Aquino missed the chance of making Human Rights Day more meaningful

Missing since March 9, 2010

Malacanang’s enumeration of its human rights initiatives last Monday, International Human Rights Day, would have been more meaningful had President Aquino signed the proposed “Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act of 2012″ which had been on his table for almost three weeks.

Fernando “Butch” Fortuna, Jr: his son disappeared more than two years ago.

Families of those who just “disappeared” from the face of the earth, most of them for their political beliefs, were fervently hoping for an early Christmas gift for the President. But alas, there was no such gift from the President.

Fernando “Butch” Fortuna, a taxi driver, tearfully appealed to the President to help find his son Daryl who was forcibly taken, with an female companion , Jinky Garcia, and Ronron Landingin, one evening in Masinloc, Zambales by men suspected to be members of the 24th Infantry Batallion of the Philippine ArmyB-PA while he was in an outreach activity in connection with his thesis. At that time, Daryl was a graduating student of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.

“Naghahanap pa rin kami. Hindi namin alam kung ano ang aming gagawin (We are still looking. We don’t know what to do,” Fortuna said.

Come January 8, they will again observe the birthday of Daryl, who would be 25. “Hirap na kami We are suffering).”

Sana matulungan kami ni Presidente. Sana pirmahan na ni Presidente ang (anti-Enforced Disappearances) bill para hindi na mangyayari sa iba. (I hope the President would help us. I hope he would sign the bill so that (what happened to my son) would not happen to others.”

(A human rights worker said they learned later that Landingin is now a member of the military.)

In a statement, the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances,Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance, and the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates, said “Enforced disappearance is considered as one of the cruelest forms of human rights violations. It violates practically all basic human rights of the disappeared including some of the civil, political and socio-economic rights of their families.”
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Aquino missed the chance of making Human Rights Day more meaningful

Missing since March 9, 2010

Malacanang’s enumeration of its human rights initiatives last Monday, International Human Rights Day, would have been more meaningful had President Aquino signed the proposed “Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act of 2012″ which had been on his table for almost three weeks.

Fernando “Butch” Fortuna, Jr: his son disappeared more than two years ago.

Families of those who just “disappeared” from the face of the earth, most of them for their political beliefs, were fervently hoping for an early Christmas gift for the President. But alas, there was no such gift from the President.

Fernando “Butch” Fortuna, a taxi driver, tearfully appealed to the President to help find his son Daryl who was forcibly taken, with an female companion , Jinky Garcia, and Ronron Landingin, one evening in Masinloc, Zambales by men suspected to be members of the 24th Infantry Batallion of the Philippine ArmyB-PA while he was in an outreach activity in connection with his thesis. At that time, Daryl was a graduating student of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.

“Naghahanap pa rin kami. Hindi namin alam kung ano ang aming gagawin (We are still looking. We don’t know what to do,” Fortuna said.

Come January 8, they will again observe the birthday of Daryl, who would be 25. “Hirap na kami We are suffering).”

Sana matulungan kami ni Presidente. Sana pirmahan na ni Presidente ang (anti-Enforced Disappearances) bill para hindi na mangyayari sa iba. (I hope the President would help us. I hope he would sign the bill so that (what happened to my son) would not happen to others.”

(A human rights worker said they learned later that Landingin is now a member of the military.)

In a statement, the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances,Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance, and the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates, said “Enforced disappearance is considered as one of the cruelest forms of human rights violations. It violates practically all basic human rights of the disappeared including some of the civil, political and socio-economic rights of their families.”
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Chit Estella Journalism awards focus on human rights reports

Congratulations to the winners in the 1st Chit Estella Journalism awards.

The awardees were Elizabeth Lolarga of the Philippine Daily Inquirer for her print story, “365 political prisoners go on hunger strike” and Ina Alleco Silverio of Bulatlat.com for her online story, “Three months after Sendong, Iligan residents still far from rebuilding their lives.”

The winners of the 1st Chit Estella Journalism Awards will be known Friday (Dec 7) in an event at the UP College of Mass Communications Auditorium that will also include a Memorial Lecture.

