Amnesty International Indonesia and Amnesty International Australia have condemned the repression used against the people in West Papua when they were commemorating Human Rights Day yesterday — December 10, which marks the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Indonesian authorities made 116 arrests and injured at least 17 people during multiple forced dispersals of rallies in the lead up to and during December 10 in four regencies across West Papua.
“We are appalled to hear about these mass arrests. Many were arrested when the rally had not even started,” Amnesty International Indonesia executive director Usman Hamid said.
“This shows Indonesian authorities’ utter disregard of West Papuans’ right to peaceful assembly.
“Criminalising them for simply peacefully exercising such right will only breed further resentment and distrust. That discriminatory treatment against them has to stop,” said Hamid.
“People all over the globe commemorated Human Rights Day. The fact that West Papuan people could not enjoy the same right, shows that there is a human rights emergency in West Papua.”
Amnesty International Australia national director Sam Klintworth said: “Australia needs to demand accountability from Indonesian authorities, especially as they are recipients of so much Australian aid.”
23 arrested in Wamena
On December 8, 23 people in Wamena were arrested for several hours when they were distributing leaflets for people to join the Human Rights Day rally.
On December 10, forced dispersals and mass arrests took place in Wamena and Jayapura.
In Jayapura, 56 people were arrested and at least 16 people were known to be injured during forced dispersals in multiple locations.
In Wamena, 37 people were arrested and at least one person was injured when the multiple rallies were forcibly dispersed.
Also on December 10, a rally in Sorong was forcibly dispersed, and the protest in Manokwari was blocked by police.
Most of the protesters were members of the West Papua National Committee (Komite Nasional Papua Barat – KNPB), a peaceful grassroots organisation campaigning for the right to self-determination.
Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Indonesia has ratified through Law No. 12/2005, explicitly guarantees the right of any person to hold opinions without interference.
Freedom of peaceful assembly is also guaranteed under Article 21 of the ICCPR.
Amnesty International does not take any position regarding political status within Indonesia, including calls for independence.
However, the organisation believes that the right to freedom of expression includes the right to peacefully advocate for independence referenda, or other political positions.
Civil society organisations which make up the National Alliance for Criminal Code Reform have slammed the decision by the Indonesian government and the House of Representatives (DPR) to ratify the Draft Criminal Code (RKUHP) which is seen as still containing a number of controversial articles, reports CNN Indonesia.
Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) chairperson Muhammad Isnur criticised the DPR and the government because the enactment of the law was rushed and did not involve public participation.
According to Isnur, a number of articles in the RKUHP will take Indonesian society into a period of being “colonised” by its own government.
“Indeed the latest version of this draft regulation was only published on November 30, 2022, and still contained a series of problematic articles which have been opposed by the public because it will carry Indonesian society into an era of being colonised by its own government,” said Isnur in a statement.
The Civil Coalition, as conveyed by Isnur, has highlighted a number of articles in the RKUHP which are anti-democratic, perpetuate corruption, silence press freedom, obstruct academic freedom and regulate the public’s private lives.
According to Isnur, these articles will only be “sharp below but blunt above”, meaning they will come down hard on the poor but go easy on the rich, and it would make it difficult to prosecute crimes committed by corporations against the people.
“Once again this will be a regulation which is sharp below, blunt above, because it will be difficult to prosecute criminal corporations that violate the rights of communities and workers,” he said.
Criminalised over ideas The Coalition for example highlighted Article 188 which criminalises anyone who spreads communist, Marxist or Leninist ideas, or other ideas which conflict with the state ideology of Pancasila.
According to Isnur, the article is ambiguous because it does not contain an explanation on who has the authority to determine if an idea conflicts with Pancasila.
According to Isnur, Article 188 has the potential to criminalise anyone, particularly government opponents, because it does not contain an explanation about which ideas conflict with Pancasila.
“This is a rubber [catchall] article and could revive the concept of crimes of subversion as occurred in the New Order era [of former president Suharto],” he said.
Then there are Articles 240 and 241 on insulting the government and state institutions.
He believes that these articles also have the potential to be “rubber” articles because they do not provide a definition of an insult. He is also concerned that the articles will be used to silence criticism against the government or state institutions.
The Coalition believes that there are still at least 14 problematic articles in the RKUHP. Aside from the spreading of communist ideas and insulting state institutions, there are several other articles such as those on morality, cohabitation and criminalising parades and protest actions.
Law ‘confusing’
The DPR earlier passed the RKUHP into law during a plenary meeting. A number of parties believe that the new law is confusing and contains problematic articles. These include the articles on insulting the president, makar (treason, subversion, rebellion), insulting state institutions, adultery and cohabitation and “fake news”.
Justice and Human Rights Minister Yasonna H. Laoly has invited members of the public to challenge the law in the Constitutional Court if they feel that there are articles that conflict with the constitution.
“So we must go through constitutional mechanisms, right. So we’re more civilised, be better at obeying the constitution, the law. So if it’s ratified into law the most correct mechanism is a judicial review,” said Laoly earlier.
Deputy Justice and Prosperity Minister Edward Omar Sharif Hiariej, meanwhile, is asking those who consider the law to be problematic or rushed to come and debate the issue with the ministry.
“You try answering yourself, yeah, is 59 years rushed? If it is said that many oppose it, how many? What is the substance? Come and debate it with us, we’re ready and we are truly convinced that if its tested it will be rejected,” said Hiariej.
A Palestinian man was shot and killed by an Israeli border police officer at point blank range on Friday evening in the northern occupied West Bank town of Huwwara in what is being described as an “execution” on social media.
The execution was captured on video and has circulated widely on social media.
The shooting occurred shortly before 5pm on Huwwara’s main road — a major throughway that connects dozens of villages with the city of Nablus to the north, and is used by both Palestinians and Israeli settlers.
Earlier this year, the main road of Huwwara was the site of a days-long Israeli settler rampage targeting Palestinians and their businesses with rocks, guns, axes, and other weapons.
Eyewitnesses to the shooting told Palestinian reporters that a scuffle ensued following an incident with an Israeli settler who was driving down the road.
“What happened is that there was a settler car passing by. They started harassing the young [Palestinian man], so he went towards the car and tried to open the door,” one of the witnesses told a Palestinian TV crew, referring to his SUV, which was allegedly shot at by the settler.
“So the settler cocked his weapon and shot him, and then shot at me in the jeep.”
Police officer ‘attacked man’
“Then the police officer came and started to attack him. Instead of moving the settler away, he kept attacking the guys, even though he was injured. The guy was trying to push the officer away and then the officer just started shooting him. He didn’t even give him a chance,” the witness continued.
The harrowing video capturing the Israeli border police officer shooting a Palestinian in Huwwara has circulated widely on social media and sparked outrage among Palestinians. Video published by Middle East Eye
The Border Police released an initial statement claiming the Palestinian man was shot after he attempted to stab a border police officer who was stationed in the area. The police then released another statement saying the Palestinian man “tried to enter a vehicle with an Israeli couple [inside].”
“While trying to break through the locked door, one of the occupants — an off-duty IDF officer — shot and apparently wounded the man with his handgun,” Times of Israel quoted the second statement as saying.
فيديو آخر يوثق لحظة إطلاق النار على شاب فلسطيني برصاص جندي إسرائيلي في حوارة جنوب نابلس pic.twitter.com/unbPRmrbJV
It was after being shot by the settler that the Palestinian man then allegedly went on to attempt to stab the officer, according to the border policeman’s account.
The police also released a photo of the alleged knife, and claimed that one officer was “lightly wounded” in the alleged stabbing and was evacuated for medical treatment, while the second officer, the one who killed the Palestinian man, was also “lightly wounded”.
No Palestinian eyewitness accounts published in the media made any mention of a knife.
Around 20 minutes after 5 pm, the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed the man had died from his wounds.
Though the MOH did not identify the man, Wafa News Agency identified him as 22-year-old Ammar Mefleh from the Nablus-area village of Osirin.
‘Execution’ The moment the man was killed was captured in a harrowing video that is being circulated widely on social media and broadcast on Al Jazeera, amid an outcry from Palestinians, calling it an “execution.”
DO NOT LOOK AWAY FROM THIS VIDEO. EXECUTION FROM POINT BLANK RANGE. THIS IS THE ISRAEL THAT THE WORLD DOES NOT WANT YOU TO SEE. pic.twitter.com/ePELGkU58O
The video shows him in a scuffle with an armed border police officer, whose assault rifle is strapped around his chest, along with a pistol in a holster around his waist.
In the midst of the scuffle, the border police officer can be seen attempting to drag the Palestinian man away from a group of other Palestinian men, who are trying to pull the man out of the officer’s grasp.
The officer puts the man in a headlock, and pulls him away from the two other men. The man then manages to free himself from the headlock, and pushes the officer away, while grabbing the officer’s assault rifle.
In a matter of seconds, as the Palestinian man throws the officer’s assault rifle to the ground, out of both of their grasps, the officer pulls out his pistol and begins firing at the man from point-blank range, who puts his hands up and curls away from the officer.
The officer fires four shots directly at the man, at point blank range, as shocked bystanders watch on, screaming for help. The officer then picks up his assault rifle, which was thrown some metres away on the ground.
A second video from a different angle shows the Palestinian man lying bloodied on the ground as the officer gets on his radio to call for backup.
Israel forces prevented medical aid
According to local reports, Israeli forces surrounded the man’s body for around 20 minutes, preventing Palestinian medics from providing him with first aid, before Israeli troops seized his body and took him to an undisclosed location.
The man in Huwwara is the ninth Palestinian killed by Israeli forces this week, bringing the total number of Palestinians killed by Israel in 2022 to 214.
The Israeli military and armed forces operating in the occupied West Bank have operated under open-fire regulations that translate into what rights groups call a shoot-to-kill policy, which they say has been given a green light by Israeli officials.
Earlier this year the army amended its open fire policy, making it even more lenient for soldiers, allowing for soldier to shoot — even kill — Palestinian stone-throwers with live ammunition, even if they are actively fleeing the scene.
For 30 years, developing nations have fought to establish an international fund to pay for the “loss and damage” they suffer as a result of climate change. As the COP27 climate summit in Egypt wrapped up over the weekend, they finally succeeded.
While it’s a historic moment, the agreement of loss and damage financing left many details yet to be sorted out.
What’s more, many critics have lamented the overall outcome of COP27, saying it falls well short of a sufficient response to the climate crisis. As Alok Sharma, president of COP26 in Glasgow, noted:
“Friends, I said in Glasgow that the pulse of 1.5 degrees was weak. Unfortunately it remains on life support.”
But annual conferences aren’t the only way to pursue meaningful action on climate change. Mobilisation from activists, market forces and other sources of momentum mean hope isn’t lost.
One big breakthrough: loss and damage There were hopes COP27 would lead to new commitments on emissions reduction, renewed commitments for the transfer of resources to the developing world, strong signals for a transition away from fossil fuels, and the establishment of a loss and damage fund.
By any estimation, the big breakthrough of COP27 was the agreement to establish a fund for loss and damage. This would involve wealthy nations compensating developing states for the effects of climate change, especially droughts, floods, cyclones and other disasters.
Most analysts have been quick to point out there Is still a lot yet to clarify in terms of donors, recipients or rules of accessing this fund.
It Is not clear where funds will actually come from, or whether countries such as China will contribute, for example. These and other details are yet to be agreed.
Marathon negotiations saw hard-won progress on addressing #LossAndDamage, but woefully inadequate shared outcomes around phasing out fossil fuels and tackling the causes of the climate crisis. #auspol
We should also acknowledge the potential gaps between promises and money on the table, given the failure of developed states to deliver on US$100 billion per year of climate finance for developing states by 2020. This was committed to in Copenhagen in 2009.
But it was a significant fight to get the issue of loss and damage on the agenda in Egypt at all. So the agreement to establish this fund is clearly a monumental outcome for developing countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change — and least responsible for it.
It was also a win for the Egyptian hosts, who were keen to flag their sensitivity to issues confronting the developing world.
The fund comes 30 years after the measure was first suggested by Vanuatu back in 1991.
The agreement reached at #COP27, imperfect as it may be, moves us forward in implementing the Paris Agreement. But what this COP made clear is that we need greater ambition. Recommitting to the 1.5°C target is an important outcome of #COP27, but it is the bare minimum. (1/4)
Not-so-good news The loss and damage fund will almost certainly be remembered as the marquee outcome of COP27, but other developments were less promising. Among these were various fights to retain commitments made in Paris in 2015 and Glasgow last year.
In Paris, nations agreed to limit global warming to well below 2℃, and preferably to 1.5℃ this century, compared to pre-industrial levels. So far, the planet has warmed by 1.09℃, and emissions are at record levels.
Temperature trajectories make it increasingly challenging for the world to limit temperature rises to 1.5℃. And the fact keeping this commitment in Egypt was a hard-won fight casts some doubt on the global commitment to mitigation.
China in particular had questioned whether the 1.5℃ target was worth retaining, and this became a key contest in the talks.
New Zealand Climate Change Minister James Shaw said a group of countries were undermining decisions made in previous conferences. He added this:
“really came to the fore at this COP, and I’m afraid there was just a massive battle which ultimately neither side won.”
Perhaps even more worrying was the absence of a renewed commitment to phase out fossil fuels, which had been flagged in Glasgow. Oil-producing countries in particular fought this.
Instead, the final text noted only the need for a “phase down of unabated coal power”, which many viewed as inadequate for the urgency of the challenge.
Likewise, hoped-for rules to stop greenwashing and new restrictions on carbon markets were not forthcoming.
Both this outcome, and the failure to develop new commitments to phase out fossil fuels, arguably reflect the power of fossil fuel interests and lobbyists. COP26 President Alok Sharma captured the frustration of countries in the high-ambition coalition, saying:
“We joined with many parties to propose a number of measures that would have contributed to [raising ambition].
“Emissions peaking before 2025 as the science tells us is necessary. Not in this text. Clear follow through on the phase down of coal. Not in this text. Clear commitments to phase out all fossil fuels. Not in this text. And the energy text weakened in the final minutes.”
And as United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres lamented: “Our planet is still in the emergency room”.
Beyond COP27? In the end, exhausted delegates signed off on an inadequate agreement, but largely avoided the backsliding that looked possible over fraught days of negotiations.
The establishment of a fund for loss and damage is clearly an important outcome of COP27, even with details yet to be fleshed out.
At the beginning of these talks, loss & damage was not even on the agenda and now we are making history. It just shows that this UN process can achieve results, and that the world can recognise the plight of the vulnerable must not be treated as a political football.
But otherwise, the negotiations can’t be seen as an unambiguously positive outcome for action on the climate crisis — especially with very little progress on mitigating emissions. And while the world dithers, the window of opportunity to respond effectively to the climate crisis continues to close.
It’s important to note, however, that while COPs are clearly significant in the international response to the climate crisis, they are not the only game in town.
Public mobilisation and activism, market forces, aid and development programmes, and legislation at local, state and national levels are all important sites of climate politics — and potentially, significant change.
There are myriad examples. Take the international phenomenon of school climate strikes, or climate activist Mike Cannon-Brookes’ takeover of AGL Energy. They point to the possibility of action on climate change outside formal international climate negotiations.
So if you’re despairing at the limited progress at COP27, remember this: nations and communities determined to wean themselves off fossil fuels will do more to blunt the power of the sector than most international agreements could realistically hope to achieve.
