The CHR and human rights groups in general have traditionally functioned as watchdogs of state-perpetrated human rights violations for good reason. It’s because the state and state agents, vested with vast political and police powers, are in the most likely position to violate the rights of ordinary people and get away with it.
With his regime not only careening to the Right but also teetering on the brink of open fascist rule, the Left’s cooperation with Mr. Duterte is at a breaking point.
Despite positive efforts, the President has failed to depart significantly from the neoliberal economic policies of previous governments.
He has also tried but failed to recalibrate our dependent, neocolonial relations with the US, and appears intent on merely replicating the same with China and Russia.
All this leads to more doubts on his promise of change.
Swept to office last year on the promise of sweeping changes, President Rodrigo Duterte and his government are proving to be a hindrance to the country’s most urgent political and socio-economic reforms.
The existence of such prisoners of conscience is a slap on any country that claims to be democratic.
After more than a century of serving colonial masters, local dynasties and oligarchs, and after experiencing absolute power under martial law, today’s Philippine National Police (PNP) has become hopelessly mercenary and criminal.
Sometimes, the only way to fix a problem is to get rid of it.
It is poetic justice indeed that a poor peasant from Nueva Ecija , a veteran in the struggle to liberate his class from feudal bondage and oppression, is now leading the way in transforming the agency that for years has been used to undermine this very struggle. It’s payback time.
Later this month, the government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) enter their third round of talks Continue reading
