the Earth-bound adventures of the Lost and Found

Description: every war we've lost in philippine history has been because of a few filipino traitors who put their short-term interests first before the future of their countrymen. the JPEPA not just threatens to kill local industries further (as existing free trade agreements already unfairly do) but also gives sovereignty over our natural resources to the japanese. plus, there's also the risk of having toxic electronic waste getting dumped in our land and seas as part of the traded "goods". the agreement also has the power to repeal existing laws protecting our sovereignty if they disagree with new arrangements under this agreement. let us not allow traitors to sell our country again to foreign powers. read up and sign! PS and please do forward this. ==================== Greetings! We, groups and individuals in Cebu campaigning for the rejection of the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA), are starting an on-line petition addressed to the Philipp...

Start:      Nov 6, '07 11:00p Location:      ABS-CBN, Channel 2 Please watch The Correspondents tomorrow night, November 6, after BANDILA. It features the 1,500-km walk of the Sumilao Farmers from Bukidnon to Manila to reclaim their 144-hectare land. Click here if you want to know what this is all about. Tell your friends about it!

Start:      Nov 7, '07 11:00a End:      Nov 7, '07 4:00p Location:      USC AVR, Cebu City The Japan Petroleum Exploration (JAPEX) has had its eyes on the nationally protected Tanon Strait, feeding & breeding ground and marine corridor for whales and dolphins, since more than two years ago, when it started initial explorations. This month JAPEX wants to do actual drilling. The Department of Energy (DOE) is inviting all concerned (that means YOU) to attend the meeting on Wednesday, November 7, at the University of San Carlos in Cebu. Sec. Angelo Reyes and USec Roy Kyamko will be there. Please don't be late. Surely this is important enough to be punctual for :P

Start:      Oct 17, '07 09:00a End:      Oct 18, '07 12:00p Location:      Audio-Visual Room, University of the Philippines in the Visayas Cebu College Greetings! We are organizing two forums on the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) next week and we are pleased to invite you and your organization. We are proud to have as speakers those who were directly involved in the just concluded Senate hearings. The schedules are: 1. October 17, 2007 (Wednesday), 9:00am-12noon "JPEPA and its Effects to Agriculture and the Environment" Venue: Audio-Visual Room, University of the Philippines in the Visayas Cebu College Lahug, Cebu City Confirmed speakers: a. Atty. Golda S. Benjamin Coordinator - International Trade, IDEALS b. Atty. Richard Gutierrez Asia Coordinator - Basel Action Network c. Ms. Marnie Dolera Coordinator - Magkaisa Junk JPEPA Coalition *Organized by FDC-Cebu, Universi...

Description: “Lumad” farmers from Sumilao to march on foot for 60 days to reclaim land 8 October 2007 ( This article can also be found at the AFA Website: http://asianfarmers.org/?p=319# ) Quezon City, Philippines -- As a non-violent way of protesting the more than 10 years of injustice they have gone through in trying to reclaim their ancestral land, 50 “lumad” farmers belonging to the Mapalad Multi-purpose Cooperative (MPC) will march on foot from their hometown of Sumilao, Bukidnon in the south to the capital city of Manila in the north from October 10 to December 10. (“Lumad” is the term given to the indigenous peoples in the southern island of Mindanao.) In a letter sent to agrarian reform and rural development advocates in the country and abroad, PAKISAMA, a national confederation of farmers’ associations in the Philippines (of which MPC, through its provincial federation PALAMBU, is a member) asked for support for the farmers’ 60-day march that will hopefully “re-ignite awarenes...

http://pcij.org/stories/2006/charter3.html THE PCIJ has just finished a three-part series that looks at the uncanny similarities in the manner in which Ferdinand Marcos and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo have attempted to change the constitutions prevailing during their incumbency. The series was written by Raissa Espinosa-Robles who, in 1984, wrote a 14-part series on the Marcos constitution for Business Day. Raissa dug up her files again and found transcripts, interviews and speeches that attest to how similar the current situation is to 1971-73, when Marcos managed to ram through a new constitution. This series compares historical material and transcripts of recent discussions in the Consultative Commission (ConCom) and found the following similarities: * Both the 1973 charter and the one currently being proposed were seen primarily as attempts to save an embattled president and keep that president in power by changing the form of government. * In both, there were sweeteners. In 19...

