2013 World Press Freedom Day: The Press is all of Us

 

Tomorrow is World Press Freedom Day and there is no more opportune time to highlight the contradictions between the name of what we are supposed to celebrate and the real happenings in the flesh.

This year, several killings and harassments of media practitioners have already been documented. Last February, a photographer and correspondent of the Philippine Daily Inquirer were hit by policemen while covering the protest action in Davao City of the Typhoon Pablo victims. Also, criminal libel continues to threaten the work of several journalists in the country. Last March, two Southern Luzon correspondents of The Philippine Star and Pilipino Star Ngayon were charged with a libel case by a gold trader from Camarines Norte. In the campus press, the former Editor-in-Chief of UP Baguio Outcrop continues to face a legal battle because of an allegedly libelous lampoon article that came out during her term.

The murder of Gerry Ortega, an environmentalist and journalist from Palawan, continues to be unresolved up to now. The same lack of justice applies to the victims of the Maguindanao Massacre, 30 of which were journalists and their families.

As we celebrate World Press Freedom Day tomorrow, let us bear in mind the grim happenings that sadly taint our cause of celebration. More importantly, let us continue our fight for a more genuine Press Freedom all over the world and for a Press that will not be harassed, intimidated, charged legally, surveilled, abducted and murdered for what they write and what principles they uphold.

Ultimately, the Press is all of us; the Press is not just the people behind the newspaper articles and the news programs; the Press also includes the people who are the producers, consumers and analysts of information that is shown in the media.

 

 

For Reference:

Ivan Emil Labayne, 09268105915

 

CEGP Baguio-Benguet condemns Aquino COMELEC’s systematic attacks on Makabayan Bloc

Press Statement

April 14, 2013

CEGP Baguio-Benguet is enraged by the latest ploy by the Commission of Elections to disqualify the KABATAAN partylist, the lone representative of the youth in the Congress, and Piston partylist in the upcoming May 2013 Elections. With this move, the COMELEC only reinforces its being an Aquino COMELEC.

The Comelec charged both partylists who are members of the Makabayan bloc for allegedly violating COMELEC Resolution No. 9615 which concerns the posting of campaign materials on public areas. Earlier, KABATAAN Partylist already showed proofs of compliance to the rules which are accompanied by photo documentations and eyewitness accounts.

CEGP Baguio-Benguet sees this move by the clearly biased COMELEC as a motivated attack against members of the Makabayan Bloc who is known for advancing the genuine interests of the Filipino people. Along with the red-baiting of the Makabayan’s lone Senatorial candidate Teddy Casiño, the COMELEC, backed by and evidently protecting the Aquino administration, is resorting to a variety of evil tactics to hinder the members of the Makabayan bloc to push for its alternative politics.

The COMELEC overlooks the fact that the KABATAAN Partylist has long been working for the promotion of the interests of the youth not just in its stint in the Congress but also beyond the legislative arena. KABATAAN partylist has been on the forefront of the fight against the systematic neglect of the Aquino administration to the State Universities and Colleges which essentially deprive the Filipino people of its basic right to education. Since Aquino take his seat as President, KABATAAN partylist has been leading the massive protest actions against huge budget cuts in SUCs and tuition fee increases in private schools. KABATAAN Partylist was also the leading author of the Anti No-Permit, No Exam Policy which can be helpful to students who are prevented from taking their examinations because of unpaid fees. KABATAAN partylist was also one of the earliest to file a petition against the unconstitutional Cybercrime Law and mobilized its widest forces to contribute in the eventual issuance of temporary restraining order on the said law. Also, with the help of its national formations and chapters, KABATAAN partylist, through its Tulong Kabataan Program, was also able to respond most quickly and most widely to help our fellowmen in times of national disasters and calamities. These among the many other achievements and meaningful actions of KABATAAN partylist in protecting the rights of the Filipino people the COMELEC seems to consciously bypass and focus instead on a little issue which the partylist has not left unresolved and not rectified.

At this point, we urge every youth to be vigilant as the COMELEC makes its decision in this disqualification case. We have to bear in mind that without KABATAAN Partylist, without our sole representation in the Congress, we will lose a key ally in our struggle for our rights and the protection of our interests. The history and track record of KABATAAN partylist speaks for itself. However, these are not enough to thwart a bullish apparatus of the Aquino administration who works to persecute those who are at the side of the people. What is needed is mobilizing the largest act of condemnation from the youth in order to frustrate this harassment from the COMELEC.

NO TO DISQUALIFICATION OF KABATAAN AND PISTON PARTYLISTS!