The Chit Estella Awards honor the best journalistic report on human rights in print and online, published between October 1, 2011 and October 1, 2012. Each awardee will be given a cash prize of P10,000 and a trophy.

This year’s finalists for online media are:

-Three months after Sendong, Iligan residents still far from rebuilding their lives by Ina Alleco Silverio

-Jonas Burgos, gentle and brave by Ronalyn Olea

-Privatization of government hospitals, further marginalizing the poor in the name of profit by Anne Marxze Umil

-K + 12, worsening shortages to greet school opening by Anne Marxze Umil

-In Makati, the poor of Guatemala street know nothing about the city’s wealth by Ina Alleco Silverio

Finalists from print are:

-Kin of ‘desaparecidos’ keep up fight by Tonette Orejas

-In Sulu, human rights work starts with letting the people know by Julie Alipala

-356 political prisoners go on hunger strike by Elizabeth Lolarga

The Chit Estella Journalism Awards and Memorial Lectures are intended to keep alive Chit’s ideals of excellent and principled journalism and her human rights advocacy. Lourdes Estella-Simbulan in real life, she was known by her byline “Chit Estella.”

At the time of her death in a vehicular accident May last year, Chit was a journalism professor of the University of the Philippines-Diliman and trustee-writer of VERA Files, a group composed of veteran reporters that puts out in-depth articles and conducts training for journalists.

The awarding of the winners for the 1st Chit Estella Memorial Lecture coincides with Human Rights Day which is marked worldwide on Dec. 10.

Satur Ocampo, a veteran journalist, former political prisoner, former Bayan Muna party list president and representative in Congress, and now columnist of the Philippine Star, Ocampo will be the featured speaker in the Memorial lecture.

The winners were chosen by a board of judges composed of five representatives from the Estella/Simbulan family, VERA Files, the UP College of Mass Communications and Karapatan.

***

It is a source of deep consolation that even at an agonizingly slow place, the bill penalizing enforced or involuntary disappearance moved. It was approved by both chambers of the Philippine Congress last Oct. 16 and is now in Malacanang awaiting the signature of the President.

The bill makes a crime making a person disappear from the face of the earth which defies the natural cycle of life. A person is born, lives, and dies. He does not disappear as what happened to Jonas Burgos, Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan and many more students, farmers, and workers.

The bill defines Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance as “the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty committed by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which places such person outside the protection of the law.”

Human Right advocates are hoping that the President sign the bill, “Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act of 2012” into law on Monday. That would be the best Christmas gift that he could give to the families of the victims.

The President could further give substance to his much-proclaimed respect for human rights by signing the United Nations Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

It’s a shame that the Philippines under a President who comes from a family that experienced human rights violations during the Marcos dictatorship, is not among 91 countries that have signed the Convention. Thirty seven of those signatory countries have ratified the Convention.

The Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) and the Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance (FIND) will be holding a press conference on Monday, Dec. 10, 9:00 – 11:00 am at the Max’s Restaurant, Orosa St., cor. U.N. Ave., Ermita, Manila.

Maguindanao massacre on our mind

The media community in Cagayan de Oro. Photo from Froilan Gallardo’s FB

The 2009 Maguindanao massacre and the sad fact that justice continues to elude the victims were foremost in the minds of the delegates to the 9th Spectrum Fellowship National Campus Journalism conference held at Mambukal resort in Negros Occidental.

The Spectrum is the official student media corps of the University of St La Salle. There were about 60 participants in the conference coming not only from De La Salle but also from Far Eastern University, University of Sto. Tomas and University of San Agustin in Iloilo City.

They had an interesting range of topics. I came on the second day (Friday) and I caught up with the lectures of Ernie Sarmiento, formerly chief photographer of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, on photojournalism ethics, Philippine Star columnist Cito Beltran on opinion writing, GMA-7 (Iloilo)’s Rexcel Sorza on social media ethics, and RA Rivera on connecting through video.

I missed the talk the day earlier of Cagayan de Oro-based journalist Michael Barros and that of Manix Abrera on “Creating funny and relevant comics.”

Twenty-two year old Rob Cham’s presentation about giving the extra edge to online posts through graphic design was fun and interesting.

