the 27th Infantry Battalion. On October 18, 13 soldiers sprayed the farm hut of the Capions, killing a pregnant Juvy and his two sons Jordan, aged 13 and Jan-jan, aged 8. Daguil was reportedly not in the hut.
Balandra has not been seen in the community since the massacre.
The presence of Balandra points to the “complicity between SMI and the AFP to go after Daguil for leading his tribe’s opposition to large-scale mining,” said Marie Hilao-Enriquez of Karapatan who was one of the mission delegates.
The mission said that Balandra’s role was part of the campaign to hunt down Daguil. Prior to this, the AFP declared a three-month deadline to capture the Blaan leader while Kiblawan Mayor Marivic Diamante offered a 300,000 peso-reward for the capture of Daguil whom she brands as a bandit.
The Blaan elders or fulongs however defended Daguil saying he was leading the pangayaw which they had declared in 2010 as defense of their ancestral land from SMI-Xstrata.
The multinational mining company had applied in 2005 for the 50,000 hectare copper exploration project covering the quadri-boundary of South Cotabato, Sarangani, Sultan Kudarat and Davao del Sur.
Blaan peoples in the provinces opposed the mining operations, but former president Gloria Arroyo instituted an Investment Defense Force in 2009 that resulted in more human rights violations by the military against the Blaans. ###
Reference:
Mr. Genasque Enriquez, KATRIBU Partylist
0942-557-8223
———————————————————————
PUBLIC INFORMATION DESK
publicinfo@karapatan.org
———————————————————————
Karapatan Alternative Report of the 106th United Nations Human Rights Committee Session
October 9, 2012
Karapatan alternative Report for the 106th HRC Session
SUBMISSION OF THE NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATION KARAPATAN, Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights to the United Nations Human Rights Committee in its 106th Session Palais Wilson, Geneva, Switzerland, October 15-November 2, 2012
This is an alternative note of the Philippine national human rights organization, KARAPATAN Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights to the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) in its 106thsession to review the compliance of the Philippine State Party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
The note seeks to illustrate to the HRC that extrajudicial killings and arbitrary arrests and detentions, as well as other human rights violations like disappearances, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment continue and persist with impunity in the Philippines.
KARAPATAN is a national human rights organization documenting and investigating cases of human rights violations in the Philippines. It also assists victims and their families in seeking remedies and justice for these violations. KARAP A T AN has sixteen (16) regional offices in the archipelago that gather reports and send these to the National Office in Manila to be consolidated into quarterly and annual reports which the Alliance regularly come up with, publish and disseminate.
Read more at Karapatan.org
TPP / TPPA News on the Trans-Pacific Trade Agreement Negotiations and Action item
September 17, 2012
From our allies at the Washington Fair Trade Coalition, URGENT news and action on the Trans-Pacific Trade Agreement negotiations that happened in Leesburg, Virginia this week.
Click to view this in a browser
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
Free Ericson Acosta: A Father’s Plea
August 3, 2012
July 31, 2012
DEAR FRIENDS,
Political prisoner Ericson Acosta is in need of medical attention. Please forward, blog, tweet and share this letter of appeal from the Acosta family. We also encourage everybody to write to the Department of Justice (DOJ) to request the resolution of the Ericson Acosta case review which has been pending for almost a year. You may also address appeals to concerned government officials to drop trumped-up charges against Ericson and effect his immediate release. Please see attached materials for information on Ericson.
A Father’s Plea
I am Isaias Acosta, father of detained artist and activist Ericson Acosta. I am writing this while I recuperate from a minor surgery pending further medical tests. Prior to my operation, I was all set for another visit to the sub-provincial jail in Calbayog City, Samar where my son has been detained for more than a year now.
I am now 79 years old, not in the best of health but would not pass up a chance to visit Ericson if I could help it. My wife, Liwayway, is turning 80 this year. She would have gone to Calbayog without me but she can hardly walk without support.
We are both physically suffering due to our respective conditions but nothing compares to the torment of knowing that our son continues to be unjustly imprisoned.
My recent medical setback ironically and agonizingly emphasizes the reason behind our intended urgent visit. Lately, Ericson had been complaining of a nagging pain in his abdomen and lower back. The pain, he says, intensifies whenever he urinates. Now he has also noticed spots of blood in his urine. My cousin, Ericson’s uncle, displayed similar symptoms before he succumbed to prostate cancer.
Ericson rarely complains when he is sick. Even when he was arrested last year, his first words to me were, “Daddy, huwag kayo’ng mag-alala.” He always tells his mother not to fuss over him. Ganyan si Ericson. Hindi niya iniinda hangga’t kaya niya. Once when he was still in grade school, he waited until a “stomach ache” had become too unbearable before he finally told us to take him to the hospital. It turned out he immediately needed to undergo an appendectomy. The doctor said we got there in the nick of time.
