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A Popular Strongman Gains More Power by Joseph Purugganan September 2019
Blickwechsel Gesellscha Umwelt Menschenrechte Armut Politik Entwicklung Demokratie Gerechtigkeit In the Aftermath of the 2019 Philippine Elections: A Popular Strongman Gains More Power By Joseph Purugganan September 2019 The Philippines concluded a high-stakes midterm elections in May 2019, that many consider a critical turning point in our nation’s history. While the Presidency was not on the line, and Rodrigo Duterte himself was not on the ballot, the polls were seen as a referendum on his presidency. Duterte has drawn flak for his deadly ‘War on In midterm elections, voters have historically fa- Drugs’ that has taken the lives of over 5,000 vored candidates backed by a popular incumbent suspects according to official police accounts, and rejected those supported by unpopular ones. but the death toll could be as high as 27,000 ac- In the 2013 midterms for instance, the adminis- cording to the Philippine Commission on Human tration supported by former President Benigno Rights. The administration has also been criti- Aquino III, won 9 out of 12 Senate seats. Like cized for its handling of the maritime conflict Duterte, Aquino had a high satisfaction rating with China in the West Philippine Sea. heading into the midterms. In contrast, a very unpopular Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, with neg- Going into the polls however, Duterte, despite ative net satisfaction ratings, weighed down the all the criticisms at home and abroad, has main- administration ticket. In the Senate race in 2007, tained consistently high popularity and trust the Genuine Opposition coalition was able to se- ratings. The latest survey conducted five months cure eight out of 12 Senate seats, while Arroyo’s ahead of the elections showed the President Team Unity only got two seats and the other two having a 76 percent trust score and an 81 percent slots went to independent candidates. -
FINAL REPORT of the NATIONAL FACT-FINDING and SOLIDARITY MISSION in NEGROS ORIENTAL, PHILIPPINES April 4-8, 2019
FINAL REPORT OF THE NATIONAL FACT-FINDING AND SOLIDARITY MISSION IN NEGROS ORIENTAL, PHILIPPINES April 4-8, 2019 CONTEXT On March 30, 2019, between 2:00am to 5:30am, fourteen (14) persons were killed by State security forces during their operations in Canlaon City, Manjuyod, and Sta. Catalina towns in Negros Oriental province in the Philippines. At least fifteen (15) persons were also reportedly arrested in the said localities, according to relatives of the victims and peasant organizations in the province. In a report by Bombo Radyo Cebu, the PNP Region 7 said that it launched its Simultaneous Enhanced Managing Police Operations (SEMPO) or Oplan Sawron in Negros Oriental. Central Visayas Police Regional Office (PRO-7) Chief Debold Sinas said that the police served 37 search warrants to “various personalities due to illegal possession of firearms.” He also said that they were able to serve 31 search warrants; 14 were killed when these personalities resisted arrests, while 12 others were arrested.1 In another article, Sinas also reportedly said that those who were killed were members of the CPP-NPA and that the 14 refused to surrender and engaged the police in a shoot-out. “They really fought. Even in Oplan Sauron Part 1, there was a directive from the top leadership of the rebels to fight it out with the police. They were not ready to surrender because they were hardcore rebels,” Sinas said.2 On April 1, 2019, PNP Chief Oscar Albayalde and Presidential Spokesperon Salvador Panelo said that these are legitimate police operations.3 1 http://www.bomboradyo.com/14-killed-12-arrested-in-series-of-pnp-operation-in-negros-oriental/ 2 https://www.philstar.com/the-freeman/cebu-news/2019/03/31/1906104/negros-oriental-14-rebels-dead 3 http://cnnphilippines.com/news/2019/4/1/pnp-probe-negros-oriental-operation-not-massacre.html 1 The mass killings and illegal arrests of farmers in Negros Oriental are the latest of the attacks against human rights defenders and of the long list of human rights violations documented under the Duterte administration. -
Enemies of the State?
