THE ECONOMIC-POLITICAL SITUATION OF THE CORDILLERAS (tags)
A YEAR after the US-Aquino2 regime took power, the miserable situation in the Ilocos-Cordillera region mirrors the dismal state of the nation. From the impoverished tobacco and palay farmers in the Ilocos provinces to the indigenous people plowing hybrid corn fields, vegetable gardens and rice terraces in the Cordillera, the empty promises of the Aquino regime are reflected in the continuing violations and betrayal of the people?s right to land, livelihood and resources. The real boss of the Aquino administration turns out to be not the Filipino people, but US Imperialism as it furiously expands its economic interests as well as large scale corporate mines and geothermal and hydroelectric power projects in Northern Luzon and rams down the nation?s throat its Oplan Bayanihan (OPB), the so-called internal peace and security plan. It is these that exacerbate and continue to heighten the national oppression that reached ethnocidal proportion being suffered by indigenous people of the Cordillera and the Filipino people in general. Indeed, Aquino?s Daang Matuwid turns out to be no different from the substandard Halsema Highway with its erosions and slides, close-open status and serving mainly foreign interests in extracting super profits from the region?s resources. Oplan Bayanihan: Furthering the National Oppression of the Indigenous People Despite it?s deceptive psy-war features, Oplan Bayanihan (OPB) is fast showing up it?s true vicious character compared to its failed predecessor, Oplan Bantay Laya 1 & 2 of the unheralded and despicable US-Arroyo regime. The 5th IDPA and the NOLCOM of the AFP have overzealously applied its age-old imperialist master?s tactics of ?divide and rule? by exploiting indigenous social, economic and political systems in its counter-insurgency operations. They target not only combatants but more so innocent civilians including minors and the elderly. Coining nice sounding contraption to hide the harshness and vileness of Oplan Bayanihan does not succeed in erasing the notoriety of the AFP as armed units of the ruling class. Changing its notorious ?Reengineered Special Operations Teams? to ?Peace and Development Operations Teams?does not do the desired trick. It succeeds though in sowing intrigues and beclouding clear provisions of peace pact pagta where armed units (AFP/PNP and/or NPA) are not covered. Operating troops continue to quarter in schools, day-care centers, barangay halls and clinics, private homes and other public and sacred places contrary to clear provisions of CARHRIHL and Protocols of the Geneva Conventions. In many cases, families are broken up as a result of soldiers? womanizing. Young female students are also vulnerable to abuses especially where detachments are near schools. In one case, the whole tribesmen of a young lass have to be mobilized to demand accountability of the soldier?s tribes mate when a married soldier impregnated a young first year college student. Also drunken soldiers always spark troubles with youngsters even at the flimsiest of reasons.
CPDF; No fee for campaign (tags)
The EPCC NEWS learned today that an official of the Cordillera People’s Democratic Front (CPDF) said guerrilla leaders would allow political candidates to campaign in Cordillera villages where communist rebels operate without paying permit to campaign (PTC) fees. Simon Naogsan, spokesman of the CPDF, the local political arm of the National Democratic Front, said New People’s Army (NPA) rebels have never forced candidates to pay the NPA in exchange for access to so-called rebel territories.
The CPLA is in the same sinking boat as the Ampatuan private army (tags)
The Philippine Peasant News (PESANTE NEWS) based in the US learned that the most recent in the long-running series of splits in the Cordillera Peoples Liberation Army (CPLA) has produced a purported new and reformed group but is composed of the same old opportunist elements. This was contained in an internet message posted by the CPDF signed by its spokesperson Filiw Naogsan posted on December 15, 2009. The reported ouster of Mailed Molina and the rise of a new group led by Arsenio Humiding is nothing more than a quarrel over the division of spoils within their dwindling organization. This same thing has repeatedly happened to the CPLA in the past as various factions squabbled over the funds, weapons, and jobs in the AFP that were dangled before them by the reactionary government.
CPDF BLAMED DISASTERS DUE EXTRACTIVE MINING AND LOGGING (tags)
- Pesante News learned through news sources today that the CPDF blamed the recent disastrous flooding and numerous landslides in Northern Luzon that inflicted heavy losses in lives and property highlight the often overlooked cost of developmental aggression. In more ways than one do the common people pay for huge projects that generate super-profits for foreign big business interests and their local lackeys.
The US-Arroyo’s NAPOCOR, Guilty of Criminal Neglect in Recklessly Opening the San Roque Da (tags)
The Philippine Peasant Support Network (Pesante-USA)- a US based environmental and peasant advocacy group expressed outrage over the extreme arrogance of the US-Arroyo regime and its subalterns in the National Power Corporation (NAPOCOR) in evading and refusal to account for the latest tragedy caused by the opening of the San Roque dam floodgates. Cordillera region and Pangasinan was greatly affected and was under distress. More than 40 landslides occurred in the Cordilleras triggered by the massive rain which resulted in as many as 250 deaths. Pesante is outraged that the people who opposed the dam were those who suffered the greatest- the people of Benguet.
Dams, flooding and power (tags)
Not long after Typhoon Ondoy inundated the metropolis with flood waters, Typhoon Pepeng reversed course to hover around Western Luzon and drop more than 600mm of rain in the area. This time, it was the Cordillera region and Pangasinan that were under distress. More than 40 landslides occurred in the Cordilleras triggered by the massive rain which resulted in as many as 250 deaths. Local groups attributed the area’s increased vulnerability to landslides to the long-term large-scale mining activities especially in Itogon and Mankayan in Benguet province. We remember the Colalo landslide that happened in 1999 in Mankayan which AGHAM visited with the Cordillera People’s Alliance (CPA) and environmental groups. And only three months ago, geologists from AGHAM and the Center for Environmental Concerns conducted an inspection of land subsidence in the same area.
On the Ancestral Land MOA of the MILF and GRP and the Escalation of Hostilities (tags)
The Cordillera Peoples' Democratic Front (CPDF) expresses deep concern and condemns the war of aggression being waged by the US-backed reactionary Armed Forces of the Philippines that has caused the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of both Christian and Moro people in Mindanao. It likewise condemns US direct intervention in the war-torn south.
STOP THE KILLINGS, STOP THE HARASSMENTS IN KALINGA, CORDILLERA (tags)
The Philippine Peasant Support Network (Pesante-USA) , a human righst and peasant advocacy group based in Los Angeles, express its militant solidarity with the Cordillera Human Rights Alliance (CHRA) in its protest against several cases of escalating harassments by police and military elements in the province of Kalinga. The Cordillera Human rights Alliance (CHRA) reported that cases of harassments were reported from Kalinga province. ?