Local News 9

Mango's Local News and Info

Archive 9

July 2003 - December 2003

Note: These articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the Management, Staff and Employees of Mango's.

Philippines Arrest Two U.S. Brothers
By HRVOJE HRANJSKI
Associated Press Writer
December 31, 2003

MANILA, Philippines (AP)--Philippine authorities said Monday that they have arrested two American brothers for suspected links to terrorism, as the country remained on alert over the reported presence of foreign Muslim militants in the south.

Michael Ray Stubbs and his brother James, a convert to Islam, have been held at an undisclosed location since they were arrested earlier this month in the town of Tanza in Cavite province, 21 miles southwest of Manila, an immigration official said on condition of anonymity.

The official said the brothers were of Middle Eastern origin but gave no other details. The authorities did not disclose the exact charges the men could face or provide details about their alleged links to terrorism. Their hometowns were not available and the U.S. Embassy could not immediately be reached for comment. More information was expected to be released Tuesday.

The arrests came as the government warned earlier this month that Indonesian members of the Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah have been training Filipino rebels in bomb-making and other tactics in the south of the country. Jemaah Islamiyah, which has links to al-Qaida, is suspected of several terror attacks, including last year's Bali bombings that killed 202 people.

Philippine authorities say the group was involved in a series of December 2000 bombings that killed 22 people and injured more than 100 in the capital, Manila. Since then, police and military forces have increased the security at ports, airports, train stations and other public places. The Philippines previously has detained and deported foreigners on suspicion of terrorism.

In September, a Jordanian national, Mahmoud Afif Abdeljalil - believed to be a close associate of Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law--was arrested in the southern city of Zamboanga on charges of having an expired visa. After he was interrogated, he was ordered deported. The previous year, immigration officials deported two Jordanian men, also suspected of having links to terrorists, after failing to find enough evidence to prosecute them.

Payumo, Gordon conflict turns into 'streamer war'
By Allan Macatuno
Inquirer News Service
December 31, 2003

OLONGAPO CITY -- The rift between Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority chairman Felicito Payumo and Tourism Secretary Richard Gordon over the proposed Subic port development project continues to heat up as supporters of both officials started to resort to a "streamer war."

Streamers hurling derogatory words and calling each camp names were hung along the streets in this city and the entrance of the Subic Bay freeport.

The U.S. Government today, acting through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), donated an additional 7.8 million pesos to the Philippine National Red Cross to further assist the victims of flashfloods and landslides in Southern Leyte and the Caraga Region of Mindanao. These funds will be used to provide 96 core shelter units, four deep water wells for emergency water supply, and various support costs targeted to Southern Leyte, one of the hardest hit of the affected areas. Some 28,000 families in Southern Leyte are affected by the disaster, according to the Philippine National Red funds that the U.S. Government donated to the Philippine National Red Cross for relief efforts to 10.5 million pesos.

OLONGAPO CITY -- Except for a few fireworks, residents here celebrated a silent and literally dark Christmas when a power outage hit several areas of the city starting December 24. Power supply in the city was cut at about 6 p.m. on Wednesday, spoiling preparations for noche buena and cutting short the residents' last-minute Christmas shopping.

The city's public utility department (PUD) was swamped with complaints from residents who expressed dismay over the power outage that occurred on Christmas Eve. Luisito Lopez, PUD technical consultant, said a transmission failure that occurred in the PUD's substation in front of the Kale Beach caused the power outage that also hit nearby towns of Zambales.

He said a power transformer in the compound of the National Power Corp. was damaged, resulting in a sudden blackout in Olongapo City and in the towns of Subic, Castillejos, San Marcelino, San Antonio, San Narciso, San Felipe and Cabangan.

Power was restored in the eight towns of Zambales and few areas of Olongapo after 30 minutes on Wednesday, but a large portion of this city was left without electricity until Friday afternoon. Lopez said the broken part of the transformer was not available in the city and nearby provinces. He said they needed to wait for a replacement part from Davao City.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) yesterday provided over 2.7 million pesos to the Philippine National Red Cross as part of the U. S. government’s assistance to the families and victims of the recent landslides and flashfloods in the provinces of Surigao, Agusan and Southern Leyte. The funds, provided under the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, will be used to support disaster relief operations in the affected areas.