ENEMIES OF THE STATE? How governments and business silence land and environmental defenders JULY 2019 ENEMIES OF THE STATE? How governments and business silence land and environmental defenders 1 2 ENEMIES OF THE STATE? How governments and business silence land and environmental defenders Executive summary 6 Number of killings per country in 2018 8 Top findings of this report 9 Global map of physical and legal attacks in 2018 10-15 Philippines: The world’s deadliest country 16 Guatemala: A five-fold surge in killings 22 A focus on criminalisation 27 Iran: Crackdown on human rights spreads to environmentalists 30 UK: Draconian jail sentences for anti-fracking protesters 31 Conclusion 34 Recommendations 36 Methodology 38 Acknowledgements 39 This report, and our campaign, is dedicated to all JESÚS ORLANDO GRUESO OBREGÓN, COLOMBIA those individuals, communities and organisations that JHONATAN CUNDUMÍ ANCHINO, COLOMBIA are bravely taking a stand to defend human rights, JOSÉ ABRAHAM GARCÍA, COLOMBIA their land, and our environment. JOSÉ OSVALDO TAQUEZ TAQUEZ, COLOMBIA 164 of them were murdered last year for doing just that. JOSÉ URIEL RODRÍGUEZ, COLOMBIA We remember their names, and celebrate their activism. LUIS ALEXANDER CASTELLANOS TRIANA, COLOMBIA ALUÍSIO SAMPAIO DOS SANTOS, BRAZIL MARÍA DEL CARMEN MORENO PAEZ, COLOMBIA CARLOS ANTÔNIO DOS SANTOS, BRAZIL NIXON MUTIS, COLOMBIA EDEMAR RODRIGUES DA SILVA, BRAZIL ÓLIVER HERRERA CAMACHO, COLOMBIA EDUARDO PEREIRA DOS SANTOS, BRAZIL PLINIO PULGARÍN, COLOMBIA GAZIMIRO SENA PACHECO, BRAZIL RAMÓN -
The 2019 May Elections and Its Implications on the Duterte Administration
The 2019 May Elections and its Implications on the Duterte Administration National Political Situationer No. 01 19 February 2019 Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG) National Political Situationer No. 01 19 February 2019 The 2019 May Elections and its Implications on the Duterte Administration The last three years of any elected administration can be very contentious and trying times. The national leadership’s ability to effectively respond to political and related challenges will be significantly shaped by the outcome of the upcoming 2019 mid-term elections. Indeed, the 2019 election is a Prologue to the 2022 elections in all its uncertainties and opportunities. While the 2019 election is only one arena of contestation it can set the line of march for more momentous events for the next few years. Introduction Regular elections are an enduring feature of Philippine political life. While there continue to be deep-seated structural and procedural problems attending its practice in the country, the electoral tradition is a well-established arena for choosing elected representatives from the lowest governing constituency (the barangays) to the national governing bodies (the legislature and the presidency). Electoral exercises trace their roots to the first local elections held during the Spanish and American colonial eras, albeit strictly limited to the propertied and educated classes. Under American colonial rule, the first local (town) elections were held as early as 1899 and in 1907 the first election for a national legislature was conducted. Thus, with the exception of the Japanese occupation era (1942-1945) and the martial law period under Pres. Marcos (1972-1986; although sham elections were held in 1978 and 1981), the country has experienced regular although highly contested elections at both the local and national levels for most of the country’s political history. -
THE MAY 2019 MID-TERM ELECTIONS: Outcomes, Process, Policy Implications
CenPEG Political Situationer No. 07 10 July 2019 THE MAY 2019 MID-TERM ELECTIONS: Outcomes, Process, Policy Implications Introduction The May 2019 mid-term elections took place amidst the now familiar problems of compromised voting transparency and accuracy linked with the automated election system (AES). Moreover, martial law was still in place in Mindanao making it difficult for opposition candidates to campaign freely. Towards election time, the systematic red-tagging and harassment of militant opposition candidates and civil society organizations further contributed to an environment of fear and impunity. In this context, the Duterte administration’s official candidates and allies won most of the contested seats nationally and locally but how this