The fate of Myanmar has major implications for a free and open Indo-Pacific.
An undemocratic Myanmar serves no one’s interests except China, which is consolidating its economic and strategic influence in its smaller neighbour in pursuit of its two-ocean strategy.
Since the coup China has been — by far — the main source of foreign investment in Myanmar.
This includes US$2.5 billion in a gas-fired power plant to be built west of Myanmar’s capital, Yangon, that will be 81 percent owned and operated by Chinese companies.
Among the dozens of infrastructure projects China is funding are high-speed rail links and dams. But its most strategically important investment is the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, encompassing oil and gas pipelines, roads and rail links costing many tens of billions of dollars.
The corridor’s “jewel in the crown” is a deep-sea port to be built at Kyaukphyu, on Myanmar’s west coast, at an estimated cost of US$7 billion.
This will finally give China its long-desired “back door” to the Indian Ocean.
A map of China’s planned ‘back door’ to the Indian Ocean. Source: Vivekananda International Foundation
Natural gas from Myanmar can help China reduce its dependence on imports from suppliers such as Australia. Access to the Indian Ocean will enable China to import gas and oil from the Middle East, Africa and Venezuela without ships having to pass through the contested waters of the South China Sea to Chinese ports.
About 80 percent of China’s oil imports now move through the South China Sea via the Malacca Strait, which is just 65 kilometres wide at its narrowest point between the Malay Peninsula and Indonesia’s Sumatra.
Overcoming this strategic vulnerability arguably makes the Kyaukphyu port and pipelines the most important element of China’s Belt and Road initiative to reshape global trade routes and assert its influence over other nations.
Deepening relationship Most of China’s infrastructure investment was planned before Myanmar’s coup. But whereas other governments and foreign investors have sought to distance themselves from the junta since it overthrew Myanmar’s elected government in February 2021, China has deepened its relationship.
China is the Myanmar regime’s most important international supporter. In April Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China would support Myanmar “no matter how the situation changes”. In May it used its veto power on the United Nations Security Council to thwart a statement expressing concern about violence and the growing humanitarian crisis in Myanmar.
Work continues on projects associated with the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor. New ventures (such as the aforementioned power station) have been approved.
More projects are on the cards. In June, for example, China’s embassy in Myanmar announced the completion of a feasibility study to upgrade the Wan Pong port on the Lancang-Mekong River in Myanmar’s east.
Debt trap warnings In 2020, before the coup, Myanmar’s auditor general Maw Than warned of growing indebtedness to China, with Chinese lenders charging higher interest payments than those from the International Monetary Fund or World Bank.
At that time about 40 percent of Myanmar’s foreign debt of US$10 billion was owed to China. It is likely to be greater now. It will only increase the longer a military dictatorship, with few other supporters or sources of foreign money, remains in power, dragging down Myanmar’s economy.
Efforts to restore democracy in Myanmar should therefore be seen as crucial to the long-term strategic interests of the region’s democracies, and to global peace and prosperity, given the increasing belligerence of China under Xi Jinping.
Xi, now president for life, this month told the People’s Liberation Army to prepare for war. A compliant and indebted Myanmar with a deep-sea port controlled by Chinese interests tips the scales towards that happening.
A democratic and independent Myanmar is a counter-strategy to this potential.
Calls for sanctions Myanmar’s democracy movement wants the international community to impose tough sanctions on the junta. But few have responded.
The United States and United Kingdom have gone furthest, banning business dealings with Myanmar military officials and state-owned or private companies controlled by the military.
The European Union and Canada have imposed sanctions against a more limited range of individuals and economic entities.
South Korea has suspended financing new infrastructure projects. Japan has suspended aid and postponed the launch of Myanmar’s first satellite. New Zealand has suspended political and military contact.
Australia has suspended military cooperation (with some pre-existing restrictions on dealing with military leaders imposed following the human rights atrocities committed against the Rohingya in 2017.
But that’s about it.
Myanmar’s closest neighbours in the ten-member Association of South-East Asian Nations are still committed to a policy of dialogue and “non-interference” – though Malaysia and Indonesia are increasingly arguing for a tougher approach as the atrocities mount.
Aotearoa New Zealand’s Green Party has again urged the government to step up its condemnation of Iran.
About 50 protesters burned headscarves and passports outside the Iranian embassy in the capital Wellington yesterday.
There has been a wave of protest in Iran and around the world over the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by the “morality police” for violating Iran’s dress code.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the government had been working hard over the past several months to ensure the safe exit of travellers Topher Richwhite and his wife Bridget Thackwray.
Greens’ foreign affairs spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman said there was no longer anything stopping the government taking stronger action.
Green Party foreign affairs spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman hugs a protester. Image: Angus Dreaver/RNZ News
“Now there is no imagined or real impediment to us actually taking action and it is our responsibility to do that,” Ghahraman said.
“We need to come to line with the rest of the world when action on Iran is concerned.
Specific actions needed
“There are these very specific actions we can take that will hurt the people most responsible for this violence and oppression.”
Ghahraman wanted a freeze on the assets, bank accounts and travel of people supporting violence in Iran.
Protests continue in Iran . . . NZ Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta says NZ was “appalled” by the use of force by Iranian authorities. Photo: Andalou/RNZ News
There has been an upsurge in the protests this week, with tens of thousands taking to the streets in major cities across Iran after security forces were reported to have opened fire on protesters in Saqquez, Amini’s home city, on Wednesday.
In a tweet, Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta said Aotearoa was “appalled” by the use of force by Iranian authorities overnight.
“Violence against women, girls or any other members of Iranian society to prevent their exercise of universal human rights is unacceptable and must end.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
A senior lecturer from Massey University who was born and raised in Iran, Dr Negar Partow, said there was a pattern of this kind of action in Iran.
However, she told RNZ Morning Report it was not necessarily naive for the couple to visit the country.
When they arrived in July it was much quieter than what it became when the unrest started in September after the death of Mahsa Amini, who was detained by morality police for allegedly not covering her hair properly.
However, travelling in a Jeep — a US brand — might have created suspicions, she said.
NZ not especially targeted
The move against the New Zealanders was not especially targeted at this country, she said, with as many as 70 nations having citizens in Iranian prisons.
“The fact that Iran entered a revolutionary phase complicated the situation and gave the Islamic Republic the opportunity to use them and to create a hostage diplomacy. This is not particular to Aotearoa. They do it all around the world,” she said.
Topher Richwhite and his wife Bridget Thackwray pictured in South Africa . . . they may have attracted attention in Iran driving their US-branded Jeep, says an academic. Image: Expeditionearth.live/Instagram/RNZ
People with dual citizenship, diplomats, activists, and human rights and environmental advocates were especially vulnerable to attention from Iranian authorities.
If the couple had been focusing on environmental concerns that may have made them a target, she said.
“As the Islamic Republic becomes more and more challenged and de-legitimised by this revolution, these hostage crises will increase and they will use any opportunity as a bargaining chip.”
There have been conflicting reports on now the couple were detained.
Dr Partow said Iran used different models, including imprisonment or being detained in a safe house and not being allowed to communicate.
Richwhite and Thackwray would have had their passports confiscated and their cellphones removed with their Instagram posts stopping in July.
She believed they were not put in prison.
Tepid resoponse by NZ
Asked about the tepid response by the New Zealand government to the unrest in Iran, she said the government was trying to do a delicate balancing act while the couple were being detained.
Many Western governments had to resort to hostage diplomacy with Iran.
Exiled Iranians of the National Council of Resistance of Iran in front of the embassy of Iran in Berlin, Germany, with images of Mahsa Amini. Image: RNZ File
While Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta has warned against visiting Iran due to the potential for violence, Dr Partow said it was important to remember the violence was being perpetrated by the security agencies not the protesters.
She said now that the couple had been freed, she was hopeful Aotearoa would take a stronger stance.
“Yes we have been too kind but I’m hoping that as we come out of this period and everybody’s back to normal diplomacy we will take stronger action against the Islamic republic,” she said.
“As the prime minister mentioned as well, this was a delicate diplomatic situation … we did have two New Zealanders inside Iran detained and I think that [strong criticism of Iran] would create more complications.”
Expulsion of ambassador
The expulsion of the ambassador, campaigning for oil embargoes, speaking out publicly to support the rights of Iranian women and human rights lobbying at the United Nations were among measures New Zealand should be considering.
“Now that we have been the victim of hostage crisis in the Islamic Republic that should give us much more importance into the project and we should actually work on it,” she said.
As for advice for potential visitors, she said: “Definitely not. Iran is in the middle of a revolution.”
Ordinary citizens were not in a position to offer help to foreign tourists and it was far better that they stayed away.
She said as the revolution approached the six-week mark, the response from authorities to the demonstrations was becoming even more violent and oppressive.
Asked about Act’s move to block a motion calling for a unified condemnation of Iran’s oppression of women’s rights unless Greens MP Golriz Ghahraman apologised for interrupting a speech made by party leader David Seymour in the House, she said it should be remembered that the Iranian government was now killing children and this was a more important consideration.
Deputy PM pleased couple released The government is remaining tight lipped about what it took to secure the release of the couple.
Consular officials around the world did not judge New Zealanders who got into trouble — instead they got on with the job of helping them regain their freedom.
“I’m just pleased we’ve been able to get them out.”
Robertson told RNZ First Up he could not comment specifically on the couple’s case — but he said it was important to understand the customs and rules of other countries — and to understand whether you should be there at all.
He said no doubt the pair would reflect on what they have been through.
Call for NZ govt to take strong stand An Iranian-Kurdish journalist now living in New Zealand said the government needed to do more regarding the actions of Iran’s government.
Behrouz Boochani, who was granted refugee status in New Zealand in July 2020, said New Zealand should speak out loudly against the Iranian regime.
He said the current unrest was a revolution and was a call for regime change in Iran.
While there had been mass protests in the past, this year felt different because it involved more people and more cities.
He said he was delighted the couple had been freed. However, the Iranian community in New Zealand had been disappointed in Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s response to the unrest in Iran to this point.
He said since Mahsa Amini’s death another 250 people had been killed, including more than 20 children.
“So we expect the New Zealand government to strongly condemn this violence and strongly support the protesters on the street and the people of Iran.”
The US and Australia have criticised the Iranian government’s actions and it was time New Zealand followed suit.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
New Zealand journalist and academic David Robie has covered the Asia-Pacific region for international media for more than four decades.
An advocate for media freedom in the Pacific region, he is the author of several books on South Pacific media and politics, including an account of the French bombing of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour in 1985 — which took place while he was on the last voyage.
In 1994 he founded the journal Pacific Journalism Review examining media issues and communication in the South Pacific, Asia-Pacific, Australia and New Zealand.
The Mediasia “conversation” on Asia-Pacific issues in Kyoto, Japan. Image: Iafor screenshot APR
He was also convenor of the Pacific Media Watch media freedom collective, which collaborates with Reporters Without Borders in Paris, France.
Until he retired at Auckland University of Technology in 2020 as that university’s first professor in journalism and founder of the Pacific Media Centre, Dr Robie organised many student projects in the South Pacific such as the Bearing Witness climate action programme.
In this interview conducted by Mediasia organising committee member Dr Nasya Bahfen of La Trobe University for this week’s 13th International Asian Conference on Media, Communication and Film that ended today in Kyoto, Japan, Professor Robie discusses a surge of disinformation and the challenges it posed for journalists in the region as they covered the covid-19 pandemic alongside a parallel “infodemic” of fake news and hoaxes.
He also explores the global climate emergency and the disproportionate impact it is having on the Asia-Pacific.
Paying a tribute to Pacific to the dedication and courage of Pacific journalists, he says with a chuckle: “All Pacific journalists are climate journalists — they live with it every day.”
Challenges facing the Asia-Pacific media . . . La Trobe University’s Dr Nasya Bahfen and Asia Pacific Report’s Dr David Robie in conversation. Image: Iafor screenshot APR
Philippine police have announced the arrest of a suspect in the killing of a radio journalist who was known for criticising President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his immediate predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte.
The suspect, identified as Joel Estorial, 39, gave himself up to the Philippine National Police (PNP) and Interior Secretary Benjamin Abalos and was charged with murder two weeks after seasoned radio broadcaster Percival Mabasa (also known as Percy Lapid) was gunned down in a suburb south of Manila, officials said.
Estorial surrendered “out of fear for personal safety following public disclosure of … CCTV footage revealing his face during the incident and naming him as [a] primary person of interest,” according to a statement from Abalos’ office.
“This is a major breakthrough. He made an extra-judicial confession, duly assisted by counsel,” Abalos said, adding that the suspect had named three other accomplices who were subjects of “intensive follow-up operations”.
The gun used to shoot Mabasa was recovered and “positively linked to the crime scene” by the police forensics laboratory, according to the national police.
Estoral confessed that five others had allegedly participated in the planning and killing of the broadcaster, but he only managed to identify three.
Mabasa, who worked for DWBL radio station, was ambushed on October 3 as he drove his car toward a gated community in Las Pinas, a suburb in southern metro Manila. He was the latest in a long line of killings targeting members of the Philippine media.
Motive remains unknown
However, the motive for his murder remains unknown. Abalos did not answer reporters when they asked him about this on Tuesday.
“Just give us a few more days. We have to get the mastermind, that’s very important. The investigation is ongoing right now, there are many more details. Let’s not jeopardise them,” he said.
The suspect in custody was presented at the press briefing, where he spoke to reporters.
Someone from inside the country’s main prison facility, whom Estoral did not identify, had ordered a hit on Mabasa, he said. He identified two brothers and a third man as fellow accomplices in the attack.
“I was afraid and conscience-struck for the killing of Percy Lapid,” said a handcuffed Estorial, who wore a helmet and bullet-proof vest.
“Our arrangement was for whoever got closest to Percy would be the one to fire the fatal shot, and I was in that position. I was threatened with death if I didn’t shoot Percy at that moment, so I did,” Estorial said.
The team was paid 550,000 pesos (US$9300) for the hit, he told reporters.
“I hope the family forgives me. I did not want to do it, I was just forced to do so,” he said.
Family thank police
Mabasa’s family issued a statement Tuesday thanking the police and saying they hoped his killing would not become just another statistic among murders of Filipino journalists dating back decades.
“We hope this development leads to the identification, arrest and prosecution of the mastermind,” the family said.
Filipino activists light candles in memory of killed radio journalist Percival Mabasa (also known as Percy Lapid) during a demonstration in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Oct. 4, 2022. [Basilio Sepe/BenarNews]
The Southeast Asian nation ranks among the most dangerous countries for journalists worldwide. Dozens have been killed with impunity since the dictatorship of Marcos’ late father, Ferdinand E. Marcos, more than 36 years ago.
Mabasa’s commentaries were often bold and sharp as he sought to counter fake news spread on air as well as on social media. He had also hit out against a perceived attempt by supporters of the Marcos family to distort history and had been bitingly critical of the war on drugs by Marcos’ predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, which left thousands dead. During his six years in office, Duterte had said journalists were fair game if they were corrupt.
The Duterte administration worked to close down broadcaster ABS-CBN Corp. and convict Maria Ressa, the chief executive of the news website Rappler who was later named a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, on cyber libel charges.
Jeoffrey Maitem and Mark Navales in Cotabato City, southern Philippines, and Basilio Sepe in Manila contributed to this report.
The #HoldTheLine Coalition has urged President Marcos of the Philippines to end persecution of journalists and independent media by dropping all charges against Nobel Peace Prize co-laureate Maria Ressa and her co-accused.