NO TO DISQUALIFICATION OF PROGRESSIVE PARTYLISTS!

UPHOLD GENUINE REPRESENTATION OF THE MARGINALIZED!

The loss of Kristel, the lost ‘Iskolar ng Bayan’ tag and the continuing call for quality and mass-oriented education

 

CEGP Baguio-Benguet is one with the family, friends and sympathizers of Kristel Tejada, the Behavioral Science student from UP Manila who ended her life because of her family’s inability to pay for her tuition fees, in lamenting the loss of an Iskolar ng Bayan. Furthermore, we lament the essential loss of the significance of this previously esteemed ‘Iskolar ng Bayan’ designation and the tragic system of education that causes it.

Kristel’s loss, more than anything, personalizes and magnifies the horrible education system that we usually capture in the characteristic catchphrases of being ‘commercialized, colonial and fascist.’ Kristel’s loss only attests to the enormous harms posed by this kind of education to our fellow youth and our fellowmen in general. Expensive costs of tuition fees in a State University, which is being such is supposed to be funded by the peoples’ taxes, discriminating schemes such as the No Late Payment policy, and rigorous processes one needs to undergo (i.e. through the STFAP program in UP) in order to prove she deserves to pay less are only a few exemplifications of a kind of education that is being reserved for the privileged. This is how supposed ‘slogans’ will haunt us with their veracity: education is a right and shall be given to every citizen regardless of gender, religion, socioeconomic or ethnic background. The decreasing budget of the University of the Philippines, along with the other 110 State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) in the country, programs aiming to make these SUCs ‘self-sufficient’ by encouraging income-generating projects and privatizing the schools’ assets – these are but a few realities that prove how the Aquino administration neglects the education of its constituents.

Ultimately, it is always disheartening that we have to encounter losses and deaths before we realize the plight that we are in. Kristel’s death shall not be reduced to a kind of ‘pseudo-event’ that Fredric Jameson spoke of. Kristel’s event shall not be just mourned upon without probing the more fundamental issues that it entangles and implicates. Kristel’s death shall be the ultimatum that will rouse us from our slumbering sense of involvement and our lack of awareness, whether these are conscious or otherwise. Kristel’s death shall reveal the crisp legitimacy of the old ‘slogans’ we may have grown tired of but still continually eggs on us to fight for:

Education is a Right!

Justice for Kristel Tejada!

Justice for all the Filipinos denied of a Scientific and Quality Education!

Black Monday in UP Baguio (photo courtesy of UP Baguio Outcrop) https://www.facebook.com/pages/UP-Baguio-OutcroP/329702319182

Amidst tuition fee proposals and the nearing graduation season: Youth groups to defend right to education “Katipunan style”

Media Advisory:

During the Spanish occupation of the country more than a century ago, a momentous scene occurred in Balintawak which would later become an oft-cited example of the Filipinos’ nationalist spirit in the face of oppression – the Cry of Balintawak.

 

Today, even as the Spaniards are long ousted in the country, the Filipino people continue to be haunted by various kinds of oppression. Among the youth, one of the areas where their rights are grossly violated is in education. As we are now in the first quarter of the year, it is time to be vigilant of the proposed tuition fee increases within higher private educational institutions. The studentry must ensure that these tuition increase proposals undergo proper consultations following the guidelines issued by CHED. Our recent experiences have led to documentation of various means to bypass the proper consultation process such as the lack of information dissemination to the students and the school administration’s inability to show the school’s fiscal report. On the basic levels of education, as March approaches, we must guard against graduation fees which are already forbidden by the Department of Education. The KABATAAN Partylist already created a hotline where complaints against imposition of graduation fees can be made. Lastly, the controversial K Plus 12 program continues to be implemented and Grade 7 will begin this June. However, the old problems of insufficient facilities, books, classrooms and teachers persist and cast immense doubt on the effectiveness of the program. The government is clearly not heeding its constituents.

Tomorrow, February 21, the youth of Baguio City shall voice out their indignation regarding the current plight of the education system. Led by Anakbayan Cordillera, different youth groups will reenact the Cry of Balintawak with a contemporary twist –instead of acting against a colonial power, the youth will denounce the existing policies and mispriorities in education. Join us at 12 noon at the Main Gate of Saint Louis University and at 12:30 at K.M.O as we protect our right to education.

Media Coverage is likewise requested.