In addition, a C-130 helicopter from the Joint U.S. Military Assistance Group (JUSMAG) is scheduled to deliver 100 cases of ready-to-eat meals (MREs), two pallets of basic medical supplies, plastic sheetings, blankets, dried noodles and 1,200 pairs of shoes to the affected areas. The U.S. Embassy community in the Philippines and the American Women’s Club of the Philippines will also send donations of cash and clothing.

Speaking before media at Villamor Air Base in Manila, accompanied by Red Cross Manager of Disaster Management Services James Y. Sian and USAID Country Director Michael J. Yates, Ambassador Ricciardone offered expressions of great regret and sympathy on behalf of President Bush and the American people for the victims and their families living in the affected communities. The U.S. was not only expressing its sympathy for those families adversely affected by the natural disaster, the Ambassador noted, but was also focused on providing this immediate, emergency assistance in support of the 5,000 Filipino families living in the disaster-stricken areas.

Ambassador Francis Ricciardone and USAID Director Michael Yates joined President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in visiting the affected areas this morning to determine additional assistance that the U.S. could provide to help alleviate the conditions of over 16,000 families affected by the landslides and flashfloods in Surigao del Sur, Surigao del Norte, Agusan Norte and Southern Leyte.

US Aid urged for Muslide Victims
Philippines President Gloria Arroyo has asked the US to help in rescue efforts following massive landslides
BBC News
December 22, 2003

About 120 people are still missing, but local rescue helicopters are grounded by heavy rain and troops have to walk because roads are strewn with debris. About 200 people are feared dead in the mudslides thought to have been caused, in part, by illegal logging.

US Chinook helicopters that can operate in torrential rain could fly from US bases in Okinawa, Japan. President Arroyo told disaster response officials to speed up rescue operations at an emergency meeting in the capital, Manila. She added that she had asked the US to provide assistance in the form of helicopters, personnel and relief goods.

Defence Secretary Eduardo Ermita said affected towns were now isolated and roads are covered by mud. "It is difficult to reach these areas," he said. "Soldiers are trying to reach some areas by foot." Television showed pictures of desperate efforts by relatives to uncover those missing, while rescuers described digging up bodies of entire families buried together under the mud.

"This is the worst experience we have had in years", said Rosette Lerias, the governor of southern Leyte province, the worst affected region. She said cutting down trees from the slopes above settlements had loosened the soil. The municipalities of San Francisco, Liloan and Maasain in southern Leyte have been particularly badly hit, while other casualties were reported in the Agusan and Surigao areas of neighboring Mindanao island.

An official there quoted survivors as saying they heard a great noise from the mountains, and that shortly afterwards a current of mud swept down on top of them. "We really have no idea of the magnitude of the disaster," Governor Lerias said. On Mindanao island to the south, at least 16 people were killed.

200 feared dead in Philippines mudslides
By Luz Baguioro
Straits Times Philippine Correspondent
December 22, 2003

MANILA - Rain, mud and floodwaters hampered rescue efforts in the central Philippines yesterday where up to 200 people were feared dead following massive flooding and landslides triggered by heavy rains over the past week. Officials fear the final fatality count could rise further.

'I just came from a very, very depressing site,' Ms Rosette Lerias, governor of Leyte province, said late yesterday after visiting the devastated mountainside village of Punta. She said Punta was a picture of mayhem, with more than half of its 83 houses either destroyed or buried under huge mounds of earth, debris and coconut trees. 'There was mud all over, you couldn't see anything but rooftops with the houses submerged in mud. There's debris, wood, old clothes, kitchen utensils strewn all around... in one spot they dug up the hand of a child.'

Rescuers interviewed on television described digging up bodies of entire families, including a mother embracing her children. There were however some miraculous survival stories. Ms Lerias said an 89-year-old man and a 14-year-old girl were dug up alive after being buried late Friday. They appeared to have survived because of an air pocket, she said.