Ericson’s last check-up two years ago revealed a renal function abnormality and a possible prostate affliction. So as soon as we received word that he is in pain, we arranged for a visit and asked our lawyers to immediately file a motion before the court seeking urgent medical attention for my son.
We had to skip the visit because of my condition. But after we filed the motion, we were told that the judge in charge of his case had just retired. How long would it take until a new judge is installed? It is as if our frustration with the slow resolution of Ericson’s case is not enough. We are once again left bereft of immediate legal options.
I write this letter of appeal to the jail warden, to the Department of Justice, to Secretary Leila de Lima, and to all other concerned branches of government. I am an old man with no shortage of illnesses as expected of anyone my age, but I would gladly forfeit any trip to the doctor if it could only be traded for much-needed medical treatment for my son. His mother and I fear that his latest hunger strike has further worsened his condition. Ericson must get the medical attention he needs.
I am writing this letter a few days after former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was released on a million-peso bail. I cannot but be distressed by the continuing prejudice of our justice system against my son and other political prisoners like him.
Arroyo was placed under hospital arrest in consideration of her illness. Si Arroyo, sa kabila ng kanyang mga kasalanan sa taumbayan, ay pinayagang manatili sa de-aircon na ospital, regular na inaasikaso ng mga doktor at nars gamit ang buwis ng mamamayan. Ngayon siya’y pinalaya pa. Si Ericson at iba pang tulad niya na ang tanging kasalanan ay magsakripisyo para sa maliliit na tao, nasa kawawang kalagayan at hindi kinikilala ang mga karapatan. No, we do not seek preferential treatment like Arroyo. What we demand is that Ericson and all other political prisoners – who are ailing precisely because of dismal prison conditions – also be accorded the right to medical attention as necessary.
We appeal to all freedom-loving citizens and human rights advocates to once again help us in our latest plea for Ericson. During these disconcerting times, we shall continue to fight for Ericson’s release from detention. We add our voices to all others whose sons and daughters are unjustly imprisoned – free all political prisoners.
Yours,
ISAIAS P. ACOSTA
Details for letter-writers:
Department of Justice
Padre Faura Street,
Malate, Manila,
PHILIPPINES, 1000
Telephone: (02) 532-8481, (02) 523-6826
Email: communications@doj.gov.ph
Website: http://www.doj.gov.ph
LEILA M. DE LIMA
Secretary, DOJ
Telefax: 523-9548
Direct Line: 521-1908
Trunkline: 523-8481 loc. 211, 214
Email: lmdelima@doj.gov.ph; lmdelima_doj@gmail.com
H.E. Benigno Simeon Aquino III
President of the Republic of the Philippines
Malacañang Palace
JP Laurel St., San Miguel
Manila 1005
PHILIPPINES
Voice: (+632) 735-6201 / 564-1451 to 80
Fax: (+632) 742-1641 / 929-3968
E-mail: corres@op.gov.ph / opnet@ops.gov.ph
Directory of Philippine consulates and embassies:
http://dfa.gov.ph/main/index.php/about-the-dfa/rp-embass
consulates-a-rcos/phl-embassies-and-consulates-general
—
Directory of Philippine consulates and embassies:
http://dfa.gov.ph/main/index.php/about-the-dfa/rp-embass
consulates-a-rcos/phl-embassies-and-consulates-general
—
Please sign the ONLINE PETITION for Ericson Acosta’s immediate release
http://www.change.org/petitions/release-detained-filipino-artist-ericson-acosta-now
FREE ERICSON ACOSTA!
FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!
Human Rights Watch Video: “Philippines: No Justice for Victims of Enforced Disappearances”
July 8, 2012
Philippines: No Justice for Victims of Enforced Disappearances
From our friends at Human Rights Watch:
Dear friends,
As the two year anniversary of President Aquino’s term in office approaches on June 30, we are trying to mobilize as much attention as we can on the promises Aquino has made on justice and accountability, and his failure to deliver. In the last two years, no one has been convicted of extrajudicial killings, disappearances or torture. Please watch our video featuring the voices of the families of the disappeared including the mothers of Sherlyn Cadapan, Karen Empeno and Jonas Burgos. The full press release is below.
