COLUMNIST: GERRY ALBERT CORPUZ
Politics in Command
Gerry Albert Corpuz served as managing and associate editor of the student publication "The Catalyst" in 1990 before joining the Philippine human rights group Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace in 1992. As a political activist based in Manila, he has written over 4,000 political statements on different issues related to fisheries, agriculture, world trade, human rights and civil liberties, peace talks, labor, the environment, the War on Terror, foreign debt and culture. He now writes for Bulatlat.com, an alternative Philippine online news site. He also currently heads the information and international departments of Pamalakaya, a national federation of small fisherfolk organizations in the Philippines. Mr. Corpuz can be reached through his Web site at www.gerryalbertcorpuz.motime.com or by email at themanager98@yahoo.com.
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June 10, 2008Manila, Philippines — Staunch critics of embattled Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo have asked her to consider an “emergency exit” following the Manila government’s failure to stop weekly increases in the prices of petroleum products and rising cost of power across the country.
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June 04, 2008Manila, Philippines — Leaders of the Philippine fisherfolk group Pamalakaya have warned that rising oil prices, unless addressed decisively by the Manila government, might push small fisherfolk to abandon fishing, which could trigger a more serious food crisis.
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May 28, 2008Manila, Philippines — Last week, colleagues of Rep. Crispin Beltran paid tribute to the late lawmaker, who died from a fall while fixing the roof of his house on May 20. Thousands of Filipino workers and farmers came to pay respects to the 75-year-old labor leader-turned-lawmaker, known for serving the poor and underprivileged.
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May 22, 2008Manila, Philippines — The appointment of retired Armed Forces Chief of Staff Hermogenes Esperon Jr. as adviser to the Philippine president on the peace process has met with protests from all sides. The former general is likely to face criticism, protests and legal battles in the days to come.
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April 28, 2008Manila, Philippines — Peace activists and human rights advocates in Manila have opposed the proposal that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair help Philippine President Gloria Arroyo clinch a peace agreement with armed groups engaged in civil war. They called on the pope to play the role of peacemaker instead.
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April 22, 2008Manila, Philippines — Last week, Philippine President Gloria Arroyo announced that she was amenable to grant Filipino workers a much-needed increase in their daily take-home pay to offset the ill effects of rising costs of rice and other basic needs. But Arroyo made a turnaround this week.
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April 14, 2008Manila, Philippines — The intensifying rice and food crisis in the Philippines has raised speculations that food riots like those that rocked Haiti last week may soon hit Manila. This scenario is being discussed and debated among food experts and economic and political observers.
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April 03, 2008Manila, Philippines — The failure of the Manila government to address the roots of armed conflict in the Philippines through peace negotiations has emboldened two armed political groups to raise the ante of their armed struggle against the seven-year-old presidency of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
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March 27, 2008Manila, Philippines — Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo says she will spend US$334.6 million to upgrade the military in order to defeat the communist guerillas before her term ends in May 2010. Critics say the resumption of peace talks with the rebels is a better option.
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March 20, 2008Manila, Philippines — Two top leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines, identified as allies of embattled President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, are accused of banning priests from holding masses in an effort to cover up the truth and protect the president, who is fighting charges of big-time corruption.
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March 13, 2008Manila, Philippines — The Filipino people are outraged to learn that their government entered a deal with China to explore ocean territory around the Spratly Islands in connection with a Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking. The contract calls for joint seismic research, but also investigations into oil and gas deposits in the area.
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March 06, 2008Manila, Philippines — Anti-corruption watchdogs in Manila last week made an appeal to the leaders of the European Union to wait for the Philippines to elect its next president before giving 61 million euros (US$90.22 million) in aid to the Philippine government.
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February 28, 2008Manila, Philippines — Despite President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's assertion that the Filipino people are fed up with People Power as a means to effect change in leadership and governance, and that the world would condemn another popular uprising, the call for regime change is fast sweeping across the country once more.
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February 14, 2008Manila, Philippines — A leading opposition newspaper has disclosed that Chinese Embassy officials in Manila held a series of closed-door-meetings with Department of Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez weeks before a star witness on the controversial US$329 million National Broadband Network deal was abducted.
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February 07, 2008Manila, Philippines — The influential Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines has called on the Manila government and the communist-led National Democratic Front of the Philippines to resume stalled peace talks and advised both parties to refrain from imposing preconditions that would imperil the talks.