 

For Reference:

Tracy Anne Dumalo, Anakbayan Cordillera

09061855247

As another witness in Gerry Ortega case dies: Justice system is dying, needs revival through our vigorous asking for it – CEGP Baguio-Benguet

 

Last Tuesday, Dennis Aranas, another key suspect-turned-witness in the infamous shooting of journalist and environmentalist Gerry Ortega in Palawan was found dead while in prison. He was the second witness to die which the Ortega family fears could hinder the progress of the investigation on Gerry Ortega’s murder two years ago.

CEGP Baguio-Benguet sees this incident as part of the gradual killing of justice in the country where those who forward legitimate calls for change in the face of an increasingly dismal social condition are being persecuted by the powers-that-be. The killing of a vital witness no doubt puts a major blockage in resolving the murder case of Dr. Gerry Ortega who was killed during the height of the controversial Malampaya Gas Project in Palawan. In his radio show in the province, Ortega used to fearlessly brought up the anomaly of funds’ misuse in the said project.

Tied with the duty of journalists is the exposure of all the facts and offering of sharp views concerning the concrete realities that each piece of fact implies. Ortega’s murder can be easily linked to his scathing remarks on what he deemed was an inappropriate transaction regarding the Malampaya Gas Project. Now, more than two years after his murder, justice keeps on being delayed and further tactics are being conducted to maintain the case under gray light.

This latest death of Dennis Aranas is the latest blow to the already frail justice system in the country. The obvious call now is for all of us to come together and inject some life to the sick order of justice in the country by vigorously and vehemently demanding for it from those whose interests are currently protected by this widespread injustice.

 

 

As Cybercrime TRO expires, efforts to junk RA 10175 need to be urgent

Press Release

February 05, 2013

On the last day before the end of the Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) imposed by the Supreme Court on the immensely questioned Cybercrime Law, the College Editors’ Guild of the Philippines Baguio-Benguet continues its ardent call to oppose the law that could largely limit the flow of discourses and the exchange of information in the internet.

We continue to call attention to the libel provision which increases the penalty of the already controversial criminal libel stipulated in the Revised Penal Code. Mere liking or sharing a “libelous” post can now be deemed as a crime under the Cybercrime Law. We see this as posing a significant impediment in the impressive tapping of the internet as a medium for social involvement and dissent.

The consistent increase in internet usage all over the world has been more often touted as the increasing popularity of a supposed democratization of disseminating information and shaping public opinion. While there are legitimate contestations regarding this view, such as the varying extent by which the reactionary businessmen and the oppositional groups appropriate user-generation of content in the internet to advance their respective agenda, it cannot be doubted that the internet has been an effective tool in countering the status quo. This has been manifested in some European countries in the past decade and in there is no considerable lag in the Philippines. We have seen in the recent years how the internet, particularly the social networking sites have once been flooded by oppositional, if not subversive content, relating to current issues and the general condition of the society.

We see the Cybercrime Law mainly as a way to curb these potentials of the internet to be used against the existing order. In a move hauntingly reminiscent of a remodeled Foucauldian surveillance, the Cybercrime Law is threatening to always keep us on guard in our internet use.

We therefore need to recognize that we are being watched. And so before they can even begin to label us and our actions with names that demonize our intentions (libelous, terrorist, subversive), we must oppose this repressive law disguising, as most laws do, to protect the rights of the people

 

For Reference:

Ivan Emil Labayne, 09268105915

Chair

Think Change 2013: The North Luzon Youth Summit: Youth agenda, network for right to education, employment and democratic rights formed

Press Release:

January 29, 2013

 

Last 2010, more than 100 youth from all over Northern Luzon gathered to build solidarity and synthesize the issues being confronted then by their sector as the national elections approach. The event, dubbed as Think Change, aimed to engage the youth in community-building and provide venues for their concretization of the clichéd “Ang kabataan ang pag-asa ng bayan” statement.

This year, various organizations led by the Cordillera Youth Center, Anakbayan Cordillera, College Editor’s Guild of the Philippines Baguio-Benguet, National Union of Students of the Philippines Baguio-Benguet and the Sangguniang Kabataan Federation Baguio City, Think Change 2013 was conducted at Teachers’ Camp on January 26 and 27, with nearly 200 delegates from the provinces of Pangasinan, Isabela, Cagayan Valley and the regions of Ilocos and Cordillera. In the two-day summit, the delegates listened to various discussions magnifying the issues they should confront as the emerging sector of the country, exchanged ideas on how to address these issues, paraded all the way from Teachers’ Camp down to Session Road and People’s Park, Malcolm Square where a Jam for Change was also held on the first night .