This week, the Philippine Court of Appeals rejected Ressa’s motion for a reconsideration of her 2020 conviction on a trumped-up charge of criminal cyber libel.
This means that after a two-year struggle to overturn her conviction, all that stands between Ressa’s freedom and a lengthy prison sentence is a final appeal to the Supreme Court, and the government’s political will.
“We call on President Marcos to show the world that he rejects the Duterte-era persecution and prosecution of journalists and independent media by immediately withdrawing all charges and cases against Ressa, her co-accused, and her Manila-based news outlet Rappler,” the #HoldTheLine Coalition steering committee said on behalf of more than 80 international organisations — including Reporters Without Borders — joining forces to defend Ressa and support independent media in the Philippines.
“President Marcos should begin by ending his government’s opposition to Ressa’s appeal against her conviction on spurious criminal cyber libel charges, which were pursued and prosecuted by the State despite the Philippine Supreme Court’s warning that the country’s criminalisation of libel is ‘doubtful’.”
There have been 23 individual cases opened by the state against Maria Ressa, Rappler and its employees since 2018.
The criminal cyber libel case is one of seven ongoing cases implicating Ressa. If she is successfully prosecuted in all cases, she theoretically faces up to 100 years in jail.
Ressa now has just two weeks to file a final appeal to the Philippine Supreme Court, which could then swiftly issue a written verdict, resulting in the enforcement of her prison sentence.
— Julie Posetti (ICFJ), Rebecca Vincent (RSF), and Gypsy Guillén Kaiser (CPJ) on behalf of the #HoldTheLine Coalition.
The #HTL Coalition comprises more than 80 organisations around the world. This statement is issued by the #HoldTheLine Steering Committee, but it does not necessarily reflect the position of all or any individual Coalition members or organisations. Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.
As protests in Iran drag on into their fourth week over the violent death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman, there are two central questions.
The first is whether these protests involving women and girls across Iran are different from upheavals in the past, or will simply end the same way with the regime stifling a popular uprising.
The second question is what can, and should, the outside world do about extraordinarily brave demonstrations against an ageing and ruthless regime that has shown itself to be unwilling, and possibly unable, to allow greater freedoms?
The symbolic issue for Iran’s protest movement is a requirement, imposed by morality police, that women and girls wear the hijab, or headscarf. In reality, these protests are the result of a much wider revolt against discrimination and prejudice.
Put simply, women are fed up with a regime that has sought to impose rigid rules on what is, and is not, permissible for women in a theocratic society whose guidelines are little changed since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979.
Women are serving multi-year jail sentences for simply refusing to wear the hijab.
Two other issues are also at play. One is the economic deprivation suffered by Iranians under the weight of persistent sanctions, rampant inflation and the continuing catastrophic decline in the value of the Iranian riyal.
The other issue is the fact Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old whose death sparked the protests, was a Kurd.
The Kurds, who constitute about 10 percent of Iran’s 84 million population, feel themselves to be a persecuted minority. Tensions between the central government in Tehran and Kurds in their homeland on the boundaries of Iraq, Syria and Turkey are endemic.
A BBC report on the Mahsa Amini protests.
Another important question is where all this leaves negotiations on the revival of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The JCPOA had been aimed at freezing Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions.
Former President Donald Trump recklessly abandoned the 2015 agreement in 2018.
The Biden administration, along with its United Nations Security Council partners plus Germany, had been making progress in those negotiations, but those efforts are now stalled, if not frozen.
The spectacle of Iranian security forces violently putting down demonstrations in cities, towns and villages across Iran will make it virtually impossible in the short term for the US and its negotiating partners to negotiate a revised JCPOA with Tehran.
How will the US and its allies respond? So will the US and its allies continue to tighten Iranian sanctions? And to what extent will the West seek to encourage and support protesters on the ground in Iran?
One initiative that is already underway is helping the protest movement to circumvent regime attempts to shut down electronic communications.
Elon Musk has announced he is activating his Starlink satellites to provide a vehicle for social media communications in Iran. Musk did the same thing in Ukraine to get around Russian attempts to shut down Ukrainian communications by taking out a European satellite system.
However, amid the spectacle of women and girls being shot and tear-gassed on Iranian streets, the moral dilemma for the outside world is this: how far the West is prepared to go in its backing for the protesters.
Since the Iranian protests began there have also been pro-government rallies in response. Image: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA/AAP
It is one thing to express sympathy; it is another to take concrete steps to support the widespread agitation. This was also the conundrum during the Arab Spring of 2010 that brought down regimes in US-friendly countries like Egypt and Tunisia.
It should not be forgotten, in light of contemporary events, that Iran and Russia propped up Syria’s Assad regime during the Arab Spring, saving it from a near certain end.
In this latest period, the Middle East may not be on fire, as it was a decade or so ago, but it remains highly unstable. Iran’s neighbour, Iraq, is effectively without a government after months of violent agitation.
The war in Yemen is threatening to spark up again, adding to uncertainties in the Gulf.
In a geopolitical sense, Washington has to reckon with inroads Moscow has been making in relations with Gulf States, including, notably Saudi Arabia.
The recent OPEC Plus decision to limit oil production constituted a slap to the US ahead of the mid-term elections in which fuel prices will be a potent issue.
In other words, Washington’s ability to influence events in the Middle East is eroding, partly as a consequence of a disastrous attempt to remake the region by going to war in Iraq in 2003.
The US’s ability to influence the Middle East is much weaker than before it went to war in Iraq in 2003. Image: Susan Walsh/AP/AAP
A volatile region
Among the consequences of that misjudgement is the empowerment of Iran in conjunction with a Shia majority in Iraq. This should have been foreseen.
So quite apart from the waves of protest in Iran, the region is a tinderbox with multiple unresolved conflicts.
In Afghanistan, on the fringes of the Middle East, women protesters have taken the lead in recent days from their Iranian sisters and have been protesting against conservative dress codes and limitations on access to education under the Taliban.
This returns us to the moral issue of the extent to which the outside world should support the protests. In this, the experience of the “green” rebellion of 2009 on Iran’s streets is relevant.
Then, the Obama administration, after initially giving encouragement to the demonstrations, pulled back on the grounds it did not wish to jeopardise negotiations on a nuclear deal with Iran or undermine the protests by attaching US support.
Officials involved in the administration, who are now back in the Biden White House, believe that approach was a mistake. However, that begs the question as to what practically the US and its allies can do to stop Iran’s assault on its own women and girls.
What if, as a consequence of Western encouragement to the demonstrators, many hundreds more die or are incarcerated?
What is the end result, beyond indulging in the usual rhetorical exercises such as expressing “concern” and threatening to ramp up sanctions that hurt individual Iranians more than the regime itself?
The bottom line is that irrespective of what might be the desired outcome, Iran’s regime is unlikely to crumble.
It might be shaken, it might entertain concerns that its own revolution that replaced the Shah is in danger of being replicated, but it would be naïve to believe that a rotting 43-year-old edifice would be anything but utterly ruthless in putting an end to the demonstrations.
This includes unrest in the oil industry, in which workers are expressing solidarity with the demonstrators. The oil worker protest will be concerning the regime, given the centrality of oil production to Iran’s economy.
However, a powerful women’s movement has been unleashed in Iran. Over time, this movement may well force a theocratic regime to loosen restrictions on women and their participation in the political life of the country. That is the hope, but as history has shown, a ruthless regime will stop at little to re-assert its control.
The Philippines Court of Appeals has denied the motion for reconsideration filed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Rappler CEO Maria Ressa and former Rappler researcher Reynaldo Santos Jr. over their cyber libel case.
In a 16-page decision dated October 10, the court’s fourth division denied the appeal.
Associate Justices Roberto Quiroz, Ramon Bato Jr., and Germano Francisco Legaspi signed the ruling. They were the same justices who signed the court decision, which earlier affirmed the conviction of Ressa and Santos.
According to the court, the arguments raised by Ressa and Santos were already resolved.
“A careful and meticulous review of the motion for reconsideration reveals that the matters raised by the accused-appellants had already been exhaustively resolved and discussed in the assailed Decision,” the court said.
The court also claimed Ressa’s and Santos’ conviction is not meant to curtail freedom of speech.
“In conclusion, it [is] worthy and relevant to point out that the conviction of the accused-appellants for the crime of cyberlibel punishable under the Cybercrime Law is not geared towards the curtailment of the freedom of speech, or to produce an unseemingly chilling effect on the users of cyberspace that would possibly hinder free speech.”
‘Safeguard’ for free speech
On the contrary, the court said, the purpose of the law is to “safeguard the right of free speech, and to curb, if not totally prevent, the reckless and unlawful use of the computer systems as a means of committing the traditional criminal offences…”
In a statement, Nobel Peace laureate Ressa said she was “disappointed” but not surprised by the ruling.
Rappler’s video report on YouTube.
“The ongoing campaign of harassment and intimidation against me and Rappler continues, and the Philippines legal system is not doing enough to stop it. I am disappointed by today’s ruling but sadly not surprised,” Ressa said.
“This is a reminder of the importance of independent journalism holding power to account. Despite these sustained attacks from all sides, we continue to focus on what we do best — journalism.”
Santos, in a separate statement, said he still believed that the rule of law would prevail.
“The [Appeal Court’s] decision to deny our motion is not surprising, but it’s disheartening nevertheless. As we elevate our case to the SC, our fight against intimidation and suppression of freedom continues. We still believe that the rule of law will prevail.”
Theodore “Ted” Te, Rappler’s lawyer and former Supreme Court spokesperson, said they would now ask the Supreme Court to review and reverse Ressa’s conviction.
“The CA decision denying the MFR [motion for reconsideration] is disappointing. It ignored basic principles of constitutional and criminal law as well as the evidence presented. Maria and Rey will elevate these issues to the SC and we will ask the SC to review the decision and to reverse the decision,” Te said in a statement.
The decision The Appeal Court also explained its findings on the arguments based on:
Applications of the provisions of cyber libel under the cybercrime law
Subject article should have been classified as qualifiedly privileged” in relation to Wilfredo Keng as a public figure
On the validity of the cybercrime law, the court cited a ruling which, according to them, decided the constitutionality of the law.
The court also reiterated that the story in question was republished. The court said the argument that ex-post facto was applied on the theory that the correction of one letter is too unsubstantial and cannot be considered a republication is “unavailing.”
“As settled, the determination of republication is not hinged on whether the corrections made therein were substantial or not, as what matters is that the very exact libelous article was again published on a later date,” the appeals court said.
On the increase of penalty, the CA said the argument that Wilberto Tolentino v. People has no doctrinal value and cannot be used as a binding precedent as it was “an unsigned resolution, is misplaced.”
That case said the “prescriptive period for the crime of cyber libel is 15 years.”
Traditional, online publications
The appeals court also highlighted the difference between traditional and online publications: “As it is, in the instance of libel through traditional publication, the libelous article is only released and circulated once – which is on the day when it was published.”
Such was not the case for an online publication, the court said, where “the commission of such offence is continuous since such article remains therein in perpetuity unless taken down from all online platforms where it was published…”
On the argument about Keng, the CA said it was insufficient to consider him a public figure: “As previously settled, the claim that Wilfredo Keng is a renowned businessman, who was connected to several companies, is insufficient to classify him as a public figure.”
The term “public figure” in relation to libel refers more to a celebrity, it said, citing the Ciriaco “Boy” Guingguing v. Honorable Court of Appeals decision. The decision said a public figure is “anyone who has arrived at a position where public attention is focused upon him as a person.”
It also cited the Supreme Court decision on Alfonso Yuchengco v. The Manila Chronicle Publishing Corporation, et al., which resolved the argument whether a businessman can be considered a public figure. The court said that being a known businessman did not make Keng a public figure who had attained a position that gave the public “legitimate interest in his affairs and character.”
There was no proof, too, that “he voluntarily thrusted himself to the forefront of the particular public controversies that were raised in the defamatory article,” the CA added.
In 2020, Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 46 convicted Ressa and Santos over cyber libel charges filed by Keng. The case tested the 8-year-old Philippine cybercrime law.
The Manila court interpreted the cyber libel law as having a 12-year proscription period, as opposed to only a year. The lower court also decided that republication was a separate offence.
Aside from affirming the Manila court’s ruling, the CA also imposed a longer prison sentence on Ressa and Santos, originally set for six months and one day as minimum to six years as maximum.
The appeals court added eight months and 20 days to the maximum imprisonment penalty.
Jairo Bolledo is a Rappler journalist. Republished with permission.
Upon assuming the Philippines presidency on 30 June 2022, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr — the only son and namesake of the former dictator Ferdinand Marcos — delivered an inaugural address that did not mention press freedom.
Press freedom also went unmentioned when he delivered his first State of the Nation Address before the joint Senate and House of Representatives on 25 July 2022.
His silence on the issue was notable given that the former press secretary Trixie Cruz-Angeles, who stepped down on 4 October 2022 due to health reasons, had stressed that press freedom would be guaranteed under the Marcos Jr administration and that the administration would “work closely” with news media.
But as he pledged to protect press freedom on the campaign trail, certain journalists were pushed for getting too physically close to Marcos Jr.
It also remains to be seen whether his representatives will continue to evade critical questions during press briefings or if Marcos Jr will be more accommodating of interview requests. The normalisation of these practices would be a death knell for press freedom in the Philippines.
Media restrictions and abuse under Marcos Jr evoke memories of the Philippine media’s dark history under former Philippines president and dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ martial law from 1972–86.
The Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility identifies five similarities between the Marcos regime in the 1970s and the current Marcos Jr administration.
Distribution of propaganda
These are the distribution of propaganda through government agencies and social media, the ABS–CBN shutdown, attacks and threats against journalists, crony press and media selectivity and propaganda films.
There are chilling similarities between the two administrations despite Marcos Jr’s promise that he would not declare martial law.
For the current administration, “working closely” with journalists means putting them in touch with pro-Marcos Jr vloggers, content creators and influencers. Cruz-Angeles is prioritising the accreditation of pro-regime reporters to cover official functions.
But her claim that accreditation is open to those of all political beliefs rings untrue as pro-Marcos Jr vloggers recently established a new group (upon the suggestion of Cruz-Angeles herself) to help gain government accreditation.
Celebrity vlogger Toni Gonzaga was granted a one-on-one interview with Marcos Jr at the Malacañang Palace in September 2022, showing how the administration accommodates those who ask soft questions. That reminds many Filipinos of Marcos Jr’s non-participation in most presidential debates and interviews during the campaign, opting to accommodate events organised by his supporters.
During the 2022 election campaign, there were times when his handlers did not invite critical journalists, asking those invited to submit questions in advance to control the flow of press briefings.
By accrediting pro-administration, hyper-partisan non-journalists, the Marcos Jr administration gives them legitimacy as “truth seekers” even if there is evidence they proliferate disinformation. It is also a strategy to discredit critical journalists for peddling “fake news”.
Critical journalists harassed
Critical journalists and media organisations are harassed and intimidated under the Marcos Jr administration, just as they were under the 2016–2020 Duterte administration. Disinformation remains rampant even after the 2022 elections.
Red-tagging — the blacklisting of journalists and media outlets critical of the government — has continued.
Shortly after Marcos Jr assumed the presidency, the Court of Appeals upheld the “cyber libel” convictions of Nobel Prize laureate Maria Ressa and former Rappler writer Reynaldo Santos Jr.