President Gloria Arroyo has already appealed to the United States to send in Chinook helicopters, all-weather troop and cargo carriers, to help in the rescue efforts. She told reporters the helicopters may arrive from their base in Okinawa, Japan, in a couple of days. She did not go ahead with a plan to travel to Leyte, about 640km south-east of Manila, after officials warned the trip would be very risky. 'I'm deeply saddened that the tragedy struck them amidst Christmas,' she said.

The National Disaster Coordinating Council said 83 bodies had been dug out from their muddy graves in southern Leyte province, and 123 others were still missing. About 8,000 people in Leyte and in the northern part of Mindanao had been rescued and housed in school buildings, officials said. But Ms Lerias said rescuers were still trying to reach people in remote areas. 'The roads are impassable. Rescuers are trying to reach far-flung areas on foot or by motorboats,' she said, adding power and telephone lines were down in many areas.

Defence Secretary Eduardo Ermita said about 700 army troops had been sent to help police and civilian volunteers in the search and rescue operations. Some experts have blamed illegal logging and massive deforestation for the disaster, saying the absence of trees reduced the water-holding capability of mountain slopes, leading to mudslides. In a similar disaster in 1991 in Ormoc, a city in Leyte, more than 8,000 people were killed in landslides and floods caused by a typhoon. The bodies of many of them were never found.

Two foreigners rapped for child abuse 'vanish'
By Ria Isidro-de Fiesta
December 18, 2003

CAMP OLIVAS -- Two foreigners - an Australian and a British – currently facing charges of child abuse and violation of the anti-pornography law in Angeles City courts, respectively, seemed to have "vanished," police reports said. Police said George Terence Matthews, reportedly a retired military officer and native of Sydney, Australia, disappeared after posting a P230,000 surety bail for violation of the Child Abuse Law.

Matthews was arrested by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in November last year during a raid at the Fantastic Bar, which he owned. NBI agents, during the raid, found girls with ages ranging from 13 to 17 dancing nude on stage.

Matthews and his live-in partner, identified as a certain Editha Racquel, were taken to the NBI regional office and subsequently brought to the Angeles City court for the filing of a case against them. The rescued girls were taken to the Social Welfare Development Office in Angeles City.

On the other hand, lawmen pursuing Barry Edmond Edwards, a British national and reportedly a retired professor of a prestigious university in London, are having difficulty locating him after he was freed from detention in Angeles City. Edwards was accused of violating the anti-pornography law after police found videotapes of nude young girls having sexual intercourse with him. A warrant of arrest has been issued against him but he has so far eluded arrest.

Arroyo not most popular, but still the one to beat
By Luz Baguioro
Straits Times Philippine Correspondent
December 16, 2003

MANILA - The registration of candidates for what is expected to be a hotly-contested presidential election opened yesterday with President Gloria Arroyo emerging as the front runner in a four-horse race. Although she ranks third or fourth in opinion surveys, analysts say her bid for a fresh six-year term could get a boost from a rift in the opposition.

'She is still the one to beat,' said Mr Gladstone Cuarteros, an analyst at the Institute for Popular Democracy. 'It's the equity of the incumbent. She has control of the machinery and the resources and, being the incumbent, is more prominent than her opponents because she is in the news every day.'

Opposition stalwart Aquilino Pimentel has warned that Mrs Arroyo will benefit from a split in the opposition ticket. Actor Fernando Poe Jr, 64, and Senator Panfilo Lacson, 55, are competing against each other to lead the opposition challenge.

But after Mr Lacson declared his intention to run for the presidency on Nov 26, the Philippine currency and the stock market plunged to historical lows. Mr Poe also has yet to accept the nomination of a coalition of opposition parties or to discuss his platform.

Mr Lacson, who is often at the tail-end of popularity polls, indicated yesterday he would finish his Senate term if he was not picked as the opposition standard-bearer. Analysts, however, reckon that Mrs Arroyo will get the stiffest challenge from veteran legislator Raul Roco, her estranged political ally. Mr Roco, 62, was dismissed as education minister last year in the wake of corruption allegations.