outcome impacts on the remaining three years of the administration is open to question. This early, the partisan realignments and negotiations for key positions in both the House and the Senate and the maneuverings for the 2022 presidential elections are already in place. Such actions are bound to deepen more opportunistic behavior by political allies and families and affect the political capital of the presidency as it faces new challenges and problems in its final three years in office. The Senate Elections: “Duterte Magic?” In an electoral process marred by persistent transparency and accuracy problems embedded in the automated election system, the administration candidates and allies dominated the elections. This victory has been attributed to the so-called “Duterte magic” but a careful analysis of the winning 12 candidates for the Senate shows a more nuanced reading of the results. At best, President Duterte and the administration can claim full credit for the victory of four senators: Christopher “Bong” Go, Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa, Francis Tolentino, and Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III. -
Philippine Mid-Term Elections: a Duterte Double
ISSUE: 2019 No. 27 ISSN 2335-6677 RESEARCHERS AT ISEAS – YUSOF ISHAK INSTITUTE ANALYSE CURRENT EVENTS Singapore | 11 April 2019 Philippine Mid-term Elections: A Duterte Double Malcolm Cook* EXECUTIVE SUMMARY • On 13 May, the Philippines will hold elections for all local and provincial positions, all seats in the House of Representatives, and half of the 24 seats in the Senate. • If the current opinion polls prove accurate (as they have in the past): o President Rodrigo Duterte and his daughter Sara Duterte, even though neither is running for national office, will be the biggest winners nationally; o the composition of the new Senate will be more favourable to President Duterte and his campaign for a new federal constitution; and o the new Hugpong ng Pagbabago (HNP) party coalition led by Sara Duterte will be well placed for the 2022 presidential and legislative elections. *Malcolm Cook is Senior Fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. 1 ISSUE: 2019 No. 27 ISSN 2335-6677 INTRODUCTION The 13 May mid-term elections in the Philippines, with over 18,000 elected positions to be decided, will be the second largest exercise in democracy in Southeast Asia this year after the 17 April elections in Indonesia. To the chagrin of drinkers and bettors, on Monday 13 May, the “selling, furnishing, offering, buying, serving, or taking intoxicating liquor” will be prohibited across the Philippines as will the “holding of fairs, cockfights, boxing, horse races or any other similar sports.1 The coverage of Philippine mid-term elections in the post-Marcos era invariably focusses more on the Senate than the House of Representatives or sub-national positions and are seen as a partial referendum on the serving president even though their name does not appear on the ballot. -
Environmental-Defenders-In-The-Time
1 Environmental Defenders in the Time of COVID-19 Center for Environmental Concerns – Philippines Inc. and Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment with the support of 2 Environmental Defenders in the Time of COVID-19 Copyright © 2020 Center for Environmental Concerns – Philippines Inc. and Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment Writers: Jordan Fronda, Marian Grafil and Leon Dulce Cover: Lynoelle Kyle Arayata The Center for Environmental Concerns–Philippines (CEC) is a non-government organization founded through the initiatives of organizations representing fisherfolk, farmers, indigenous peoples, women, urban poor, and professional sectors. Currently, the Center is a service institution based in Quezon City, Metro Manila. Its area of operation and networking covers the entire Philippines and different ecological contexts. At the grassroots level, CEC closely works with communities and organizations nationwide, supporting their initiatives to nurture their ecosystems, defend their common access to natural resources, and eventually improve their living and working conditions in the context of a balanced and healthy environment. At the national level, CEC advocates for people-oriented, patriotic, sustainable, and scientific policies and programs for the protection of the Philippine environment. At the global level, CEC engages in information sharing, international networking, cross-cultural exchanges, and solidarity initiatives on common environmental issues and concerns. Website: www.cecphils.org E-mail: [email protected] -