Best wishes,
Elaine Pearson
Deputy Director, Asia Division
Human Rights Watch
Philippines: Two Years Under Aquino, Abuses Go Unpunished
No Successful Prosecutions of Security Forces for Killings, ‘Disappearances’
(New York, June 28, 2012) – President Benigno Aquino III of the Philippines has not fulfilled his promises to hold accountable the security forces responsible for serious abuses since taking office two years ago, Human Rights Watch said today. The Aquino government has not successfully prosecuted a single case of extrajudicial killing or enforced disappearance, including those committed during his presidency, Human Rights Watch said.
In his inaugural speech on June 30, 2010, Aquino gave “marching orders” to the Justice Department to “begin the process of providing true and complete justice for all.” Five months later, at an event to commemorate human rights, he said that, “The culture of silence, injustice and impunity that once reigned is now a thing of the past.” And during his 2011 State of the Nation Address, Aquino reiterated this commitment, saying, “We are aware that the attainment of true justice does not end in the filing of cases, but in the conviction of criminals.”
“President Aquino has not lived up to his promises to bring those responsible for serious abuses to justice,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Concrete measures – rather than more promises – are needed now.”
Human Rights Watch today released a video, “Philippines: No Justice for Victims of Enforced Disappearances,” in which family members of the “disappeared” call on the president to live up to his promises of justice.
Human Rights Watch, in its 2011 report “No Justice Just Adds to the Pain,” documented 10 cases of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances since Aquino took office. No one has been arrested in any of these cases, and the three “disappeared” people remain missing.
The Aquino administration has not taken the needed steps to bring recent cases of serious abuse to trial, Human Rights Watch said.
In his first State of the Nation Address in July 2010, President Aquino noted the case of Francisco Baldomero, an activist from Aklan province who was killed on July 5, 2010, as among those “on their way to being resolved.” An arrest warrant has been issued for Dindo Ancero in the case, but he has not been apprehended and the case was “archived” – put on hold – in January 2011.
An arrest warrant was issued but never served for one of two suspects in the killing of Rene Quirante, a left-wing activist who was beaten and shot by uniformed men on October 1, 2010, in Negros Oriental province. A relative of Quirante’s has alleged that the suspect has been seen in the company of soldiers. “Nothing is happening,” Quirante’s relative told Human Rights Watch in April. “We’re growing tired of waiting for justice.”
Human Rights Watch has monitored progress on cases of killings and enforced disappearances under the previous administration of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. If progress has been made, it is often because of the perseverance and courage of family members, rather than aggressive action by police and prosecutors, Human Rights Watch said.
For instance, in the 2006 disappearance of two university students, Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeno, family action was crucial in bringing the two soldiers to trial for their kidnapping and illegal detention. The trial for the two soldiers started in May. However, the men are not in civilian custody but are being held in a military camp. Two others implicated in the students’ disappearance, including retired Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, the commander in the area at the time, have evaded arrest. Human Rights Watch has received information that military and business interests are protecting General Palparan.
In the past decade, state security forces in the Philippines have been implicated in the torture, enforced disappearance, and killing of hundreds of leftist activists, journalists, and clergy. The communist New People’s Army and other insurgent groups have also been responsible for killings and other serious abuses. Under President Macapagal-Arroyo, government security forces conducted a massive campaign targeting groups deemed to be Communist Party fronts and their alleged members and supporters. The number of killings and disappearances implicating the military has gone down under the Aquino administration, but they continue.
The Philippines’s human rights record was scrutinized at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva during its Universal Periodic Review in May. Several countries – including the United States, Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands, and the Holy See – raised alarm over the continuing killings, enforced disappearances, and torture. During the sessions, several countries urged the Aquino administration to end impunity for these abuses.
Human Rights Watch has longstanding recommendations to Aquino to initiate the comprehensive reforms necessary to end impunity for serious abuses. He should order the National Bureau of Investigation to investigate police and military personnel, including at the command level, who have been implicated in killings. He should also make clear to the police that they are responsible for vigorously pursuing any crimes committed by government officials and police officers and that if they do not, they will become the target of a criminal investigation. He should order the military to cooperate with civilian authorities investigating military abuses or themselves face sanctions. And he should take immediate steps to ensure that the country’s witness protection program is independent, accessible, and properly funded.
“As President Aquino himself pointed out, the conviction of those implicated in abuses is the true test of his commitment to his promise,” Pearson said. “So the government needs to move beyond simply identifying suspects and obtaining warrants to actually apprehending the suspects and putting them on trial.”