While these convictions appeared to carry over the selective harassment and intimidation of the vengeful Duterte administration, the chilling effect on the media is real. Those targeted become grim reminders of what can happen if journalists and news media organisations incur the ire of the powers that be.
The date 21 September 2022 marked the 50 years since martial law was imposed. Marcos Jr repeatedly claims martial law was necessary to tackle communist and separatist threats, dismissing accusations that his father was a dictator.
Even the funding for the planned memorial for Martial Law victims was cut by 75 percent in the 2023 National Expenditure Programme.
Marcos Jr intends to rewrite history textbooks to include his family’s version of the truth. By silencing his critics, he can further engage in historical denialism. This is important not just to erase his father’s dictator image but to escape his family’s legal problems like the unpaid estate tax and his mother’s conviction for seven counts of graft.
Media repression ‘normalised’
Media repression continues to be normalised under the Marcos Jr regime. One of his allies in the House of Representatives blocked the return of ABS–CBN, whose franchise bid was denied in 2020. Rappler and its editorial staff, including Ressa, continue to face legal problems as well as the threat of closure.
The National Telecommunications Commission blocked 27 websites accused of having communist links in June 2022. It took a court order for the online publication Bulatlat Multimedia to be unblocked, while journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio remains in detention on questionable charges after being red-tagged and subjected to death threats.
The murder of broadcaster Percy Lapid on 3 October 2022 — the second journalist to be killed under the new administration — also reflects the dire state of press freedom in the Philippines.
That Marcos Jr did not mention press freedom in his inaugural speech and first State of the Nation Address reflects his disregard for critical journalism.
Although it is still early days, his efforts to whitewash the dictatorship’s dark past and continue his predecessor’s media repression indicate that his pre-election promise of a “free press” is long abandoned.
Danilo Arana Arao is associate professor at the Department of Journalism, the University of the Philippines Diliman, special lecturer at the Department of Journalism, the Polytechnic University of the Philippines Santa Mesa, associate editor at Bulatlat Multimedia and editor at Media Asia. This article was first published in East Asia Forum.
The Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) has appealed to Indonesian police chief General Listyo Sigit Prabowo to stop his officers intimidating Aremania (Arema Football Club fans) and witnesses in the Kanjuruhan football stadium tragedy in which 131 people died.
They are also asking Prabowo to order the police professionalism and security affairs division (Propam) to question police officers accused of doing this, because intimidation and obstruction are criminal acts.
“We believe that this situation is very dangerous so the Indonesian police chief (Kapolri) must order his officers to stop acts of intimidation and twisting the facts,” said YLBHI general chairperson Muhammad Isnur in a press release last week.
The YLBHI, the Malang Legal Aid Foundation (LBH) and the Surabaya LBH in East Java, suspect that there have been several attempts at intimidation. This suspicion is based on the complaints that have come in and monitoring by the media.
First, there was a trader who became afraid after meeting with a journalist from a television station because earlier, another trader had been picked up by security personnel after talking to a journalist.
Security personnel also illegally arrested and questioned a witness with the initials K after they uploaded a video of the Kanjuruhan tragedy unfolding. K was then found by a family of a victim at the Malang district police.
Banners with the message “Fully investigate the Kanjuruhan tragedy on October 1, 2022”, which were put up on almost all of Malang’s main streets, were taken down by unknown individuals.
There has been a narrative blaming the victims, in this case the Arema supporters at the league match on Saturday October 1.
The police claim that these supporters could not accept defeat of their team and were drinking alcohol.
“Yet the fact is that the Aremania who took to the field only wanted to meet with the players to encourage them. And before the match, all of them were closely guarded so it would have been impossible for alcohol to be brought into the stadium as is being said in the narrative,” said Isnur.
The YLBHI is also asking the Witness and Victim Protection Agency (LPSK) to be proactive in picking up and protecting witnesses without waiting for a report first, due to the growing number and danger of threats.
Isnur is also asking the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM), the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) and the Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) to continue to investigate in accordance with their respective levels of authority based on prevailing legislation.
“It’s not enough for the government just to form a TGIPF [Independent Joint Fact Finding Team], but must also ensure that this team does work independently, transparently and accountably. Aside from this, it must guarantee access for the Komnas HAM, Komnas Perempuan and the KPAI to evidence related to the incident,” he said.
Karl Patrick Suyat, 19, has no personal experience of the tyrannical rule of late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos. But memories of the atrocities and human rights violations committed during those dark moments have transcended time.
Despite efforts of Martial Law survivors, human rights groups, and even academics to remind the Filipino people of the abuses of the Marcos family, Marcos Jr was still able to clinch the country’s top post.
Fueled by outrage and anguish, Suyat thought of a way to channel his energy and still fight back despite the Marcoses’ victory — he founded “Project Gunita” (remember) along with Josiah Quising and Sarah Gomez.
Project Gunita is a network of volunteers and members of various civil society organisations that aim to defend historical truth. They particularly push back against historical denialism and protect truths about the Martial Law years.
Through the project, the three founders and their members created a digital archive of all materials that contain information about Marcos’ Martial Law to preserve them.
Archiving is not new since other government offices and groups like the Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation and the Human Rights Violations Victims’ Memorial Commission, under the Commission on Human Rights, have made efforts to preserve Martial Law materials.
But Project Gunita is born out of the spirit of volunteerism and nationalism among young Filipinos.
From old newspapers, magazines, and books — Project Gunita members seek and buy materials, and then scan them to be preserved in the archives. The project’s archiving started right after Marcos Jr’s victory.
Dictator Ferdinand Marcos … declared Martial Law in the Philippines on 21 September 1972 as reported in the Phlippine Daily Express three days later. Image: Wikipedia
“Having read through the history of dictatorships, from Benito Mussolini to Adolf Hitler to Ferdinand Marcos himself, lagi’t-laging ang unang hinahabol, ang unang-unang tinatarget ng mga diktador ay ‘yong mga silid-aklatan, libraries, at ‘yong mga arkibo – the archives (always, the ones being targeted first by dictators are libraries and archives),” Suyat told Rappler.
Suyat believes that the Marcoses won’t be content with just distorting and whitewashing the atrocities of the Marcos administration. They would eventually go after the archives to erase the truth, Suyat added.
“The only question is when, it’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when. And I don’t want to wait until that time happens before we start to scramble around to save the archives.
“Habang may panahon pa (while we still have time), while we can still do it, ‘di ba? (right?)Bakit hindi natin gagawin? (Why don’t we do it?).”
Even before Marcos Jr’s victory, journalists have pointed out that his family not only revises history, but also introduces an alternative history that favours them. The Marcoses also rode on various disinformation networks to disseminate falsehoods.
A two-part investigative story by Rappler showed how the Marcoses used social media to reclaim power and rewrite history to hide their wrongdoings.
Passing the torch The personal experiences of Project Gunita founders fanned their desire to continue the fight of the generation who came before them. Suyat, who grew up in a family of Martial Law survivors, feels it is his responsibility to protect their stories.
“I cannot allow their stories, as well as the stories of people I had gotten acquainted with later in life who are Martial Law survivors to be erased by historical denialism, that we all know is being perpetrated by the Marcos family,” Suyat told Rappler in a mix of English and Filipino.
Josiah Quising, a co-founder of Project Gunita and a lawyer, believes that these stories should be preserved because true justice for Martial Law victims has yet to be attained.
“It’s very frustrating ‘yong justice system sa Pilipinas and how, for decades, ay wala pa ring totoong hustisya sa mga nangyari during the Martial Law era,” Quising told Rappler.(It’s very frustrating, the justice system in the Philippines, and how, for decades, there has been no true justice for everything that happened during the Martial Law era.)
On the inauguration of Marcos Jr, Martial Law survivors led by playwright Boni Ilagan pledged to continue guarding against tyranny.
In the same event, they had a ceremonial passing of the torch, which symbolized the passing of hope and responsibility from Martial Law survivors to the younger generation.
Suyat and Quising believe that their generation is equally responsible for guarding the country’s freedom — at least in their own way. They strongly believe that since the government is now being led by the dictator’s son, they cannot expect it to preserve the memories of Martial Law, so they have to step in.
Preserving truths from generation to generation
“Wala ka namang naririnig. ‘Di ka naman nakikinig Parang kuliling sa pandinig Kayong nagtataka Ha? Inosente lang ang nagtataka,” Inosente lang ang nagtataka by Bobby Balingit
(You hear nothing. But you are not listening. Like a chime to the ear. You who wonder. What? Only the innocent wonder.)
This song comes to Kris Lanot Lacaba’s mind whenever he hears people deny the atrocities of Martial Law. His father, Pete Lacaba, a poet and journalist, was tortured and arrested under the Marcos regime.
As a son of a Martial Law survivor, Lacaba has heard stories of torture and violence straight from the victims themselves. He recalled that it was on the pavements of Camp Crame, where his father was imprisoned, that he learned how to walk.
Even though decades have passed since those dark periods, he still vividly remembers how his father became a victim of Marcos’ oppressive rule.
“Ang ginagawa ro’n, may dalawang kama tapos pinapahiga ‘yong tatay ko, ‘yong ulo niya sa isang kama, ‘yong paa niya sa isang kama. At ‘pag nahulog ‘yong kama niya ro’n eh gugulpihin pa siya lalo (What they did to my father was, there were two beds and they would tell my father to lie down, his head on one bed, and the other, on the other bed. If he fell, he would be beaten further),” Lacaba told Rappler.
Aside from his father, his uncles Eman Lacaba and Leo Alto were both killed during Martial Law. It is extremely hard for Lacaba to respond to people who deny that human rights violations happened under Martial Law.
Now that he has his own children, Lacaba passes on the stories of Martial Law to them so the memories would be preserved.
“Mahirap eh, bilang magulang. Paano ba natin ikukuwento ito? Pa’no ba natin ipapamahagi ‘yong karanasan ng magulang nila at ng mga lolo’t lola nila?” Lacaba said. (It’s hard as a parent. How do we tell this story to the kids? How do we tell the kids about the experiences of their parents and grandparents?)
He even thinks of ways to make the stories appropriate to his children.
“So kinukuwento namin sa mga bata, ‘no? Hinahanapan namin ng paraan na maging appropriate sa age din nila ‘yong mga kuwento.” (So we tell the stories to my children. We find ways to make the stories appropriate to their age.)
Aside from his kids, Lacaba says he would always accept invitations by schools and universities to share the Martial Law story of his family. He believes that in this way, he will not only share the truths he learned from his father, but get to listen to other stories, too.
After all, Lacaba believes, conversation about Martial Law should reach everyone.
Seven weeks ago the Philippines truth-telling martial law film Katips was basking in the limelight in the country’s national FAMAS academy movie awards, winning best picture and a total of six other awards.
Last week it began a four month “world tour” of 10 countries starting in the Middle East followed by Aotearoa New Zealand today – hosted simultaneously at AUT South campus and in Wellington and Christchurch.
The screening of Vincent Tañada’s harrowing – especially the graphic torture scenes – yet also joyful and poignant musical drama touched a raw nerve among many in the audience who shared tears and their experiences of living in fear, or in hiding, during the hate-filled Marcos dictatorship.
The martial law denunciations, arbitrary arrests, desaparecidos (“disappeared”), brutal tortures and murders by state assassins in the 1970s made the McCarthy era red-baiting witchhunts in the US seem like Sunday School picnics.
Tañada has brushed off claims that the film has a political objective in an attempt to sabotage the leadership of the dictator’s son, Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos Jr, who won the presidency in a landslide victory in the May elections to return the Marcos family to the Malacañang.
He has insisted in many interviews — and he repeated this in a live exchange with the audiences in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch — that the film is educational and his intention is to counter disinformation and to ensure history is remembered.
Telling youth about atrocities Tañada, from one of the Philippines’ great political and legal families and grandson of former Senator Lorenzo Tañada, a celebrated human rights lawyer, says he wanted to tell the youth about the atrocities that happened during the imposition of martial law under Marcos.
He wanted to tell history to those who had forgotten and those who aren’t yet aware.
The Katips movie trailer.
“You know, as an artist it is also our objective not just to entertain people but more important than that, we are here to educate,” he says.
“We also want to educate the young people about the atrocities – the reality of martial law.
“History is slowly being forgotten. We have forgotten it during the last elections and I guess we also have the responsibility to educate and let the youth know what happened during those times.”
Katips film director and writer Vince Tañada talking by video to New Zealand audiences in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch today. Image: David Robie/APR
It is rare that such brutal torture scenes are seen on the big screen, and before the main screening at AUT the organisers — Banyuhay Aotearoa, Migrante Aotearoa and Auckland Philippine Solidarity — showed two shorts made by the University of the Philippines and Santo Tomas University of Manila featuring martial law survivors describing their horrifying treatment during the Marcos years to contemporary students.
Some of the students broke down in tears while others, surprisingly, remained impassive, sometimes with an air of disbelief.
The film evolved from the 2016 stage musical Katips: Mga Bagong Katipunero – Katips: The New Freedom Fighters, which won Aliw Awards for best musical performance that year.
Freedom fighter love story
In a nutshell, Katips tells the love story of Greg, a medical student and leader of the National Unions of Students in the Philippines (NUSP), who with other freedom fighting protesters stage a demonstration against martial law on a mountainside called Mendiola.
His professor is abducted by the state Metropol police, murdered and his body dumped in a remote location.
The protesters begin a vigil and the police brutally suppress the protest and arrest and kidnap other freedom fighters. They are subjected to atrocious torture and their bodies dumped.
A safehouse branded “Katips House” takes in Lara, a New York actress and the daughter of the murdered professor who is visiting Manila but doesn’t yet know about the fate of her father. Lara and Greg form an unlikely relationship and their lives are thrown into upheaval when the safehouse “mother” Alet is abducted and tortured to death.
Greg and another protester, Ka Panyong, a writer for the underground newspaper Ang Bayan, are forced to flee into the jungle for the safety and become rebels. Both get shot while on the run, but manage to survive.
When Greg returns to Lara at the “Katips House” during the Edsa Revolution in 1986, he finds he has a son.
The film has a stirring end featuring the Bantayog ng mga Bayani, a memorial wall to the fallen heroes struggling against martial law– a fitting antidote to the Marcoses and their crass attempts to rewrite Philippine history.
Ironically, the same month that Katips was released in public cinemas, another film, the self-serving Maid of Malaçanang, was launched in a bid to perpetuate the Marcos myths.
A woman has been arrested for the alleged murder of two young children whose remains were discovered in suitcases in Manurewa, South Auckland, last month.
New Zealand police can now confirm that a 42-year-old woman has been arrested in South Korea.
Counties Manukau CIB detective inspector Tofilau Fa’ amanuia Vaaelua said South Korean authorities arrested the woman today on a Korean arrest warrant on two charges of murder relating to the two young victims.
The arrest warrant was issued by the Korean courts as a result of a request by NZ police for an arrest warrant under the extradition treaty between New Zealand and the Republic of Korea.
He said NZ police had applied to have her extradited back to New Zealand to face the charges and had requested she remain in custody while awaiting the completion of the extradition process.
“To have someone in custody overseas within such a short period of time has all been down to the assistance of the Korean authorities and the coordination by our NZ Police Interpol staff,” he said.
There were a number of enquiries to be completed both in New Zealand and overseas, he added.
Police said the children, believed to be aged between five and 10 years old, may have been hidden in the suitcases in an Auckland storage yard for several years.