Participants of the Youth Summit during the Unity March

 

Delegates from Kalinga during the Unity Parade

 

Cultural performers during the Jam for Change at Malcolm, Square

 

Keynote: the condition of the youth is a condition for dissent

Einstein Recedes of Kabataan Partylist National delivered the Keynote Address where he elaborated on the various issues of the youth from their schools, to their communities and the workplace. As the perennial problem faced by the youth, most of which are studying in schools, Recedes emphasized the tuition and miscellaneous fees increases, along with the redundant fees in his speech. The rate of unemployment and its aggravation by the lack of jobs created that is suitable to the needs of the country also got attention in the keynote speech. Also, the violation of the human rights of the youth, already touched on the violation of their right to education and employment, is only more brutalized by the vilification of progressive youth organizations that justly advances the interests of the sector in their different areas of life.

Recedes’ booming conclusion includes the exhortation that given these existing conditions that are meant to stifle the energies of the youth, the youth has no better option than to keep on acting together and continue expanding their ranks in order to register a louder voice of dissent. In this venture, the youth should bear in mind the tripartite modes of engagement that they should follow as a more effective way of confronting their issues: arousing, organizing and mobilizing. Invoking and at the same time recasting Rizal’s hackneyed proposition on the youth as the hope of the nation, Recedes ended his speech with a stirring recommendation: kabataan, ‘wag nang hintayin ang kinabukasan, maging pag-asa ng bayan, ngayon!

 

Different workshops and the building of the North Luzon Agenda

In the afternoon session of the summit’s first day, the participants were divided into three workshop groups according to three identified issues: education, human rights and environment. The workshop groups initiated a sharing of experiences among the delegates in order to specify the issues of the youth in specific communities and ultimately to map systematic steps that can be taken to respond to the issues raised.

As the three groups gathered back together, they crafted what will later be called as the North Luzon Youth Agenda which is comprised of the particular demands of the youth to the candidates for the mid-term elections. As a major bloc in the population of the society, the youth agenda is underlined by the framework that the issues of the youth, crafted by members of the sectors themselves, should be a priority among the candidates. The youth should make use of their comprising more than half of the registered voters in order to call attention to their demands. As these demands were articulated after the thorough discussions and sharing of actual experiences of the delegates in the Summit, there is nothing but the collective interest of the youth hankering for a better nation and a better future.

Highlighting the North Luzon Youth agenda is the assertion of the right to education which includes the scrapping of the 300% ladderized tuition fee increase in the Cordillera State Universities and Colleges. This is extended as a critique of the government’s moves to commercialize education as manifested by the decreasing state subsidy and its encouragement of SUC’s to be self-sufficient and to welcome income-generating projects and private tie-ups. Also, the right to decent employment is raised. This includes the creation of jobs that square with the abilities and educational attainment of the youth and more vitally, jobs that attune with the conditions and the needs of the country. Implicitly lambasted is the burgeoning of labor migration which is only a result of the lack of jobs and the inhumane pay of workers in the country. The defense of human rights, including the right to a safe and healthful environment also got into the list of concerns of the youth. The vilification of legitimate youth organizations, the militarization of campuses and communities, the cutting of trees in Luneta Hill to give way to a parking space – all of these were condemned by the North Luzon youth and which they pledge to continue acting against.

Participants shared ides during the caucuses on the second day

Bringing back the 70s and the challenges ahead

The first day was culminated with a unity parade along Session Road and the City Market with the participating organizations bringing on their banners and their funky 70s attire. In fostering the spirit of the First Quarter Storm during the Marcos regime, the 70s theme was upheld to showcase the youth’s continuing commitment to be involved towards the betterment of the society. Several bands and cultural groups such as Salidummay, Kultura and Maxim performed along with the delegates from each province.

In the last day of the Summit, the delegates were grouped according to their province and then shared the specific issues in their communities. The entire Summit was capped by the formation of the alliance called FREEDOM (Fight for our Right to Education, Employment, Environment and Democratic Rights) which will serve as the coordinating body among the provinces and the various organizations as the collaborate in resolving all the issues brought up in the two-day activity. The individuals and member organizations of the alliance are also expected to broaden the network by propagating its ideals and garnering more members.

In conclusion, the 2013 Think Change North Luzon Youth Summit proved to be a success with the delegates it was able to convene in order to discuss the pressing issues the Northern Luzon youth faces and more importantly, set out concrete plans of actions as a response to these issues. This only evinces that today’s youth remain adamant in thinking about change and are even more strong-minded in acting specifically to foster every possible kind of change in their respective communities.