My talk was on investigative journalism.

One common message of all the speakers was honesty- being true to oneself.

Mendiola from Yuen Abana FB

Cito talked about the occupational hazards in practicing responsible journalism and one of them was incurring the ire of some people. He mentioned about death threats.

Touching on it in my talk, I said that journalists in Manila are much actually “safer” in the sense that if anything happens to them they have the national media to cover that. Politicians and government officials, who are usually subjects of the reports, would have second thoughts of harming them considering the backlash that it would generate.

That does not apply though to police reporters or journalists who write about criminal syndicates. They deal with persons who kill people like they do with chicken. Those people don’t send death threats. They just kill.

Despite talks about rampant corruption among community journalists, I still salute them for carrying on.

It’s a different environment in the provinces, where it is more intimate, and the chance of being accosted by the person you are taking to task on your way to work or while following up a story is very high, where your relatives are also their relatives.

The situation can get sticky. That’s what happened in many of the 153 cases of journalists killings since 1986, when press freedom was restored. Thirty-two of those killings happened after the Nov. 2009 Maguindanao massacre that shocked the world.

Red Batario of the Center for Community Journalism and Development wrote a stirring piece in remembrance of the of victims of the Maguindanao massacre. He explained why he chose to march from Quezon Rotonda to Mendiola last Friday instead of joining the discussion on media corruption while savoring the coolness of Tagaytay where the annual Media Nation was held.

Red wrote: “The massacre was a beast that nearly eviscerated the community press in that part of Mindanao, demonstrating in horrific detail the vulnerability of journalists who live and work in the provinces and who have often been, and still are, put to task for, among other things, suborning the practice of journalism. They are often portrayed as easy prey for blandishments of many kinds or willing participants in rent-seeking and rent-giving. Or that they are paid hacks of politicians and are bereft of any ethical norm or standard. This may be partly true but realities on the ground present a different picture and context of the vulnerabilities faced by community journalists.

Welcome Rotonda. From Jun Sepe’s FB

“But only they can tell with a certain amount of acuity and pathos the day-to-day challenges of practicing the craft in an environment that treats journalism and journalists as malleable avenues for advancing self interests…including media owners who consider reporters and staff as nothing but vassals.

“We at the Center for Community Journalism and Development cannot claim to represent them or to articulate their own thoughts and concerns. We can only provide them the opportunity, whenever and wherever it arises, and in this instance we had thought the coming of Media Nation9 would have given them that chance to tell their story and provide fresh insights in addressing those challenges.

“Their inability to participate in MN9 due to some logistical shortcomings puts into question the meeting’s priorities in terms of hearing a plurality of media voices especially from the community press, members of whom are often targets of violence. Because of corruption? Who knows? Only they can tell.

“While we have chosen to join the march to Mendiola for the commemoration of the 3rd anniversary of the Maguindanao Massacre, we bring with us also the hope that MN9 will send a strong message for all journalists, editors, reporters, staff, media owners, networks, publishing houses to seriously and squarely address issues that beset practitioners among which are economic security, personal safety, social welfare and professional standards the lack or absence of which leads to journalists’ vulnerability.

“Our call for an end to a culture of impunity is also a call for an end to media corruption. Our plea for justice for the victims of the Maguindanao massacre is a plea for a better understanding of the complex issues and challenges that beset community journalists in the Philippines.

“This is why we are in Mendiola and not in Tagaytay.”

PH should face up to the reality ‘When China rules the world’

Martin Jacques and Sen. Alan Cayetano, one of the sponsors of the forum.

While President Aquino was making waves in the summit of Asean leaders and their dialogue partners in Cambodia with his statement urging the United States to speak up on the South China Sea conflict which was anathema to China, visiting journalist and China expert, Martin Jacques, was telling a rapt audience at the Manila Intercon, “I don’t think it would serve the Philippine well to think that the United States will help” in the territorial conflict with China.

“I am not arguing that the Philippines give up its claims, but a way has to be found to deal with these questions, a way that does not involve derailing or poisoining its relationship with China because it will not get anywhere,” he said.