The bodies were discovered on 11 August 2022 after a Clendon Park family won an auction for abandoned goods in a storage unit, without realising what was inside.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Journalist Muhammad Asrul is awaiting word from Indonesia’s Supreme Court about whether he will spend further time behind bars for reporting on corruption issues. The decision will have a profound impact not only on his life but also on press freedom in Indonesia.
The country is at a turning point following its transition at the end of the 20th century from military dictatorship to democracy.
Many, including civil society and members of the judiciary, have sought to protect journalists — they see a free, functioning press as part of Indonesia’s future.
Others, however, are waging a battle against independent media and freedom of speech, through prosecutions like Asrul’s and through the impending passage of a criminal code that smacks of authoritarianism. With Indonesia’s two-decade-old democratic path in real jeopardy, the next several months will be decisive.
In 2019, Asrul penned a series of articles alleging corruption by a local political official. The same official filed a complaint with the police, who subsequently arrested and detained Asrul.
After spending more than a month in jail as the police conducted investigations, Asrul was prosecuted under the country’s draconian Electronic Information and Transactions Law (ITE Law), which criminalises the electronic transmission of information that defames or affronts.
At the end of 2021, a court found Asrul guilty and sentenced him to three months in prison.
Police bypassed Press Council
While this would be egregious enough on its own, in Asrul’s case the police chose to bypass Indonesia’s Press Council.
The Press Council is an independent government body tasked with protecting journalists in press-related disputes. The police are supposed to coordinate with the Press Council to determine whether a case should be funnelled into the criminal justice system or resolved through mediation or other solutions outside of the courts.
But the police did not give the council a chance to settle the complaint against Asrul, sidestepping this critical institution. Equally worrying, the court that convicted Asrul stated that the police have the power to override the Press Council in a range of situations, including where individuals offended by news articles go straight to the police instead of the council.
The Clooney Foundation for Justice’s TrialWatch initiative, where I work as a senior programme manager, monitored Asrul’s trial through its partner the American Bar Association Center for Human Rights.
This coming week, we will file an amicus brief requesting that the Supreme Court overturn Asrul’s conviction and ensure that the protections offered by Indonesia’s Press Council remain a reality for journalists throughout Indonesia.
TrialWatch monitors trials such as Asrul’s in more than 35 countries, seeking to overturn unjust convictions against journalists and marginalised individuals and to reform the laws used to target them.
The ITE Law is one such example. Since its enactment in 2008, the ITE Law has been a key tool in suppressing freedom of expression and press freedom in Indonesia, with prosecutions spiking in recent years.
81 people charged
During the first nine months of 2021, for example, at least 81 people were charged with violating the ITE Law, “most of them accused of defamation” — the provision under which Asrul was prosecuted. Those found guilty of defamation can face up to four years behind bars.
While the ITE Law has been a darling of government officials seeking to quash legitimate criticism, it has also been deployed by businesses and other powerful actors who simply do not like what someone has posted online.
TrialWatch recently monitored a trial in which a woman, Stella Monica, was prosecuted for Instagram complaints about acne treatment she received at a dermatology clinic. Monica was acquitted but the clinic aggressively pursued the case, subjecting her to almost two years of legal proceedings.
This playbook for stifling speech may soon receive a boost with the revision of Indonesia’s colonial-era criminal code. In many countries, the amendment of colonial laws has been a step forward, but Indonesia’s iteration is so regressive that when a draft was published in 2019 it triggered widespread protests.
Although the government withdrew the legislation following the protests, this year the new code was resurrected, retaining provisions from the 2019 version that endanger press freedom.
In addition to providing for a potential jail sentence of up to three years for perceived insults to the president and vice-president, the draft code criminalises the dissemination of “incomplete” news and so-called “fake news”.
Attempts to hide developments
Just how troubling these developments are is clear from the Indonesian government’s attempts to hide them. The Deputy Law and Human Rights Minister in charge of the revision process had previously pledged that the legislature would vote on the code by August 17, Indonesia’s Independence Day.
He also stated that the authorities would not share the draft text with either civil society or the public because of the risk of disorder. After an outcry, however, the government published the draft in July and promised further consultations, still leaving civil society with scant time to deliberate and engage the government if the vote indeed takes place in the next few months.
While passage of the code in its current form would be a triumph for government officials and corporate interests seeking to restrict critical speech, it would also be a victory for the increasingly powerful conservative Islamist parties on which President Joko Widodo has relied to maintain power.
The draft code falls squarely on the side of conservatives in Indonesia’s roiling cultural battles, threatening jail time for sex and co-habitation before marriage, which would also functionally criminalise LGBTQ+ relationships. Another provision swells the already expansive blasphemy law, extending it to criminalise comments made on social media.
Although the draft code reflects the reality that repressive forces are gaining ground, there is still hope that the authorities will side with those fighting for fundamental freedoms. The government has shown itself to be responsive not only to pressure from hardliners but also to pressure from pro-democracy forces.
The withdrawal of the code after the 2019 protests and the recent sharing of the draft text are good examples. In another recent example, after enduring intense criticism about overly broad enforcement of the ITE Law, President Widodo commissioned guidelines limiting its application — in particular against journalists.
The guidelines, which were introduced after Asrul’s case had already begun, explicitly state that in cases where a news outlet has published an article, then press regulations — not the ITE law — should apply. While enforcement has been shaky thus far, the guidelines demonstrate the power of public pressure and are an additional tool in the battle for press freedom.
Institutional safeguards
Other institutional safeguards are in place. Indonesia’s Press Council has a mandate that puts it on the same level as other government entities and gives it real power to protect journalists — hence the importance of Asrul’s case and the impending Supreme Court decision on the Council’s role.
To show how significant the Press Council is we need only hop across the ocean, where press freedom advocates in Malaysia have been fighting to establish a similar mechanism for years, recognising its potential to stop the harassment of independent media.
The courts are also making positive noises. In the face of campaigns by government officials, religious conservatives and businesses to clamp down on speech, some judges have ruled in favour of human rights protections — from the acquittal of Monica for her dermatological troubles to a recent high-profile acquittal in a blasphemy prosecution.
What this means is that unlike in countries where the decks are stacked, with the legislature, judiciary and press co-opted by authoritarian powers, all is not lost in Indonesia. Civil society has proven that it can mobilise and that institutional levers can be pulled.
But this upcoming period will be crucial. Buffeted by competing winds, the Indonesian government will decide whether to move forward with the current version of the new criminal code. Actors at the local level, like police and prosecutors, will decide whether to enforce — or not enforce — rights-positive guidelines and laws.
The judiciary will consider cases with wide-ranging consequences for press freedom and freedom of speech, like that of Muhammad Asrul. And even if the criminal code is passed, it awaits a barrage of constitutional challenges, putting the judiciary in the spotlight.
Through its TrialWatch initiative, the Clooney Foundation for Justice will continue to monitor these courtroom battles and advocate for those unjustly targeted in criminal prosecutions. With key decisions forthcoming, the fate of Asrul and many others hang in the balance.
Kyle Delbyck is senior programme manager at the Clooney Foundation for Justice’s TrialWatch initiative, where she coordinates trial observations and ensuing advocacy. Grace Hauser, TrialWatch legal fellow at the Clooney Foundation for Justice, contributed to this article. First published by Al Jazeera English, it is republished under a Creative Commons licence.
The Philippine media described him as “Steady Eddie,” a warrior and survivor, and an accidental hero of the world-renowned People Power revolution who later became probably the country’s best president.
But Fidel V. Ramos, or FVR, was also a study of contradictions.
Also called Eddie by his friends, Ramos died on the last day of July, a month after the namesake son of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who was ousted in the popular uprising in 1986 that Ramos led, took his oath as the new president in what observers believed was an election that was far from fair due to voting and election irregularities.
The former armed forces chief died at 94 from a heart condition and dementia, unimaginable to his admirers who saw him as “cool,” “steady,” athletic, maintaining his military bearing until his old age.
He was also a multi-tasking workaholic who played golf and jogged regularly while briefing journalists or preparing for his next travel to the communities under a rigorous schedule.
He succeeded Corazon “Cory” Aquino as president of the Philippines from 1992 to 1998 and was instrumental in boosting the Southeast Asian developing country’s growth through economic policies of deregulation, liberalisation and foreign investment, his Social Reform Agenda that reduced poverty and an anti-oligarch and anti-monopoly stance.
The only Protestant president of the predominantly Roman Catholic country was also known for his transition from a military general who fought leftist and right-wing dissidents and entering into peace agreements with Islamic separatist groups and Communist insurgents.
Contrast to ruthless military chief
His commendable turn as president after Aquino was a contrast to his past as a hardline, ruthless Marcos military commander who led a security force that rounded up dissidents and violated human rights.
His leadership also saw the harassment, incarceration and exile of Aquino’s husband Benigno, who was assassinated on his return to the country in 1983.
Flashback … Philippine General Fidel Ramos greeting supporters while barnstorming in his home province north of Manila amid the campaign for the national elections that swept him to power in 1992. Image: Romeo Gacad/PIT File/AFP
The confluence of events in the years that followed, until the 1986 uprising, was marked by Ramos’ decision to break away from Marcos and to support Aquino, who was cheated massively in the elections.
He and his military comrades, along with Catholic bishops, called on Filipinos to mount a peaceful revolution, making him a people power hero.
Pulitzer Prize-winning Filipino journalist Manny Mogato, who covered Ramos when he headed the Defence Department and the military, said in a social media post that the late president was “a man of action… he even (did) push-ups with 300 soldiers who took part in an attempt to overthrow Cory Aquino”.
Ramos neutralised rogue soldiers who attempted multiple coups against Aquino during her presidency.
Ramos attended the US military academy at West Point, fought in the Korean War in the 1950s as a platoon leader and led the Philippine contingent in the late 1960s in the Vietnam War.
‘Best president ever’
“Ramos was the best president the country ever had, guarded democracy, broke monopolies and made peace, ending right-wing rebellion, half finishing the Muslim secessionist war and almost reaching a peace deal with Maoist-led rebels,” Mogato said.
“FVR left behind a legacy of peace, stability and prosperity Filipinos now enjoy.”
Anastacio Corpuz, an 80-year-old war veteran, said he was saddened by Ramos’ passing, saying that he should have continued as a vocal authority and statesman.
“Through the years, he was always vocal against corruption in government and abuses by the political elite — including the new government under the dictator’s son,” he lamented.
“He will be greatly missed.”
Diana G. Mendozafiled this report for Pacific Island Times in Guam. Republished with permission.
A day before the first State of the Nation Address (SONA) of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr in Quezon City, a shooting incident inside the Ateneo de Manila University claimed the lives of at least three individuals, including the former mayor of Lamitan, Basilan, Rose Furigay.
Furigay was supposed to attend the graduation of her daughter, Hannah, when she was shot about 3.30 pm yesterday. Furigay suffered gunshot wounds in her head and chest.
Graduation rites of the Ateneo Law School were cancelled by the university.
Aside from Furigay, her long-time aide, Victor George Capistrano was also shot and died on the scene.
Ateneo security guard Jeneven Bandiala also died, Quezon City Police District (QCPD) director Brigadier-General Remus Medina said during his briefing on Sunday.
Hannah was also wounded in the incident and was immediately taken to the Quirino Memorial Medical Center. Medina said she was currently in stable condition.
Suspect Dr Chao Tiao Yumol was also wounded and suffered a gunshot wound. The police said they were still determining who shot the suspect.
The police recovered bullets and two guns — one with a silencer. Medina said Yumol used the gun with a silencer in killing the victims.
Yumol and his motive Yumol, 38, is a general practitioner doctor and a native of Lamitan City. The police said the doctor had personal motives for killing Furigay.
“Initially, sa pagtatanong namin sa kanya, meron na silang long history ng away sa Lamitan, Basilan. So according to them, eh nagpapalitan na sila ng kaso. Itong si doktor naman ay laging nape-pressure sa pamilya ng Furigay. So lumalabas, personal ang away nila,” Medina said during his briefing.
(Initially, based on our interrogation of the suspect, they have a long history of conflict in Lamitan, Basilan. According to them, they filed cases against each other. The doctor was always pressured by the Furigay family. So it turned out that they had a personal conflict.)
Medina said Furigay filed 76 counts of cyber libel against Yumol, which temporarily prevented the suspect from practising medicine, according to the police. The suspect was detained for his libel cases, but was able to post bail, Medina added.
According to the QCPD director, Yumol also alleged that Furigay had a history of corruption:
“May ina-allege din si Doctor Yumol na katiwalian ng mayor. According to him, iyon po ang mga ina–allege niya, that is now subject for verification (Doctor Yumol is also alleging that the slain mayor was involved in corruption. According to him, that is what he is alleging, that is now subject for verification).”
The suspect was currently in the custody of the QCPD and undergoing custodial investigation.
No mention of human rights
Meanwhile, Rappler reports that was zero mention of human rights when Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr delivered his inaugural speech as president of the Philippines on June 30, and he went on to serve his first month in Malacañang without appointing anyone to the board vacancy of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR).
For his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) today, there is a mix of optimism and pessimism from the human rights community.
Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of international group Human Rights Watch, urged Marcos to seize the “chance to distance himself from the rampant rights violations and deep-seated impunity of the Rodrigo Duterte administration”.
“President Marcos has a golden opportunity to get the Philippines on the right track by setting out clear priorities and policies to improve human rights in the country,” Robertson said in a statement.
The progressive Filipino lawyer Edre Olalia, president of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL), in a forum that the human rights prospects under Marcos “quite candidly [do] not look good.”
Jairo Bolledois a Rappler reporter. Republished with permission.
Radio broadcaster Federico “Ding” Gempesaw has been shot and killed in broad daylight in front of his home in Carmen, Cagayan de Oro City, Mindanao, reports the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).
The IFJ and its affiliate, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), condemn the murder and urge the local authorities to immediately bring the perpetrators to justice.
Gempesaw was a political commentator and host of the daily block-time programme Bitayan Sa Kahanginan, which aired on the local community radio network Radyo Natin.
According to the police report, two masked gunmen shot at Gempesaw on June 29. One of the perpetrators shot him at close range after Gempesaw stepped down from his taxi, which he owned and drove.
Although he was wounded, Gempesaw wrestled with one assailant before a second bullet hit his head. He died at the scene.
According to witnesses, the murderers fled on a motorcycle without a licence plate.
Gempesaw is the third radio broadcaster to be killed in Mindanao this year. In January, Jaynard Angeles, a station manager of Radyo Natin, was shot dead in Carmen, Tacurong City, Sultan Kudarat, by unidentified suspects.
On April 24, Jhannah Villegas was killed in the town of Datu Anggal Midtimbang, in Maguindanao province. Like Gempesaw, Villegas was also a block-time broadcaster on Radyo Ukay in Kidapawan City, North Cotabato.
Latest blow
The NUJP said Gempesaw’s murder is the latest blow to press freedom in the Philippines.
The NUJP said: “The brutal murder of Gempesaw has no place in a democratic society, and we demand that the police leave no stone unturned and bring the perpetrators, as well as the mastermind, to justice.”
IFJ general secretary, Anthony Bellanger, said: “The IFJ condemns the killing of Federico Gempesaw. The authorities must take immediate action to investigate the murder and bring those responsible to justice. We also urge the government of the Philippines to take the strongest efforts to create a free and safe environment for journalists and media workers.”
