By TESS BACALLA MARILYN Sakiwat, 55, looked forward to coming home to the Philippines for good after years of working overseas, making up for lost time with her now grown-up children, and becoming a productive member of her community. This, after 26 years of toiling away in Hong Kong, hundreds of miles away from her simple
By MIA GOMEZ and JOHANNA SON BANGKOK – It’s been 10 years since civil society groups in ASEAN started having annual interactions with ASEAN leaders, including face-to-face meetings at summits. But beyond making news headlines, how effective have these been in influencing ASEAN’s work or its member states’ policies? How can engagement with ASEAN be
Ask average Filipinos what the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is, and most would give answers that vary from vague to downright wrong. They confuse ASEAN with “Asia,” even APEC or the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, and hardly know its significance. ASEAN is turning 50 next year, but experts interviewed for this video feature say
By JAKE SORIANO SOMBATH Somphone is easily recognized because of his white hair. The white is clearly visible in the grainy CCTV footage that recorded the last time he was seen alive. More than the said physical attribute, Sombath is a distinguished man, not just in his native country Laos. A civil society leader
By ELLEN T. TORDESILLAS ADRIFT in the Andaman Sea are hundreds of thousands of people in the verge of death due to hunger, thirst and victims of human cruelty. They are the Rohingyas, a Muslim ethnic group mainly living in Myanmar. It is estimated that they number some 800,000 and comprise 80 to 90
Fiery Cross before and during the reclamation By ELLEN T. TORDESILLAS THE standard press statement of Malacañang and foreign affairs officials prior to the President’s attendance in the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is for the Philippines to push for the adoption of the Code of Conduct in the South China
By ELLEN T. TORDESILLAS While we continue to be engrossed with Napolist (she has submitted an expanded list naming 120 lawmakers as alleged beneficiaries of her largesse including her contributions to their election campaign), things are heating up in the South China Sea between China and Vietnam that could destabilize Southeast Asia. News reports yesterday
By ELLEN TORDESILLAS
An opportunity for newly-appointed Interior and Local Government Mar Roxas to help in the healing of bruised ties with China has been presented by the Chinese government with its invitation for him to attend the 9th ASEAN- China expo in Nanning, the capital of China's Guangxizhuang Autonomous Region starting this weekend (Sept 21 to 25).
NOT all stories of labor migration in Southeast Asia are bleak and foreboding. Many workers are only too happy to have found employment in the region’s more affluent states—with none of the struggles of their not-so-fortunate compatriots.
CONFLICTING interests of labor-sending countries like Indonesia and the Philippines and of labor-receiving countries like Malaysia and Thailand partly explain why it will likely take years for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to make the regional instrument to promote and protect the rights of labor migrants a reality.