Jacques is the author of the 2009 bestseller, When China Rules the World, which asserts that “by 2027 China will overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy, and by 2050 its economy will be twice as large as that of the United States.”

In the book, Jacques, a columnist in the British publication, The Guardian, is a visiting senior research fellow at the London School of Economics, IDEAS, a centre for the study of international affairs, diplomacy and grand strategy. He is also a visiting professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing, and a fellow of the Transatlantic Academy, Washington DC.

Jacques said leaning on the U.S. in the conflict will not get the Philippines anywhere. “It will just put you in a sticky situation.”

Jacques said China has not “handled itself well” in the South China Sea which the Philippines refers to as West Philippine Sea.

He attributes the Chinese lack of “one voice” to the various agencies involved namely: the fisheries protection, coastal, state-owned oil corporation, the local government, and the Chinese Navy.

“The Chinese have not gotten its act together. But here’s one thing I will say, the Chinese will not go to war over these islands,” he said. South China Sea is being claimed wholly by China with its 9-dash line map while parts of the area also being claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia , Brunei and Taiwan.

But Jacques said it’s a different matter with Senkaku (Diaoyu to the Chinese) islands which China is disputing with Japan because of “failure of Japan to apologize” for atrocities done during the World War II.

A rapt audience

He advised the Philippines “to develop a strategic relations with China” despite the conflicting territorial claims citing Malaysia which maintains a “warm relationship” with China despite conflicting territorial claims in South China Sea.

“Don’t lose the perspective, the big picture…Smart governments think strategically, they have a sense of the future and have a sense of what to do, know its priorities,” he said.

In his book, he addressed the concern how to deal with the rising global power: “For perhaps the next half-century, it seems unlikely that China will be particularly aggressive. History will continue to weigh very heavily on how it handles its growing power, counselling caution and restraint. On the other hand, as China becomes more self-confident, a millennia-old sense of superiority will be increasingly evident in Chinese attitudes. But rather than being imperialistic in the traditional Western sense – through this will, over time, become a growing feature as it acquires the interests and instincts of a superpower – China will be characterized by a strongly hierarchical view of the world, embodying the belief that it represents a higher form of civilization than any other…

“The size of population and the longevity of its civilization mean that China will always have a different attitude towards it place in the world from Europe or the United States. China has always constituted itself as, and believed itself to be, universal. That is the meaning of the Middle Kingdom mentality. In an important sense, China does not aspire to run the world because it already believes itself to be the centre of the world, this being its neutral role and position. And this attitude is likely to strengthen as China becomes a major global power.

“As a consequence, it may prove to be rather less overly aggressive that the West has been, but that does not mean that it will be less assertive or less determined to impose its will and leave its imprint. It might do this in a different way, however, though its deeply held belief in its own inherent superiority and the hierarchy of relations that necessarily and naturally flow from this.”

Reactors Chito Sta Romana and Clarita Carlos

No stranger to Southeast Asia, having been married to a Malaysian-Indian lawyer and lived in Hongkong, this was Jacques’ first visit to the Philippines. (Jacques’ wife, Hari Veriah, died in 2000 in a Hongkong hospital due to negligence and racism, he said. )

JB Baylon, one of the founders of Pilipinas 2020 that sponsored the forum on “When China Rules the World”, related Jacques’ Philippine connection.

In 1999, Marin and Hari, while living in Hongkong hired a Filipina nanny named Christine to help raise their newborn son Ravi.

JB said, “ Hari apparently liked Christine that she promised the nanny that this would be her last job since the Jacques family would take care of her and send her to school.”

“Unfortunately in 2000 Hari died in HK. Martin asked Christine whether she was still interested to be nanny to Ravi and she was.

“A year or so later still devastated by his loss, Martin decided to return to London with Ravi. He asked Christine if she would be interested to continue working as a nanny in London, and she agreed. So Martin worked on the proper papers.

“In London, Martin reminded Christine of his wife’s promise to her and said he would do what he could to fulfill it. She showed interest in going to school and eventually went to nursing school.

“Today, 14 years later, Christine is now a nurse. But she remains part of the Jacques household as nanny to the now 14-year old Ravi!”