Nobel Peace Prize laureate and press freedom champion Maria Ressa wasn’t intending to make breaking news when she planned her keynote address at the East-West Center’s 2022 International Media Conference in Honolulu this week.
But late the night before she got disturbing word from her lawyers that the Philippines government’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had issued an order for her online news organisation Rappler to shut down.
“You are the first to hear this,” Ressa said, as she told the combined in-person and online audiences of around 450 international journalists and media professionals gathered for the conference about the commission’s order.
Under now-former President Rodrigo Duterte, Ressa and Rappler have faced multiple charges, widely believed to be retaliation for her critical reporting on Duterte’s deadly drug war and abuses of power.
Ressa vowed to continue fighting the commission’s order, even as new President Ferdinand Marcos Jr — son of the late Philippines dictator who was forced to flee the country in 1986 — prepared to be sworn into office yesterday.
In the meantime, she said, “It is business as usual for Rappler. We will adapt, adjust, survive, and thrive. As usual, we will hold power to account. We will tell the truth.”
Safeguarding freedom of expression
Ressa’s struggle to thwart the government’s efforts to shut down her groundbreaking news outlet and imprison her for cyber-libel led to Ressa becoming the first Filipino recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace,” as the Nobel Committee put it.
In her address to the media conference, Ressa bemoaned the fact that the global environment for quality journalism has deteriorated so quickly, in part because at least initially there was a reluctance to accept just how much damage the online world can do to the real one.
“Online violence is real-world violence,” she said. “They’re not separate. Digital impunity is real-world impunity.
“There is only one world that we live in, and for the platforms and legislators to think that these are two systems has weakened the rule of law in the real world.”
After being brutally attacked online by Duterte backers, Ressa has campaigned tirelessly against what she called a “tyranny of trends.” Through their algorithms, social media platforms have created a new information ecosystem that prioritises “lies laced with anger and hate” over “boring” facts, she said.
“These platforms are determining the future of news, and yet their driver is profit, right? The platform’s profit — not the public’s, not journalism’s.”
That system has made it more difficult for humans to listen to their better angels, Ressa said, because “social media gave the devil a megaphone. And this is why we are seeing the worst of human nature.”
The problem, she said, is that the forces of manipulation do not need to convince the public of anything. They only need to sow doubt and uncertainty in order to create distrust of the facts.
Maria Ressa talks to journalists … Rappler was built on a foundation of three pillars to rebuild trust in the news media: technology, journalism and community. Image: East-West Center
Pillars of trust
Ressa said Rappler was built on a foundation of three pillars to rebuild trust in the news media: technology, journalism and community.
“Tech has to be first because this was the spark that ignited the world, and not for good,” she explained.
“Journalism, because we must continue independent journalism despite what it costs us, and we must let our societies know that. And finally community, because journalists can’t do this alone.”
The importance of maintaining independent journalism outlets is intensified by the fact that this year there are more than 30 elections globally, according to Ressa: “I said this in the Nobel lecture: If you don’t have integrity of facts, how can you have integrity of elections? You can’t, and that’s the problem.”
The consequences can be catastrophic, she said. “When real people who are insidiously manipulated online then democratically elect an illiberal leader and the balance of power of the world shifts, how much more time do we have before we move into a fascist world?”
Banding together against disinformation
Ressa counsels independent journalists around the world to build their courage, commitment and, most importantly, community, saying the only way to stand up to the forces of disinformation is to join hands.
Before the recent elections in the Philippines, for example, 16 news organisations agreed to collaborate on fact-checking campaign statements.
“We shared each with other,” Ressa said. “We made the content agnostic. We’re not competing against each other; we’re competing against evil and lies.”
That experience helped inform Ressa’s vision of a world in which trust in facts and institutions can be rebuilt on four levels. The first and most basic is independent journalism as exemplified by news organisations like hers.
The second she calls “the mesh”, elements of civil society that can take the facts news outlets and share them with emotion and inspiration.
The third level is academic research designed to help better understand the societal challenges, which continue to evolve. The final level is a proactive legal approach in which lawyers engage in both tactical and strategic litigation, rather than simply waiting to defend against the latest attacks.
Still, Ressa admitted that she is extremely worried about the future of objective journalism and the societies that rely on it.
The world does have the resources to fight back, she but not as individuals: “We really must work together,” she concluded. “And a global coalition is the best way to do this.”
We will continue bringing you the news, holding the powerful to account for their actions and decisions, calling attention to government lapses that further disempower the disadvantaged. We will hold the line.
Dear readers and viewers, We thought this day would never come, even as we were warned in the first of week of December last year that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would be handing down a ruling against us.
Because we have acted in good faith and adhered to the best standards in a fast-evolving business environment, we were confident that the country’s key business regulator would put public interest above other interests that were at play in this case.
We were, in fact, initially relieved that it was the SEC that initiated what appeared to us as a customary due diligence act, considering our prior information that it was the Office of the Solicitor-General that had formed, as early as November 2016, a special team to build a case against us.
We were wrong. The SEC’s kill order revoking Rappler’s licence to operate is the first of its kind in history — both for the Commission and for Philippine media. What this means for you, and for us, is that the Commission is ordering us to close shop, to cease telling you stories, to stop speaking truth to power, and to let go of everything that we have built — and created — with you since 2012.
All because they focused on one clause in one of our contracts which we submitted to — and was accepted by — the SEC in 2015.
Now the Commission is accusing us of violating the Constitution, a serious charge considering how, as a company imbued with public interest, we have consistently been transparent and above-board in our practices.
Transparency best proof Every year since we incorporated in 2012, we have dutifully complied with all SEC regulations and submitted all requirements even at the risk of exposing our corporate data to irresponsible hands with an agenda.
Transparency, we believe, is the best proof of good faith and good conduct. All these seem not to matter as far as the SEC is concerned.
In a record investigation time of 5 months and after President Rodrigo Duterte himself blasted Rappler in his second SONA in July 2017, the SEC released this ruling against us.
This is pure and simple harassment, the seeming coup de grace to the relentless and malicious attacks against us since 2016:
We intend to not only contest this through all legal processes available to us, but also to fight for our freedom to do journalism and for your right to be heard through an independent platform like Rappler.
We’ve been through a lot together, through good and bad — sharing stories, building communities, inspiring hope, uncovering wrongdoing, battling trolls, exposing the fake. We will continue bringing you the news, holding the powerful to account for their actions and decisions, calling attention to government lapses that further disempower the disadvantaged.
We will hold the line. The support you’ve shown us all this time, and our commitment to tell you stories without fear, give us hope.
You inspire courage. You have taught us that when you stand and fight for what is right, there is no dead-end, only obstacles that can only make us stronger. We ask you to stand with us again at this difficult time.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate and journalist Maria Ressa says that the Philippine government has ordered her news organisation Rappler to shut down, reports Axios.
The online news website Rappler has exposed Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s “bloody war on drugs”, documented the government’s propagation of disinformation and been critical of President-elect “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, son of the late dictator.
Ressa, a Filipino-American, said in a keynote address at the East-West Center’s International Media Conference in Honolulu, Hawai’i, that the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission had issued the decree on Tuesday, reports Nathan Bomey.
She said Rappler would fight the order, which “affirmed” an earlier decision to revoke the organisation’s certificates of incorporation.
“We’re not shutting down. Well, I’m not supposed to say that,” Ressa said.
“We are entitled to appeal this decision and will do so, especially since the proceedings were highly irregular.”
Axios reported that the Philippine embassy in the US did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.
Shared Nobel Peace Prize Ressa shared the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov after using her platform to raise awareness of Duterte’s alleged abuses.
She had previously been convicted in the Philippines of “cyber libel” and could serve prison time in a case widely seen as politically motivated.
Ressa has also been a vocal critic of social media platforms for failing to prevent the flow of falsehoods.
“You don’t get facts. It’s toxic sludge. Social media encourages anger, hate, conspiracy theories. There’s violence,” and it’s getting worse, she added.
Pacific Journalism Review is publishing several articles about Rappler and media freedom in next month’s edition.
The Aotearoa New Zealand government decision to take on observer status at the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance is a step backwards in the fight against anti-semitism and the struggle for Palestinian human rights.
The IHRA is a partisan, political organisation working hard to deflect criticism of Israel’s racist policies towards Palestinians with false smears of anti-semitism.
For example the IHRA has adopted its own definition of anti-semitism which claims calling Israel an apartheid state (as every major international human rights group such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch does) or calling for sanctions against Israel is anti-semitic.
The New Zealand Jewish Council and the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand have already adopted this bogus IHRA definition which they used in a so-called “survey of anti-semitism” earlier this year to make the absurd claims that describing Israel as an apartheid state or calling for sanctions against Israel were anti-semitic.
Palestinian civil society organisations called for BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) in 2005 to build international pressure to require Israel to abide by international law and United Nations resolutions.
BDS was an important part of the fight against apartheid in South Africa and is also an important strategy in the fight against apartheid in Israel.
The three aims of BDS are to end Israel’s military occupation, end its apartheid policies towards Palestinians and allow Palestinian refugees to return to the land and homes from which they were ethnically cleansed by Israel in 1948.
This legitimate and successful BDS strategy is fiercely opposed by Israel which is weaponising the Holocaust against Palestinian demands for human rights.
Needless to say, Palestinians had no role in the Holocaust whose cause was European anti-semitism.
By joining the IHRA, Aotearoa New Zealand is undermining the fight against anti-semitism and racism of all kinds.
The government has caved in to relentless bullying and threats of false smears of anti-semitism from the pro-Israel lobby.
Joining the IHRA is a weak, cowardly decision.
Aotearoa New Zealand should adopt the Jerusalem Declaration on Anti-Semitism and insist on Holocaust education in every school in the country as part of a comprehensive anti-racism education programme.
John Minto is a political activist and commentator, and spokesperson for Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa. This article was first published by The Daily Blog and is republished with the author’s permission.
The living component among these pieces was Rodrigo Duterte — an ally who, when elected president, normalised Marcos’ machinery, painting over a picture of murders and plunder to show glory and heroism instead.
“I think that really, if we are to make a metaphor [to] describe the role of Duterte to Marcos’ win, it’s really Duterte being the sponsor or a ninong to Marcos Jr…. I think Duterte ultimately is the godfather of this all,” said Fatima Gaw, assistant professor at the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman.
The alliance Marcos’ disinformation machinery that was years in the making was complemented by his longtime ties to the Duterte family. Before “Uniteam,” there was “AlDub” or Alyansang Duterte-Bongbong.
Marcos courted Rodrigo Duterte in 2015, but Duterte chose Alan Peter Cayetano to be his running mate. Even then, calls for a Duterte-Marcos tandem persisted.
Gaw said Duterte played a part in driving interest for Marcos-related social media content and making it profitable. The first milestone for this interest, according to Gaw, was when Marcos filed his certificate of candidacy for vice-president in 2015.
They saw an influx of search demand for Marcos history on Google.
“There’s interest already back then but it was amplified and magnified by the alliance with Duterte. So every time there’s a pronouncement from Duterte about, for example, the burial of Marcos Sr. in the Libingan ng mga Bayani, that also spiked interest, and that interest is actually cumulative, it’s not like it’s a one-off thing,” Gaw said in a June interview with Rappler.
Using CrowdTangle, Rappler scanned posts in 2016 with the keyword “Marcos,” yielding over 62,000 results from pages with admins based in the Philippines. Spikes can be seen during key events like the EDSA anniversary, the Pilipinas 2016 debate, election day, and instances after Duterte’s moves to bury the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
On February 19, 2016, Duterte said that if elected president, he would allow the burial of the late dictator at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. On August 7, 2016, Duterte said that Marcos deserved to be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani for being a soldier and a former president.
The burial pushed through on November 18, 2016 and became a major event that allowed the massive whitewashing of the Martial Law period.
Made with flourish Related content would then gain views, prompting platforms to recommend them and make them more visible, Gaw said. In a research she conducted in 2021 with De La Salle University (DLSU) communication professor Cheryll Soriano, they found that when searching “Marcos history” on YouTube, videos made by amateur content creators or people unaffiliated with professional groups were recommended more than news, institutional, and academic sources.
“A big part of Marcos’ success online and spreading his message and propaganda is because he leveraged both his political alliances with [the] Dutertes, as the front-facing tandem and political partnership. And on the backend, whatever ecosystem that the Duterte administration has established, is something that Marcos already can tap,” Gaw said.
In an upcoming study on social media and disinformation narratives authored by Aries Arugay and Justin Baquisal, they identified four thematic disinformation narratives in the last election campaign — authoritarian nostalgia/fantasy, conspiracy theories (Tallano gold, Yamashita treasure), “strongman”, and democratic disillusionment.
Arugay, a political science professor at UP Diliman, said these four narratives were the “raw materials” for further polarisation in the country.
“Para sa mga kabataan, ’yung mga 18-24, fantasy siya. Kasi naririnig natin ‘yun, ah kaya ko binoto si Bongbong Marcos kasi gusto kong maexperience ‘yung Martial Law,” Arugay said in an interview with Rappler in June.
(For the youth, those aged 18-24, it’s a fantasy. We hear that reasoning, that they voted for Bongbong Marcos because they want to experience Martial Law.)
Arugay described this as “unthinkable,” but pervasive false narratives that the Martial Law era was the golden age of Philippine economy, that no Filipino was poor during that time, that the Philippines was the richest country next to Japan, among many other claims, allowed for such a fantasy to thrive.
Institutionalising disinformation While traditional propaganda required money and machinery, usually from a top-down system, Gaw said Duterte co-opted and hijacked the existing systems to manipulate the news cycle and online discourse to make a name for himself.
“I think what Duterte has done…is to institutionalise disinformation at the state level,” she said.
This meant that the amplification of Duterte’s messaging became incorporated in activities of the government, perpetuated by the Presidential Communications Operations Office, the Philippine National Police, and the government’s anti-communist task force or the NTF-ELCAC, among others.
Early on, Duterte’s administration legitimized partisan vloggers by hiring some of them in government. Other vloggers served as crisis managers for the PCOO, monitoring social media, alerting the agency about sentiments that were critical of the administration, and spreading positive news about the government.
Bloggers were organized by Pebbles Duque, niece of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, who himself was criticised over the government’s pandemic response.
Mocha Uson, one of the most infamous pro-Duterte disinformation peddlers, was appointed PCOO assistant secretary earlier in his term. (She ended up campaigning for Isko Moreno in the last election.)
Now, we’re seeing a similar turn of events — Marcos appointed pro-Duterte vlogger Trixie Cruz-Angeles as his press secretary. Under Duterte’s administration, Angeles had been a social media strategist of the PCOO.
Following the Duterte administration’s lead, they are again eyeing the accreditation of vloggers to let them cover Malacañang briefings or press conferences.
“So in the Duterte campaign, of course there were donors, supporters paying for the disinformation actors and workers. Now it’s actually us, the Filipino people, funding disinformation, because it’s now part of the state. So I think that’s the legacy of the Duterte administration and what Marcos has done, is actually to just leverage on that,” Gaw said.
Targeting critics What pieces of disinformation are Filipinos inadvertently funding? Gaw said that police pages are some of the most popular pages to spread disinformation on Facebook, and that they don’t necessarily talk about police work but instead the various agenda of the state, such as demonising communist groups, activist groups, and other progressive movements.
Emboldened by their chief Duterte, who would launch tirades against his critics during his speeches and insult, curse, and red-tag them, police pages and accounts spread false or misleading content that target activists and critics. They do this by posting them directly or by sharing them from dubious, anonymously-managed pages, a Rappler investigation found.