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February 01, 2008Manila, Philippines — Last week the International Labor Organization forecast that 5 million people would join the world's unemployed due to the U.S. economic crisis and rising oil prices. In the Philippines there were 597,000 new jobless and 803,000 underemployed workers last year, the situation is likely to get worse.
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January 24, 2008Manila, Philippines — A Manila-based think tank has issued a report asserting that Japan's controversial economic partnership agreement with the Philippine government is just one piece of Tokyo's larger plan for an eventual comprehensive economic partnership agreement in East Asia that would expand Japan's regional influence.
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December 27, 2007Manila, Philippines — Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo plans to revive her campaign to amend the 1987 Constitution through a people's initiative, analysts predict. This would change the presidential system to a parliamentary system and allow her re-election as prime minister.
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December 20, 2007Manila, Philippines — Last week, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo announced her support for the revival of an Anti-Subversion Law that seeks to punish membership in the Communist Party of the Philippines, in an effort to defeat the country's 38-year-old Maoist insurgency.
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December 14, 2007Manila, Philippines — The report of the United Nations Children's Education Fund about violations of human rights committed by the Philippine military against children in areas of armed conflict is deeply disturbing. These acts are condemnable to the highest order.
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December 06, 2007Manila, Philippines — Widespread offshore mining in declared protected seascapes is a major concern among interest and environmental groups in the Philippines. They say this will impact the country's ability to fight global warming, climate change, environmental destruction an
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November 28, 2007Manila, Philippines — Last week, the Bangkok-based think tank Focus on the Global South released a report accusing Washington of maintaining secret bases in the Philippines. It suggested these "lily pads" were to be used for a future war against China, seen as a threat to U.S.
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November 21, 2007Manila, Philippines — A top official of the National Security Council of the Philippine government has been implicated in the Nov.13 bombing of the House of Representatives, which claimed the lives of one lawmaker and three congressional staff.Basilan Rep. Wahab Akbar and th
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November 14, 2007Manila, Philippines — A Philippines lawmaker said last week that Manila business groups that are collaborating with Japanese transnational corporations and investors, and who will benefit along with their Japanese counterparts from the ratification of the controversial Japan-P
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November 07, 2007Manila, Philippines — Philippine human rights activists Tuesday welcomed, with reservations, the recent U.S. Senate action in serving notice to the government of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo that it wants the Manila government to prosecute human rights violators, includin
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October 30, 2007Manila, Philippines — President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo granted executive clemency to her political nemesis, former President Joseph Estrada, saving the man a life behind bars, last Thursday. However, anti-corruption watchdogs in Manila assailed the pardon and viewed it as the
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October 24, 2007Manila, Philippines — Public opinion in the Philippines is blaming the Manila government over the latest bombing incident at a shopping center in the financial district of Makati City last Friday that killed 11 people and injured 100 others. Political experts and critics of
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October 10, 2007Manila, Philippines — The failure of the Manila government to institute meaningful agrarian reforms has prompted a national peasant alliance to exhort Philippine lawmakers to enact a radical version of land reform that would lead to expropriation of large-scale landholdings ac
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October 03, 2007Manila, Philippines — The Philippine government and the military establishment under the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo do not respect the practice of human rights lawyering and regard human rights lawyers as enemies of the state, therefore included in the
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September 26, 2007Manila, Philippines — Last week, a Filipino legal expert said officials of the Chinese firm ZTE Corp., which won a US$329 million contract for the National Broadband Network project, may be held accountable if the Philippine Commission on Elections Chairman Benjamin Abalos Sr.
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September 20, 2007Manila, Philippines — Three weeks ago, one of the Philippines' major dailies reported that eight Muslim children were subjected to extreme psychological torture in the course of a military campaign to decimate the Abu Sayyaf group in Mindanao. A report in the Philippine Dail
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August 29, 2007Manila, Philippines — The London-based International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund committed a major blunder when it approved reimbursement to Petron Corp. for the expenses the firm incurred in the cleanup of 2.1 million liters of bunker fuel that spilled off the waters of G
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August 22, 2007Manila, Philippines — The current debate in the Philippines on the controversial Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement has been focused on the importation of Japan's toxic waste and the Philippines' exportation of Filipino nurses and other medical practitioners to t