The Communist Insurgency in the Philippines: Tactics and Talks
THE COMMUNIST INSURGENCY IN THE PHILIPPINES: TACTICS AND TALKS Asia Report N°202 – 14 February 2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...................................................................................................... i I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 1 II. GROWTH OF THE INSURGENCY .............................................................................. 3 A. A MOVEMENT TAKES SHAPE, 1968-1978 .................................................................................... 3 B. GATHERING STEAM, 1978-1986 .................................................................................................. 4 C. TURNING POINTS, 1986-1992 ...................................................................................................... 5 D. SPLINTERING AND CONSOLIDATING, 1992-PRESENT .................................................................... 7 III. GLIMPSES INTO THE CONFLICT ............................................................................ 10 A. DAVAO ...................................................................................................................................... 11 1. Military strategy ......................................................................................................................... 11 2. NPA activities ............................................................................................................................ 12 3. Pressure on lumad communities -
“You Can Die Any Time” Death Squad Killings in Mindanao
THE PHILIPPINES “You Can Die Any Time” Death Squad Killings in Mindanao “You Can Die Any Time” Death Squad Killings in Mindanao Copyright © 2009 Human Rights Watch All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 1-56432-448-6 Cover design by Rafael Jimenez Human Rights Watch 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th floor New York, NY 10118-3299 USA Tel: +1 212 290 4700, Fax: +1 212 736 1300 [email protected] Poststraße 4-5 10178 Berlin, Germany Tel: +49 30 2593 06-10, Fax: +49 30 2593 0629 [email protected] Avenue des Gaulois, 7 1040 Brussels, Belgium Tel: + 32 (2) 732 2009, Fax: + 32 (2) 732 0471 [email protected] 64-66 Rue de Lausanne 1202 Geneva, Switzerland Tel: +41 22 738 0481, Fax: +41 22 738 1791 [email protected] 2-12 Pentonville Road, 2nd Floor London N1 9HF, UK Tel: +44 20 7713 1995, Fax: +44 20 7713 1800 [email protected] 27 Rue de Lisbonne 75008 Paris, France Tel: +33 (1)43 59 55 35, Fax: +33 (1) 43 59 55 22 [email protected] 1630 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 500 Washington, DC 20009 USA Tel: +1 202 612 4321, Fax: +1 202 612 4333 [email protected] Web Site Address: http://www.hrw.org April 2009 1-56432-448-6 “You Can Die Any Time” Death Squad Killings in Mindanao I. Summary ......................................................................................................................... 1 Key Recommendations .................................................................................................... 5 II. Note on Methodology ..................................................................................................... 7 III. -
Psc Children's Game
VOLUME 2 No. 2 | APR - JUN 2017 MANILA, PHILIPPINES PHILIPPINE SPORTS COMMISSION NEWSMAGAZINE Let The Children Play PSC CHILDREN’S GAME page 6 Ulirang Sports in a 1st PSC Ama time of Ifugao page 4 Conflict: sets Tribal course the Marawi Games page 16 experience held page 12 page 15 April - June 2017 | PSC NEWSMAGAZINE 1 EDITORIAL the CHAIRMAN speaks This quarter we revived the Children’s Games, which is very close to my heart and the core of REAL the Philippine Sports Commission’s Sports for Peace program, amid the Marawi City crisis. While we held a Barangay Sports Forum prior to the staging of the Children’s Games in Davao City last May, the war in Marawi City broke out and President Rodrigo Duterte de- GOLD clared Martial Law in all of Mindanao. We feel the grief and the pain of our brothers and sisters in Marawi who not only lost homes to the war but also loved ones who were caught in the crossfire. We also had to evacuate some of our Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) staff and vol- IN unteer coaches who conducted a consultative meeting and grassroots coaching education there when the siege erupted in Marawi City. You know who you are, thank you for your courage and love to serve the people in Marawi. And yet, the Children’s Games in Davao City, albeit the Martial Law ruling, drew over 1,000 CHILDREN’S Christian, Lumad and Muslim children. It was indeed a shining moment for sports as we showed the world that peacemaking starts with the children. -