Facebook later took down a Philippine network that was linked to the military or police, for violating policies on coordinated inauthentic behavior.
The platform has also previously suspended Communications Undersecretary and NTF-ELCAC spokesperson Lorraine Badoy who has long been targeting and brazenly red-tagging individuals and organizations that are critical of the government. She faces several complaints before the Office of the Ombudsman accusing her of violating the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act and the Code of Conduct for public officials.
“PCOO as an office before wasn’t really a big office, they’re not popular, but all of a sudden they become so salient and so visible in media because they’re able to understand that half of the battle of governance is not just doing the operations of it but also the PR side of it,” Gaw said.
Facebook users recirculated a post Badoy made in January 2016, wherein she talked about the murders of Boyet and Primitivo Mijares under Martial Law. In that post, just six years ago, Badoy called Bongbong an “idiot, talentless son of the dead dickhead dictator.”
Badoy has since disowned such views. In a post on May 2022, Badoy said she only “believed all those lies I was taught in UP” and quoted Joseph Meynard Keynes: “When the facts change, I change my mind.”
Angeles also said the same in June 2022 when netizens surfaced her old tweets criticising the Marcos family. She said, “I changed my mind about it, aren’t we entitled to change our minds?”
But the facts haven’t changed. A 2003 Supreme Court decision declared $658 million worth of Marcos Swiss deposits as ill-gotten. Imelda Marcos’ motion for reconsideration was “denied with finality”.
According to Amnesty International, 70,000 were imprisoned, 34,000 were tortured, and 3,240 were killed under Martial Law.
“Red-tagger” Lorraine Badoy … spokesperson of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) pictured in November 2020. Image: Rappler
The rise of alternative news sources Outside government channels, Badoy co-hosts an SMNI programme named “Laban Kasama ng Bayan” with Jeffrey “Ka Eric” Celiz — who is supposedly a former rebel — where they talk about the communist movement. SMNI is the broadcasting arm of embattled preacher Apollo Quiboloy’s Kingdom of Jesus Christ church.
SMNI has been found to be at the core of the network of online assets who red-tag government critics and attack the media. The content that vloggers and influencers produce to defend Duterte’s administration now bleeds into newscasts by organisations with franchises granted by the government.
The first report of the Digital Public Pulse, a project co-led by Gaw, found that on YouTube, leading politician and government channels, including that of Marcos, directly reach their audiences without the mediation of the media.
“This shift to subscribing to influencers and vloggers as sources of news and information, and now subscribing to nontraditional or non-mainstream sources of information that are [still considered institutional] because they have franchises and they have licences to operate, it’s part of the trend of the growing distrust in mainstream media,” Gaw said.
She said that given the patronage relationship that religious organisations have with politicians, alternative news sources like SMNI and NET25 don’t necessarily practice objective, accountable, or responsible journalism because their interest is different from the usual journalistic organisation.
“I think that in general these two are politically tied and economically incentivised to perform the role that the administration and the incoming presidency of Marcos want them to play, and exactly, serving as an alternative source of information,” she said.
A day after he was proclaimed, Marcos held a press conference with only three reporters, who belonged to SMNI, GMA News, and NET25.
Rappler reviewed NET25’s Facebook posts and found that it has a history of attacking the press, Vice-President Leni Robredo, and her supporters. The network had also released inaccurate reports that put Robredo in a bad light.
Gaw said because these alternative news channels owned by religious institutions have a mutually-benefiting relationship with the government, they are given access to government officials and to stories that other journalists might not have access to. There is thus no incentive for them to report critically and perform the role of providing checks and balances.
“They would essentially be an extension of state propaganda,” Gaw said.
For Arugay, the Marcos campaign was able to take advantage of how the state influenced the standards of journalism.
“Part [of their strategy] is least exposure to unfriendlies, particularly media that’s critical. I think at the end they saw the power of critical media. And once they were able to get an opportunity, they wanted to turn things around. And this is where democracy suffers,” Arugay said.
Under Duterte, journalists and news organisations faced a slew of attacks that threatened their livelihood and freedom. Rappler was banned from covering Malacañang, faced trumped-up charges, then witnessed its CEO Maria Ressa being convicted of cyber libel.
Broadcasting giant ABS-CBN was shut down. Journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio is in her second year in jail.
While the international community lauds the courageous and critical reporting of Philippine journalists, Filipinos are shutting them out.
All bases covered While Duterte mostly used a Facebook strategy to win the election, Marcos went all out in 2022 — and it paid off.
“[The] strategy of the Marcos Jr. campaign became very complicated [compared with] the Duterte campaign because back then they were really, they just invested on Facebook. [That’s not the case here]…. No social media tech or platform was disregarded,” Arugay said.
At one point in 2021, YouTube became the most popular social media platform in the Philippines, beating Facebook. Whereas Facebook at least has a third-party fact-checking programme, YouTube barely has any strong policies against disinformation.
“I think with the Marcos campaign, they knew Facebook was a battleground, they deployed all their efforts there as well, but they knew they had to win YouTube. Because that’s where we can build more sophisticated lies and convoluted narratives than on Facebook,” Gaw said.
YouTube’s unclear policies allow lies to thrive A study by FEU technical consultant Justin Muyot found that Marcos had the highest number of estimated “alternative videos” — those produced by content creators — on YouTube. These videos aimed to shame candidates critical of Marcos and his supporters, endear Marcos to the public, and sow discord between the other presidential candidates.
YouTube is also where hyperpartisan channels thrive by posing as news channels. These were found to be in one major community that includes SMNI and the People’s Television Network.
This legitimises them as a “surrogate to journalistic reporting”.
“That’s why you’re able to sell historical disinformation, you’re able to [have] false narratives about the achievements of the Marcoses, or Bongbong Marcos in particular. You’re able to launch counterattacks to criticisms of Marcos in a very coherent and coordinated way because you’re able to have that space, time, and the immersion required to buy into these narratives,” Gaw said.
Apart from YouTube, Gaw said that Marcos had a “more clear understanding of a cross-platform strategy” across social media.
On Twitter, freshly-made accounts were set up to trend pro-Marcos hashtags. The platform later suspended over 300 accounts from the Marcos supporter base for violating its platform manipulation and spam policy.
Outgoing Vice-President and unsuccessful presidential candidate Leni Robredo – the only woman to contest the president’s office last month. Image: David Robie/APR
Ruining Robredo was a ‘coordinated effort’ Duterte and Marcos had a common target over the years: Robredo. She is another female who was constantly undermined by Duterte, along with Leila de Lima, a victim of character assassination who continues to suffer jail time because of it.
“It has been a coordinated effort of Duterte and Marcos to really undermine her, reap or cultivate hatred against her for whatever reason and to actually attach her to people and parties or groups who have political baggage, for example LP (Liberal Party) even if she’s not running for LP,” Gaw said.
The meta-partisan “news” ecosystem on YouTube, studied by researchers of the Philippine Media Monitoring Laboratory, was found to deliver propaganda using audio-visual and textual cues traditionally associated with broadcast news media.
They revealed patterns of “extreme bias and fabricated information,” repeating falsehoods that, among others, enforce negative views on Robredo’s ties with the Liberal Party and those that make her seem stupid.
Rappler found that the top misogynistic attack words used against Robredo on Facebook posts are “bobo,” “tanga,” “boba,” and “madumb,” all labeling her as stupid.
Fact-checking initiative Tsek.PH also found Robredo to be the top victim of disinformation based on their fact checks done in January 2022.
“By building years and years of lies and basically giving her, manufacturing her political baggage along the way, that made her campaign in [2022] very hard to win, very hard to convert new people because there’s already ambivalence against her,” Gaw said.
Arugay and Gaw both said that the media, academe, and civil society failed to act until it was too late. “The election result and [and where the] political landscape is at now is a product of that neglect,” Gaw said.
There is still a lack of a systemic approach on how to engage with disinformation, said Gaw, since much of it is still untraceable and underground. To add, Arugay said tech companies are to blame for their nature of prioritising profit.
“Just like in 2016, the disinformation network and architecture responsible for the 2022 electoral victory of Marcos Jr. will not die down. They will not fade.
“They will not wither away. They will just transition because the point is no longer to get him elected, the point is for him to govern or make sure that he is protected while in power,” Arugay said.
When the new administration comes in, it will be the public’s responsibility to hold elected officials accountable. But if this strategy — instilled by Duterte’s administration and continued by Marcos — continues, crucifying critics on social media and in real life, blaming past administrations and the opposition for the poor state of the country, and concocting narratives to fool Filipinos, what will reality in the Philippines look like down the line?
Loreben Tuquerois a journalist for Rappler. Republished with permission.
Indonesia’s National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) has discussed the plan to hold a peaceful dialogue to resolve the problems in Papua during its visit to the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
During the meeting, the Komnas HAM was represented by commission chairperson Taufan Damanik and two commissioners, Beka Ulung Hapsara and Mochamad Choirul Anam. They met with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet.
“Komnas HAM conveyed the initiative for a peaceful dialogue on Papua,” said Damanik in a media statement, reports CNN Indonesia.
Damanik said that the peaceful dialogue was initiated by Komnas HAM as an approach to resolve the various human rights problems in Papua. He claimed that the UN has welcomed the plan.
“Michelle Bachelet conveyed her appreciation for the move by Komnas HAM,” he said.
The commission is confident that a peaceful dialogue on Papua can be realised and Damanik hopes that all parties will support the effort.
“[We] hope that more and more parties will lend their support to the initiative that exists so that a Papua which is just, peaceful and prosperous can be quickly achieved,” he said.
Rights violations of concern
Damanik said that they also took the opportunity to explain to the UN about various human rights developments and challenges in Indonesia, including resolving cases of rights violations which are of concern to the public.
“Including within this were changes related to progress in human rights policies and the obstacles which still exist,” he said.
Komnas HAM has visited Papua on several occasions to discuss the planned peace dialogue.
It claims that many different parties have welcomed the peaceful dialogue it has initiated.
The West Papua National Liberation Army-Free Papua Organisation (TPNPB-OPM) however has rejected peace talks with the government if it is only mediated by Komnas HAM.
They have also called on President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to be prepared to sit down together with them at the negotiating table.
Earlier this year TPNPB-OPM spokesperson Sebby Sambom said that they wanted any peace dialogue or negotiations to be mediated by the UN because the armed conflict in Papua was already on an international scale.
“In principle we will agree if the negotiations are in accordance UN mechanisms, but we are not interested in Indonesia’s methods,” said Sambom in a press release on Friday February 23.
An investigation by Al Jazeera has obtained an image of the bullet used to kill the network’s journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, reports Al Jazeera staff.
The photograph for the first time shows the type of ammunition used to kill the veteran Al Jazeera correspondent in the occupied West Bank last month.
According to ballistic and forensic experts, the green-tipped bullet was designed to pierce armour and is used in an M4 rifle. The round was extracted from her head.
The bullet was analysed using 3D models and, according to experts, it was 5.56mm calibre – the same as used by Israeli forces. The round was designed and manufactured in the United States, experts said.
In this undated photo, Shireen Abu Akleh stands next to a TV camera above the Old City of Jerusalem [Al Jazeera Media Network]
Fayez al-Dwairi, a former Jordanian major-general, told Al Jazeera the weapon and round used to kill Abu Akleh are regularly carried by Israeli forces.
“This M4 and this munition is used by the Israeli army. It is available and used by the units. I cannot say the whole unit, or most of the soldiers, but they use it,” al-Dwairi told Al Jazeera.
“When any soldier uses it, he uses it for a definite target — he wants to hunt, he wants to kill … There is no way to use it for another thing.”
Palestinian assistant Multilateral Affairs Minister Ammar Hijazi told Al Jazeera the bullet will remain with the Palestinian government for further investigation.
Abu Akleh, a longtime TV correspondent for Al Jazeera Arabic, was killed last month while covering Israeli army raids in the city of Jenin.
Abu Akleh’s case was sent to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the investigation was recently handed over to the ICC prosecutor. The status of the case, however, remains unclear.
The 5.56mm bullet that killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh last month – designed to pierce armour and the same as used by Israeli forces. Image: Al Jazeera
“We think there is enough evidence with the prosecutor … that proves without reasonable doubt that the crime committed against Shireen Abu Akleh was done by the Israeli occupation and they are the perpetrators of this awful crime and they should be held responsible for it,” said Hijazi.
‘Trigger-happy policies’ Abu Akleh was wearing a press vest and standing with other journalists when she was killed.
Israeli authorities initially said Palestinian fighters were responsible for her death, circulating video of Palestinian men shooting down an alleyway. However, researchers from the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem found the spot where the clip was filmed and proved it was impossible to shoot Abu Akleh from there.
In an interview, Omar Shakir — Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch — said all evidence indicates the kill shot came from an Israeli soldier.
Sherif Mansour, MENA programme coordinator of the Committee to Protect Journalists, told Al Jazeera from Washington, DC, that “the pattern” of killing Palestinian media workers “is well known”.
“We have documented at least 19 journalists who were killed by Israeli fire, some of them in the Gaza wars in vehicles marked as press in 2012 and 2014,” Mansour said.
“Some of them were also killed by Israeli snipers while wearing vests with press signs, away from any threatening situation, two of them in 2018. Clearly, we have a problem here of trigger-happy policies that allows this to continue.”
‘Justice and accountability’ In what appeared to be an unprovoked assault at the Al Jazeera correspondent’s funeral days after she was killed, Israeli officers attacked pallbearers, which almost caused them to drop Abu Akleh’s coffin — an incident broadcast live that caused international outrage.
An Israeli police investigation into the attack concluded no one should be punished, despite finding there had been police misconduct, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said for Palestinians their version of events is being “confirmed by so many investigations”, including the latest one by Al Jazeera.
“Palestinians have been saying from day one that they know that the bullet that hit Shireen came from Israeli soldiers. The witnesses, the videos that we’ve seen from Palestinians who were there, show there were no Palestinian fighters around the area where Shireen was in,” Ibrahim said.
“Palestinians are seeking now is justice and accountability.”
‘The root cause’ A dual Palestinian-US national, Abu Akleh was one of Al Jazeera’s first field correspondents, joining the network in 1997.
Ori Givati, a former Israeli soldier now with the advocacy group Breaking the Silence, said the round that was analysed was a “very common bullet”.
“It is the bullet that most [Israeli] soldiers use during their service,” he told Al Jazeera.
“This investigation into Shireen’s killing is extremely important, but we also have to remember these incidents happen on a weekly basis.
“Our country understands that if you really look into these cases it all goes back to the root cause. It is why the system is terrified from actually conducting investigations. I haven’t seen Israel really investigate any incident.”
Al Jazeera emailed Israel’s Foreign Press Department for comment early Friday but did not immediately receive a response.
Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.
Assassinated journalist Shireen Abu Akleh … for Palestinians their version of events is being “confirmed by so many investigations”, including the latest one by Al Jazeera. Image: Al Jazeera
A birth of a child usually draws out changes from people. Parents, and even grandparents, recreate themselves in a bid to better address the demands of the new addition to the family.
Julio* knew this all too well. He first became a father at the young age of 17, and went on to work odd jobs to fulfill his responsibilities. But along the way, due to mounting pressure and the vicious cycle of poverty, Julio turned to illegal drugs.