Supreme Court: Arrests, raid under 1017 were illegal   First posted 04:04pm (Mla time) May 03, 2006 By Tetch Torres INQ7.net     THE Supreme Court has upheld President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's power to declare a state of emergency but ruled that arrests and a police raid made under Proclamation 1017, her instrument for such a declaration in February, were illegal. Voting 11-3, the Supreme Court said the Constitution empowered the President to declare a state of national emergency but also said the arrest of university professor and Inquirer columnist Randy David and Akbayan national chairman Rolando Llamas and the raid at the office of The Daily Tribune virtue of Proclamation 1017 violated the law.   Those who dissented were Associate Justices Renato Corona, Presbitero Velasco, and Dante Tinga who wanted the high tribunal to include of a definition on the extent of the President’s emergency powers.   The decision was penned by Associate Justice Angelina Sandova...

a break from my self-centered preoccupations to celebrate another victory for freedom and social justice  yahoo! may God enlighten Gloria even more. PP 1017 na lang.... ===================== SC declares Calibrated Preemptive Response unconstitutional First posted 03:06pm (Mla time) April 25, 2006 By Tetch Torres INQ7.net THE SUPREME Court has declared as unconstitutional the Calibrated Preemptive Response (CPR) policy of the government but said that Batas Pambansa 88 or the Public Assembly Act was legal. Voting 13-0, the high court ordered the Department of Interior and Local Government to strictly implement Section 15 of BP880. The CPR bans street rallies without permits and gives the government the authority to deal with protesters accordingly. Section 15 provides that: "Every city and municipality in the country shall within six months after the effectivity of this Act establish or designate at least one suitable ‘freedom park’ or mall in their respective jurisdictions which, ...

March 3, 2006 - Fuente Osmena, Cebu City. When I was actually marching with them around the circle, with their flags waving, and people shouting all sorts of things, as if they were songs they'd memorized in kindergarted, I realized it was my first time to join a rally, I mean this sort of rally where you're actually in the middle of the street and people are taking turns speaking impromptu into the megaphone, raising their voices dramatically. So when I, too, was asked to speak in behalf of ALG (because I was the only representative there), I said no, I know my limits, it's not the sort of thing I can do on the spot. Next time I'll remember to translate any press statements into Cebuano first before I join these rallies =P I felt more comfortable documenting everything instead.

Lawyers say Arroyo not yet off the hook Article posted March 3, 2006, 3:41 pm Despite the lifting of Proclamation 1017 on Friday, 17 law groups under the coalition Alternative Law Groups Inc (ALG) said President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is not yet off the hook. “The lifting of Proclamation 1017 does not erase the violations of constitutional rights that were committed in the short period of its implementation. The repression of civil liberties has been done and could be repeated," said lawyer Marlon Manuel, ALG spokesperson. Manuel said to stop Malacaňang’s monopoly of power, the Supreme Court should set the rule by declaring the proclamation unconstitutional so that civil liberties would be protected and abuses of governmental power disallowed. ALG lawyers said their fight against “repressive policies" has to continue and the people must remain vigilant. “Monopoly of power has no place in a democracy. Allowing power-hungry leaders to revive our past could be every Filipino’s...