Resistance to Or Support for Duterte's Deadly War on Drugs
5/2020 PEACE RESEARCH INSTITUTE FRANKFURT / LEIBNIZ-INSTITUT HESSISCHE STIFTUNG FRIEDENS- UND KONFLIKTFORSCHUNG PETER KREUZER // GOVERNORS AND MAYORS IN THE PHILIPPINES. RESISTANCE TO OR SUPPORT FOR DUTERTE’S DEADLY WAR ON DRUGS PRIF Report 5/2020 GOVERNORS AND MAYORS IN THE PHILIPPINES. RESISTANCE TO OR SUPPORT FOR DUTERTE‘S DEADLY WAR ON DRUGS PETER KREUZER // ImprInt LEIBNIZ-INSTITUT HESSISCHE STIFTUNG FRIEDENS- UND KONFLIKTFORSCHUNG (HSFK) PEACE RESEARCH INSTITUTE FRANKFURT (PRIF) Cover: Labelled map of the Philippines. Wikimedia Commons, Sanglahi86, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://bit.ly/36HjeCZ, edited. Text license: Creative Commons CC-BY-ND (Attribution/NoDerivatives/4.0 International). The images used are subject to their own licenses. Correspondence to: Peace Research Institute Frankfurt Baseler Straße 27–31 D-60329 Frankfurt am Main Telephone: +49 69 95 91 04-0 E-Mail: [email protected] https://www.prif.org ISBN: 978-3-946459-58-3 Summary When Rodrigo Duterte took office as the President of the Philippines on June 30, 2016, his campaign focus on illegal drugs as a national security problem that necessitated an iron-fisted response be- came government policy. Duterte gave carte blanche to the Philippine National Police (PNP) to kill drug pushers and dealers at will as long as they could somehow claim to have been acting in self-de- fense. Thousands of suspects died at the hand of police officers and vigilantes who understood Duterte’s rash rhetoric as an invitation to participate in a state-led, nationwide killing spree. However, killings were not uniformly spread across the Philippines, but focused on highly urban- ized regions and especially the National Capital Region (NCR) and the adjacent regions of Central Luzon and CALABARZON (regs. -
Workshop on Faith and Development in Focus: Philippines on January
Workshop on Faith and Development in Focus: Philippines On January 16, 2019, the World Faiths Development Dialogue (WFDD) convened a workshop in Washington, D.C. to discuss preparation of a report on the intersection of development and religion in the Philippines. The meeting was part of WFDD’s ongoing GIZ and PaRD-supported research program that focuses on four countries, including the Philippines. A group of 11 scholars and development experts (listed in Annex 1) contributed their diverse experiences and perspectives. On the evening of January 15, 2019, WFDD hosted a dinner at Executive Director Katherine Marshall’s home where an informal discussion on similar topics took place. Ambassador Anne Derse and Dr. Scott Guggenheim joined the group for dinner, but not the consultation. The discussions helped sharpen and bring new ideas to WFDD’s ongoing analysis on the complex religious dimensions of development issues. The hope is that consultation participants, along with several other individuals who have expressed interested but could not attend, will continue their engagement in this project as an informal advisory group to help guide and offer feedback to WFDD’s work on the Philippines. This note briefly summarizes the content of dialogue that took place at the consultation. To assure a free and open conversation, Chatham House Rule was observed. Therefore, this report does not attribute specific comments or institutional affiliation to any participant in connection to items discussed. A preparatory concept note, see Annex 2, served as an effective point of reference for the group throughout the day. Feedback on the framing of priority issues was positive and constructive, mostly revolving around how to expand on certain topics to reflect more holistically certain sub-fields of development in the Philippines.