“Sabi niya sa akin hindi ko siya maintindihan kasi ako raw may maayos na trabaho at madali makahanap ng panibagong trabaho kung sakali, samantalang siya, walang ganoong oportunidad para sa kanya,” Cristina, his younger sister, told Rappler in an interview.
(He told me I won’t be able to understand him because I have a stable job and can get another job if I want to, while he doesn’t have that opportunity.)
Julio eventually separated from his first wife, and met a new woman who then got pregnant. With a new baby on the way, 39-year-old Julio was determined more than ever to change.
He planned to start a sari-sari store, buy a refrigerator to sell frozen goods, just about anything to start anew.
“Gusto niya na iyong iyong nagawa niyang pagkukulang sa unang pamilya niya, hindi na ulit mangyari doon sa ipinagbubuntis ng kanyang kinakasama,” Cristina recalled. (He wanted to avoid repeating the same shortcomings he had with his first family.)
But President Rodrigo Duterte had other plans for Julio and thousands of others who came from the poorest communities in the Philippines. Drug dependents, for the country’s chief executive, are hopeless and useless to society.
Enemy out of drug users
Duterte made an enemy out of drug users and waged a “war” that smudged gutters, roads, and narrow alleys all over the country with blood.
RealNumberPH, the government’s unitary report on the drug war, shows that at least 6248 people have died at the hands of police during anti-illegal drug operations between July 2016 and April 30, 2022, while human rights groups estimate the total death toll to reach 30,000 to include victims of vigilante-style killings.
But figures obtained by Rappler show that the Philippine National Police (PNP) had already recorded 7884 deaths from July 1, 2016 to August 31, 2020.
On December 11, 2018, Julio became one of the thousands slain. One person told his family that their son was standing outside when he and a companion were abducted by men riding a white van.
Their lifeless bodies were found not long after.
Cristina was sure it was the police who killed his brother, but they feared going public with this allegation. It didn’t help that the sole witness, who talked to them during his brother’s funeral, was also eventually killed.
“Masakit ang pagkamatay niya pero iniisip ko na lang na at least nakita at naiburol namin siya, hindi tulad sa iba na nakikita na putol na ang kamay, wala na balita na bigla na lang nawawala,” she said.
(It hurts that he died but at least we were able to find his body and do a proper burial, unlike others who were dismembered or just disappeared completely.)
Duterte’s war on drugs
This is Duterte’s war on drugs, a key policy in his administration that has been scrutinised by both local and international bodies, including the International Criminal Court.
For Gloria Lai, regional director for Asia of the International Drug Policy Consortium, the bloody trail Duterte will leave behind once his presidential term ends on June 30 was highly unnecessary and preventable.
“[Killing people] is not a solution,” she told Rappler.
“What does success look like for the Duterte administration? It kept changing over time [and] there is no way you can say there is success,” Lai added.
The President and his allies’ rhetoric in the past six years would make one think that the Philippines has become a narcostate where drug users are behind the most violent crimes. For Duterte, they steal, they kill, they take innocent lives.
The Philippines indeed has issues with the proliferation of illegal drugs, but determining how widespread it is has been hard under the Duterte administration, given the overall lack of transparency and accurate data.
Duterte himself has been dropping different figures over the years. But a report released in February 2020 by Vice-President Leni Robredo following her short stint as co-chairperson of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs stated that there “is no common and reliable baseline data on the number of drug dependents in the country.”
‘Keeping their grip on power’
“It really just seemed to serve the administration well… to obtain power, to keep their grip on power, because it creates fear, it creates enemies, it creates scapegoats that justify really brutal and violent actions,” Lai said, adding that the drug issue was “exploited for political gain”.
Six years into the administration, the Duterte government remains tight-lipped, if not vague, about what it deemed key performance indicators of the bloody war on drugs.
PNP spokesperson Colonel Jean Fajardo said the police used two approaches in addressing the drug problem in the country. For the last six years, it had focused on reducing supplies and targeting their so-called pushers, up to high-value individuals.
“Dalawa po ang lagi nating ginagamit na approach dito po sa ating kampanya laban sa ilegal na droga. Ito po ‘yong tinatawag natin na supply reduction strategy and demand reduction strategy,” Fajardo told Rappler.
(We use two approaches in our campaign against illegal drugs. We call them supply reduction and demand reduction strategies.)
But despite this, the PNP and its partner Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) only managed to clear 25,061 out of 35,471 barangays it identified as being involved in illegal drugs. As of April 30, 2022, there are still 10,410 drug-affected barangays yet to be cleared by the PNP and PDEA.
Spike after start of bloody operations
This means, 29.34 percent of drug-affected barangays are yet to be cleared by drug enforcement authorities. Based on data on drug-affected barangays from 2016 to 2022, the Philippines saw a spike in 2017, a year after the start of bloody operations.
From 19,717 drug-affected villages in 2016, the number rose to 24,424 the following year. The number of drug-affected barangays then significantly dropped between 2020 and 2022 — the pandemic years.
In terms of collected illegal drugs, the authorities were able to seize P89.29-billion worth of illegal drugs from July 1, 2016 until April 30, 2022. PDEA, one of the lead agencies for Duterte’s drug war, boasted that they were able to seize 11,843.41 kilograms or P76.55-billion worth of shabu or crystalline methamphetamine.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has yet to release its 2022 report on synthetic drugs in Southeast Asia. But in their 2021 report, the UNODC reported that shabu was the cause of the majority of drug-related arrests and treatment admissions in the Philippines.
For six years, authorities were able to arrest a total of 341,494 individuals. Of this number, only 15,096 are considered high-value targets.
Based on the PNP’s classification, individuals who are considered high-value targets are those who run drug dens, are on the wanted list, and leaders and members of drug groups, among others.
This means that of the total number of arrested individuals due to illegal drug offences, only 4.42 percent or around four in every 100 people arrested are high-value targets.
Dehumanizing rhetoric, actions
Drug users bacame pawns
Duterte used drug users as pawns in his bid to make violence a norm in state policy and actions, Philippine Human Rights Information Center (PhilRights) executive director Nymia Pimentel-Simbulan said.
“The legacy that he will be leaving behind would be institutionalization of state violence, this particular government has a proclivity towards addressing societal problems using a war framework,” she told Rappler in an interview on Monday, June 13.
Staying true to his violent rhetoric, the President has effectively mobilised state resources to use violence and other punitive measures to address issues. Beyond the problem of illegal drugs, this approach can also be seen in the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
If the Duterte government was serious about eradicating drugs in the Philippines, Lai said that it should’ve aimed for programs that better suit this intended outcome instead of focusing on killings.
For one, the state should’ve highlighted how drug addiction is a health problem, therefore producing better health programs. For people who use illegal drugs like shabu to stay awake to work long hours, the government should invest in programs that will keep families out of the vicious cycle of poverty.
But as it is, Duterte’s rhetoric and actions further dehumanize drug dependents, lumping them together with those who are part of the illegal drug syndicates.
“If you forced them and placed them into a list where they could be hunted down and randomly interrogated by police, or even just prevent them from getting a job or going to a certain school, you just drastically diminished their life prospects,” Lai said.
Gap in social response
PNP spokesperson Fajardo admitted that there is still really a gap when it comes to social response, as well as rehabilitation facilities to cater to drug personalities.
“Sinasabi natin, we agree on the fact na ito pong drug problem natin ay health problem. Hindi lang social problem. So ‘yong mga pasilidad kulang, ‘yong ating mga livelihood na pupuwede po nating i-offer dito sa mga sumurrender pati na rin po ‘yong mga nagtutulak, ‘yong mga pusher. Hindi po sa wala, pero kulang po talaga ‘yong efforts,” Fajardo said.
(We say that we agree on the fact that this drug problem is a health problem. Not only social problems. So our facilities are lacking, the livelihood that we can offer for the surrenderees, to pushers. It’s not that we don’t have anything, but the efforts are not enough.)
There are 64 drug rehabilitation centers in the Philippines as of 2021 — 16 under the Department of Health, nine with the local government units, and 39 privately-owned. Together, these facilities have 4840 bed capacity.
In a forum in June 2021, DOH’s Dangerous Drug Abuse Prevention and Treatment Programme manager Jose Leabres said there was a need for 11,911 additional in-patient beds for 2021 and 10,629 for 2022.
Data from the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) shows an increasing number of admissions to care facilities across the country. In 2021, there were at least 2344 new admissions.
A trail of blood
Duterte is leaving Malacañang on June 30 with a trail of blood from people killed in the name of his violent war on drugs. He also leaves behind thousands of orphaned children in the poorest communities, as well as a much more stigmatised issue of drug dependency in the Philippines.
It now falls on president-elect Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. to “address all the harms done by the Duterte administration” on the issue of illegal drugs in the country, according to Lai, as well as giving justice to thousands of victims.
During the campaign season, Marcos said he will continue Duterte’s drug war, but would focus on its being a health issue. He also hinted about shielding it from the International Criminal Court.
Meanwhile, just this June, during courtesy calls with foreign ambassadors, Swedish Ambassador Annika Thunborg said there was a discussion to continue the drug war within the framework of the law and respect for human rights, among others.
PNP spokesperson Fajardo said the incoming administration should put focus on demand reduction.
“Pero ‘yong isa pa pong approach natin na tinatawag po nating demand reduction program, hangga’t may bumibili po, hangga’t may market po ay talagang meron at meron pong sisibol na panibagong players,” she said.
(But the other approach that we call the demand reduction program, until there are people who purchase drugs, until there is a market for them, there will always be new players.) DRUG WAR DEATHS. Families of victims of drug-related extrajudicial killings and human rights advocates join a Mass at the Commission on Human Rights headquarters in Quezon City.
Not holding her breath
But Simbulan, whose group PhilRights has documented the victims of Duterte’s war on drugs, is not holding her breath, knowing the Marcos family’s track record and his alliance with Duterte.
“I am not that optimistic that it will adopt a different method or approach,” she said. “Chances are, it will adopt the same punitive violent approach in addressing the drug problem in the Philippines.”
IDPC’s Lai, meanwhile, said it’s going to be a massive turnaround if Marcos decides to do away with what Duterte has done. There is nothing preventing the incoming administration from focusing on drug issues, but it has to make sure to alter government response based on evidence and what communities really need, instead of a blanket campaign that puts a premium on killings.
Most importantly, the new administration should focus their resources on areas that would make a difference on people’s lives for the better.
“[They should] consider that in a lot of cases, the drug policies and the drug laws themselves have caused a lot more harm to people and communities than the actual drugs themselves,” Lai said.
* Names have been changed for their protection
Jodesz Gavilan is a Rappler reporter. Republished with permission.
Migrants and overseas Filipinos in Aotearoa New Zealand today called on the governments of both Australia and New Zealand to halt all military and security aid to the Philippines in protest over last month’s “fraudulent” general election.
At simultaneous meetings in Auckland and Wellington, a new broad coalition of social justice and community campaigners endorsed a statement pledging: “Never forget, never again martial law!”
“Bongbong” Marcos Jr, the son of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr, was elected President in a landslide ballot on May 9 and will take office at the end of this month.
Philippine President-elect Bongbong Marcos Jr wooing voters at a campaign rally in Borongan, Eastern Samar. Image: Rappler/Bongbong FB
His father ruled the Philippines with draconian leadership — including 14 years of martial law — between 1965 and 1986 until he was ousted by a People Power uprising.
Marcos Jr – along with his mother Imelda – has long tried to thwart efforts to recover billions of dollars plundered during his father’s autocratic rule.
“Police and military forces should be investigated for their participation in red-tagging, illegal arrests on trumped up charges, extrajudicial killings, and all forms of human rights abuses,” the statement said.
“We call on the International Criminal Court to pursue investigation and trial of outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte for massive human rights breaches in its drug war and systematic attacks against political activists, human rights advocates and anti-corruption crusaders.”
Call for ‘transparent government’
The statement called for “transparent government” and for all public funds to be accounted for.
“We specifically call for realignment of the national budget in favour of covid aid, public health and social services instead of wasting billions for the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) and other government machineries that aim to suppress critics of its corruption and human rights abuses.”
The statement urged the “dismantling” of NTF-ELCAC.
Philippines Senate candidate Luke Espiritu … technology advances mean martial law by stealth. Image: David Robie/APR
The Supreme Court of the Philippines was called on to “act on the petitions lodged by various persons and groups regarding the disqualification of Ferdinand Marcos Jr to run for office due to his conviction” for tax evasion.
The statement called on the Department of Justice and Supreme Court to provide for immediate and unconditional release of the unjustly jailed Senator Leila de Lima — an outspoken critic of Duterte — “following the recantation of the testimonies of three key witnesses”, and also freedom for more than 700 political prisoners “languishing in jail on trumped-up charges”.
The gathered Filipino community also sought an official Day of Remembrance and Tribute for all the victims of Marcos dictatorship to mark the 50th year commemoration of the declaration of martial law on 21 September 2022.
‘Truth army’ to monitor social media
“We call on all Filipinos to remain vigilant as a truth army, to tirelessly monitor and report social media platforms in serious breach of community standards, and to push for stronger laws in place for disinformation to be punished,” the statement said.
Filipinos in the two cities — Auckland and Wellington — pledged support for the Angat Buhay cause of defending Philippines “history, truth and democracy”.
Outgoing Vice-President and unsuccessful presidential candidate Leni Robredo – the only woman to contest the president’s office last month – on screen at today’s Auckland meeting. Image: David Robie/APR
Speakers included Filipino trade unionist Dennis Maga; Mikee Santos of Migrante Aotearoa; an unsuccessful Filipino Labour candidate in the 2020 NZ elections, Romy Udanga; and speaking by Zoom from Manila, Senate candidate Luke Espiritu, who said the new Marcos regime would be able to achieve virtual “martial law” without declaring it.
“All Marcos needs to do is suppress dissent, and he has all the sophisticated technology available to do this that his father never had,” Espiritu said.
Northland Kakampink coordinator Faye Bañares said the new Angat Buhay NGO should not take over the responsibility of providing for the poor in the community, although the aim is to help them.
“The NGO should push the Philippine government to face their responsibility and be transparent about what they do,” she said.
Many speakers told how shocked they were in the general election over a “massive breakdown of vote counting machines and voter disenfranchisement” and the “incredibly rapid count of COMELEC transparency servers” to award the “unbelievable final tally” of 31 million votes in favour of Ferdinand Marcos Jr as president and Rodrigo Duterte’s daughter Sara as vice-president.
Social media troll farms
Denouncing the social media troll farms, the meeting critics said “all the worst lies, disinformation and red-tagging were committed against [outgoing vice-president] Leni Robredo, opposition candidates and parties who stood up against [Rodrigo] Duterte and the Marcos-Duterte tandem.”
In November 2021, the Philippines and New Zealand agreed to boost maritime security cooperation during the 6th Philippines-New Zealand Foreign Ministry Consultations hosted by the Philippines.
Both sides acknowledged the growing breadth and depth of Philippines-New Zealand bilateral cooperation, particularly in the areas of defence and security, health, trade and investments, development cooperation, people-to-people and cultural engagements.
The Philippines “defending democracy” public meeting in Glenfield, Auckland, today. Image: David Robie/APRFilipinos in the Wellington meeting make their pledge simultaneously with the Auckland group for “history, truth and democracy” in the Philippines. Image: Del Abcede/APRNorthland Kakampink coordinator Fe Bañares speaking at the Auckland meeting. Image: Del Abcede/APR