Description: My fellow e-Mandirigmas, Last Friday, February 24 � as the nation was preparing to celebrate the freedom we regained at EDSA two decades ago, Ms. Arroyo issued Proclamation 1017 declaring a state of emergency, in response to a military uprising. In the hours and days that followed, it became evident how GMA intended to implement this presidential decree. We saw the excessive use of police power in dispersing the crowds. And even after the military threat was decisively contained, we saw the warrantless arrests of known opposition leaders, the closure of newspapers, and the barefaced intimidation of media owners and practitioners. PD 1017 is eerily similar to PD 1081. And the pattern is unmistakably Marcosian. Crackdown on the reds � the public has no love lost for them, anyway. Control media. And prop up the illusion of a new order after the purging. I�m glad that many, who have been sitting on the fence all this time, saw through the farce and finally came out t...

Due to illegal exercise of Martial Rule 17 Lawyer Groups File Petition at SC to Stop Proclamation 1017   ALTERNATIVE   Law Groups, Inc. (ALG), a coalition of 17 lawyer organizations has filed a petition for certiorari with a prayer for a temporary restraining order at the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of Proclamation 1017 and its application through General Order No. 5.   In the petition, ALG lawyers claim that Proclamation 1017 should be “struck down and declared null and void” because President Arroyo has illegally exercised martial law powers by “resurrecting” the 1973 Martial Law and “mangling” Article II, section 4 of the 1987 Constitution.     ALG lawyers claim that since there has been no declaration of a state of martial law and/or a suspension of the writ of habeas corpus – which could only be granted through an act of Congress within the limits of the Constitution, Proclamation 1017 has not give any extra powers to the President to pr...

Start:      Mar 1, '06 2:00p End:      Mar 1, '06 4:00p Location:      IBP Social Hall, Cebu Provincial Capitol Complex “Proclamation No. 1017: Its Constitutionality and Implications” February 27, 2006 Greetings! “Presidential Proclamation No. 1017:Its Constitutionality and Implications” is the theme of the forum facilitated by the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP), Movement of Concerned Citizens for Civil Liberties (MCCCL) – Cebu Chapter, Cebu Lady Lawyers Association, Inc. (CELLA) and Laban ng Masa and other organizations. This will be held at the IBP Social Hall, Capitol Complex, Cebu City on March 1, 2006 from 2:00 P.M. to 4:00 P.M. The Legal and Political Implications of Proclamation No. 1017 will be discussed by IBP NEAT Deputy chair for the Visayas Gloria Estenzo Ramos and IBP Cebu City Chapter Past President Democrito Barcenas. There will be reactors from the police, military, media, local government units, church...

lost and found (#21) by Jeneen R. Garcia (and this is my new column pic =)   As shadows fall, and the faces of vendors sitting on the pavement outside the church start to darken (candles, roses, peanuts, and apples wrapped in Styrofoam laid out on concrete, waiting for the customers to come out), I wonder if any of them care who will cry out for GMA’s resignation next. (Or who will no longer cry out for resignation). Or if they care at all who’s sitting up there, holding the power to (supposedly) change their lives for better or worse.   I, too, have more pressing things to think about than what’s happening in Manila . Yes, I care about what kind of president steers the country, if her policies are socially just or good only for her allies, if she has enough integrity to actually do things for her country instead of for herself and her family. But even if it’s someone else on her seat tomorrow, I will still have to pay P6 for a jeepney ride, 50% more than what I did last...

unpublished Photo of falcattas taken in a reforestation project in Cebu Although the Clean Air Act has made most forms of incineration illegal, the smell of burning leaves will always remind me of childhood, and the mango tree in the middle of our garden. It was too tall for me to climb, but there was a hammock tied to its branches. My friend and I would sit there and tell stories in between games of piko . I was fortunate enough to have grown up in a house surrounded by trees, a star apple tree right outside my room to shade me from the heat. After college, I swore I would never work or live in a place without trees. Outside my office window now, an avocado tree keeps me from burning in the morning sun, and even yields enough fruit for a salad on occasion. But not till later did science teach me just how important trees are. Aside from their commercial value as a source of lumber, food, clothing and medicine for humans, they also provide shelter to the thousands of organisms that keep...