'They have the same constituents, which are the youth and the middle class. So expect Roco to whittle away votes from Arroyo,' political science professor Benito Lim said. Although he has an almost cult-like following among millions of poor Filipinos, Mr Poe's candidacy has triggered fears of a repeat of the disastrous, short-lived presidency of his friend Joseph Estrada.

'Those pushing strongly for his candidacy are the same people who surrounded Mr Estrada. The cast of characters is the same. So it's likely you will get the same kind of performance,' said Mr Guillermo Luz, executive director of the Makati Business Club.

A victory for Mrs Arroyo will settle once and for all questions about her legitimacy dogging her since she took over from Mr Estrada, who was forced to step down by a popular revolt in 2001. She also had limited success in grappling with the country's long-running problems of poverty, unemployment and corruption.

Those aiming to run for some 12,500 posts in the Senate, the House of Representatives and local government have until Jan 2 to file their certificates of candidacy. Five independent candidates for the presidency registered with the Commission on Elections yesterday, but top contenders are likely to wait for the eleventh hour to avoid rules against premature campaigning, commission chairman Benjamin Abalos said.

Although formal campaigning will start only in February, most aspirants, including Mrs Arroyo, have been accused of courting voters since early this year. Mrs Arroyo paid a brief visit to Hong Kong on Sunday to talk to Filipino migrant workers. The visit sparked accusations that she was campaigning at taxpayers' expense.

She then proceeded to Bahrain for a two-day state visit where she is also expected to seek the support of Filipino workers there. An estimated 7.5 million Filipino migrant workers, comprising 10 per cent of the electorate, will be allowed to vote for the first time.

PORAC -- After 12 years, people of this town can stop throwing invectives at the government. This as President Arroyo ordered the Mount Pinatubo Emergency-Project Management Office (MPE-PMO) to hasten the construction of the Mancatian bridge crossing the Pasig-Potrero River here.

MPE-PMO project director Emil K. Sadain said the president issued the order amid the growing clamor from non-government organizations and local government officials for the immediate construction of the bridge. The span was totally destroyed at the height of lahar flows soon after the Pinatubo eruption in the early '90s.

Sadain said the project, which includes the improvement of approaches and the 270-meter concrete span, was delayed due to shortage of funds.

Due to the continuous delay, the people directly affected by the damaged bridge grew restive, bringing them to the brink of staging rallies to call the government's attention. The enraged residents, mostly of this town, were only pacified by Father Resty Lumanlan, resident priest. He reportedly asked the residents to be patient while they are looking for other avenues to air their sentiments to the national leaders.

Lumanlan was the co-founder of the Foundation for Lingap Kapampangans Inc. or FLKI (formerly Save Pampanga Movement) who urged then president Fidel V. Ramos to save the province from lahar by constructing the multibillion-peso megadike.

Sadain said the MPE-PMO, tasked by its mother department - the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) - proposed that the bridge be included in the second phase of the foreign-funded Pinatubo Hazard Urgent Mitigation Project (PHUMP II).

This, MPE-PMO officials said, is since the government incurred savings from other projects. Scheduled in Package Seven of Phump II, the bridge got a funding of more than P339 million and is originally estimated complete by April 23, 2005. However, Sadain said Public works Sec. Florante Soriquez ordered for a "crash" plan be formulated to make the bridge passable in half the original timeframe. The plan also aims at completing the bridge before the rainy seasons.

Sadain said the project contractor, China International Waters and Electricity Co. (CIWEC), has engineered a 24-hour work shifts for its more than 150 workers to further speed up the construction. So far, works for the bridge is estimated to be 20 percent ahead of schedule, Sadain bared.

MANILA (Reuters) - Reacting to public anger over a wave of kidnappings, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo lifted a moratorium on the death penalty Friday, opening the way for executions to resume in January. The move follows a series of kidnappings targeting the ethnic Chinese community that have added to the perception that Arroyo's government is failing to curb rampant crime.