To watch the video, “Philippines: No Justice for Victims of Enforced Disappearances,” please visit:
To read the report “No Justice Just Adds to the Pain,” please visit:
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2011/07/18/no-justice-just-adds-pain-0
To read the news release “Philippines: Military Leadership Should Act on Abuses,” please visit:
http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/04/01/philippines-military-leadership-should-act-abuses
To read the news release “Philippines: Arrest Ex-General Accused of ‘Disappearances’,” please visit:
http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/01/31/philippines-arrest-ex-general-accused-disappearances
PUSO Supports ILPS on Occupy Wall Street Statement
October 14, 2011
ILPS – US International Coordinating Committee Members,
October 13, 2011
IT IS RIGHT TO REBEL
The International League of Peoples Struggle, representing hundreds of organizations in 43 countries, stands with the young workers, students and unemployed occupying Wall Street and city centers around the United States. You are fighting a battle that needs to be fought. You have a right to march and protest without fear of arrest or brutality.
MASS ACTION IS THE ONLY WAY FORWARD
You are right to take to the streets in mass action rather than waiting for change from overpaid Republican and Democratic politicians who are on corporate payrolls. You are right to follow the militant path taken by people from Egypt and Tunisia to Greece and Spain, from Britain to Chile to Wisconsin. From Social Security and the 8-hour day in the 1930s to civil rights laws in the 1960s, mass action is the only way people in this country have won any rights from the corporate ruling class.
You are right to take the battle to the doorsteps of that class, the unelected tyrants who own the top 500 banks and corporations. Every day, at electronic speed, they send trillions of dollars around the world in financial transactions while millions cannot find work or afford health care. Their decisions shutter factories, destroy jobs, throw people out of their homes and wreck the economies of communities and entire nations.
WALL STREET IS THE ENEMY OF ALL HUMANITY
These bankers and billionaires also rake in super-profits from murderous imperialist wars against people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Palestine and elsewhere. In the U.S., they have created a monstrous police state-prison-industrial complex to lock up mostly youth of color, the children of generations of workers, whom they now deny the right to a job.
BLOOMBERG LIES, JOBS DIE
New York City Mayor Bloomberg, one of the richest men on earth, lies when he says that banks create jobs. His banker pals at JPMorgan Chase and Citibank have destroyed 7 million jobs since 2008. This billionaire parasite is closing schools, bus lines, clinics and libraries while increasing his personal fortune by billions of dollars since he took office.
WHERE DID THE BANKERS GET THEIR BILLIONS?
They stole them! And not just the bailout money they were given by both the Bush and Obama administrations. The fortunes of the top 1 percent are the unpaid labor of generations of workers not just in the United States but all over the world. It was created in farms and factories, mills
and building sites, mines and offices from the Nile Delta to the Mississippi Delta, from South Africa to South Korea to South Carolina, from Mindanao to Mexico to Michigan. Many of the biggest fortunes in the U.S were founded on the slave trade. This wealth belongs to all humanity.
IMPERIALISM IS THE SOURCE OF THEIR POWER
It is not a matter of making the rich pay their “fair share.” They have no right to even a penny from anyone else’s labor. We must smash their power over our lives. The source of that power is imperialism, the merger of finance and industrial capital that is plundering the entire world. To fight them we must take a clear stand against imperialism and racism and join hands with people all over the globe who are fighting the same enemy.
Both the Republican and Democratic parties represent Wall Street, we have to fight for ourselves. As ILPS Chairperson, Prof. Jose Maria Sison, pointed out in his Keynote Address to the 4th International Assembly this past July, “The Democratic and Republican parties in the US compete as do Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola in flagrantly carrying out the policy dictates of the financial oligarchy and the military industrial complex. Both parties agree on raising the US debt ceiling. And to blunt public protests, they promise to bring down the public deficit, with the Democrats wishing to reduce the tax cuts for the corporations and upper class and the Republicans demanding the further reduction of government social spending.”
Everyone on this planet has the right to a job, food, health care, education, a home and a peaceful life. The wealth is there! We created it! But to take it back, we must deepen our struggle, strengthen our unity and increase our organization and continue to fight!
A JOB IS A RIGHT! HEALTH CARE IS A RIGHT! EDUCATION IS A RIGHT! A HOME IS A RIGHT!
WE CAN GET THEM IF WE FIGHT!
DARE TO STRUGGLE, DARE TO WIN!
The International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) is an anti-imperialist and democratic united front of mass formations at the international, global region and national levels that represents the interests of the workers, peasants, indigenous peoples, youth and students, women, queer and questioning, the homeless, migrants and refugees. It brings together and coordinates the people’s organizations according to common multisectoral and sectoral interests and purposes. The ILPS initiates and launches mass campaigns and various types of activities and seeks the cooperation of other anti-imperialist and democratic forces and at the same time, it joins and supports their initiatives. For more information, or link up with us at http://www.ilps-web.com/ and http://ilps-canada.ca/
