Archive - Focus

By LUZ RIMBAN THE United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) will subject the Philippine government to “a higher level of scrutiny” when it comes to protecting the rights of migrant workers, after the Philippines claimed to be a global “model” among countries sending out workers overseas. The UN OHCHR reviewed

By CAROLYN O. ARGUILLAS and ELLEN TORDESILLASMindaNews/VERA Files   GOVERNOR Datu Zaldy Ampatuan of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) “encountered difficulties” with his United States visa and was held briefly when he arrived at the Los Angeles airport (LAX) with his family on April 26. But ARMM Solicitor General Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi denied reports

MANILA Judge Jorge Lorredo thinks it would be best if former presidential chief of staff Michael “Mike” Defensor dropped the perjury case he has filed against whistleblower Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada Jr.. Defensor sued Lozada after the latter said he had been asked by Defensor to deny that he was kidnapped by government agents when he

By TESS BACALLA AS though curtailment of basic liberties and state-induced violence amid massive poverty are not enough, tens of thousands of people who suffered the wrath of the worst disaster to have hit Burma (officially called Myanmar) still feel a sense of palpable neglect by their ruling military junta. “No major rehabilitation efforts by

By CHIT ESTELLA ON the long black granite wall on the grounds of the Bantayog ng mga Bayani are 185 names of heroes and martyrs who fought the Marcos dictatorship. Some are well-known to the public; many are not. But all are bound by the fact that they had committed a great part of their

By GERMELINA LACORTE RETIRED Army general Jovito Palparan will be reinventing himself as a party-list representative in Congress, but his legacy of anti-communist crackdowns lives on in places like Compostela Valley, Sultan Kudarat and South Cotabato provinces in Mindanao where peasant and human rights leaders are being killed as the government intensifies counterinsurgency operations. A

By JAN MARCEL RAGAZA and ALLIAGE MORALES ONE of the most common drugs sold over the counter is the headache and fever tablet paracetamol, which costs P2.74 in commercial outlets. At the government-run Botika ng Barangay (BnB), paracetamol costs just a fifth of that at only 50 centavos. Other drugs are as affordable to impoverished

By JAN MARCEL RAGAZA and ALLIAGE MORALESIF a minimum wage earner were to be stricken with diarrhea, relief can come cheap from the Department of Health’s Botika ng Barangay (BnB) outlets, where a 2-milligram capsule of generic loperamide would cost only P1.05.   The BnB price is vastly lower than what loperamide costs in commercial drugstores—P4.10

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS PEACE talks between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front have been stalled for eight months now because the government panel wants a review of the way Malaysia has been facilitating the peace talks. Highly placed sources said the Philippine panel has raised issues over the presence of a Malaysian

By YVONNE T. CHUA THE Commission on Elections needed P14 billion for its operations this year, but the amount was reduced to only about one-third or P5.4 billion, after the Department of Budget and Management and the Office of the President finished reviewing its proposed budget. And since 1986, the Comelec has practically been indebted

By LUZ RIMBANPHNOM PENH—In a village 15 kilometers south of this city, tourists from all over the world arrive every day to pay their respects to the victims of Asia’s own holocaust, burning incense sticks, offering flowers, or simply gazing at the skulls piled 10 levels high inside a Buddhist stupa standing over what was

By TESS BACALLA RANGOON, Myanmar—Let it not be said that the month of March went by without the outside world taking a moment to remember Burma’s drawn-out struggle for freedom. March marks the commemoration of resistance movements in Burma or, as its ruling junta wants it called, Myanmar. It was on March 13, 1988 when