It also risks alienating her supporters within the powerful Roman Catholic Church ahead of elections next May. ``I shall no longer stand in the way of executions scheduled by the courts for January 2004,'' Arroyo said in a statement. ``Much as I am averse, as a matter of moral principle, to the taking of human lives in this manner, the president must yield to the higher public interest when dictated by extraordinary circumstances.''

The decision to lift the moratorium she imposed in October 2002 comes only days after Arroyo rejected calls from the Filipino-Chinese community to reimpose capital punishment, saying an effective criminal justice system was the key to fighting crime. The recent kidnapping spree came to public attention on November 18 when the body of a Chinese-Filipino executive with Coca-Cola Export Corporation, Betty Sy, was found wrapped in a blanket and garbage bag in a Manila suburb.

Three days later, a 10-year-old girl was abducted outside her school in Manila. Earlier this week, armed kidnappers snatched a two-year-old ethnic Chinese boy on his way to a Manila nursery school. The girl was later freed after her family paid a ransom.

Leaders of the Chinese community, which makes up just one percent of the 82 million population but is prominent in the business world, have said rogue members of the security forces are involved and criticized the government's response as ineffective. They say many kidnappings go unreported because families do not trust the police.

``I think the Chinese-Filipino community will welcome the move,'' said Joaquin Sy, head of a Chinese community group. ``The criminals -- the kidnappers, bank robbers -- are more brazen now, so the state should adopt tougher measures.''

Arroyo has wavered over her support for the death penalty because of her strong links to the Catholic Church, whose support was key in the ouster of president Joseph Estrada in January 2001 and her installation as his successor. Following the Church line, she has opposed calls for stricter birth control to slow the country's rapid population growth.

But the death penalty moratorium has risked making her seem soft on crime in the run-up to next year's election as she trails behind several rivals in early opinion polls. The perception of lawless streets has also deterred sorely needed foreign investment and tourism. ``It is not the mode of punishment that will eradicate crime,'' said Loretta Ann Rosales, a Congresswoman and anti-death penalty campaigner.

``Is it possible that it is the inability of the administration to address criminality that is worsening? That could be the extraordinary situation she (Arroyo) was referring to.'' A day rarely goes by without a new gruesome crime reported in newspapers and fresh speculation that criminal activity is on the rise as politicians try to build up their campaign war chests.

The Philippine Star reported Friday that police had detained two men for the rape and murder of a seven-year-old girl. The shocking case only made it onto page 20.

Vigilante killings alarm Philippines citizens
By Alan Sipress
Washington Post
November 30, 2003

DAVAO CITY, Philippines -- Clarita Alia has visited the San Pedro public cemetery every week for the last two years. From evening until dawn, she camps beside the graves of her two teen-age boys, stabbed to death a year earlier in separate attacks. When her 14-year-old son, Bobby, was released from jail last year after being suspected of petty theft, she immediately took him to call on his brothers. She warned Bobby to be on his guard or he might soon join them. Two nights later, he did.

As Bobby got on a motorcycle after leaving a karaoke club, a short man in a black jacket and jeans buried a hunting knife in his back, Clarita recalled, citing witness accounts. Bobby got off the bike to flee but was stabbed again in the right shoulder. He scrambled for nearly a quarter-mile through a marketplace, clutching his shoulder to stanch the bleeding, before he stumbled over a chair and collapsed.

Like his brothers, Bobby was swept up in a wave of unsolved killings in Davao. In the first nine months of this year there were 94 such killings, according to figures compiled by a coalition of human rights, legal and children's advocacy groups. Since 1999 there have been more than 200 and only one prosecution. The murders have terrorized the poor here in the largest city in the southern Philippines. But local officials say they are untroubled by the killings, which they say have made Davao a safer city for tourists.

"I don't mind us being called the murder capital of the Philippines as long as those being killed are the bad guys," said Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, dubbed the "Dirty Harry of Davao" by the public. "From Day One, I said henceforth Davao city will be very, very dangerous for criminals. I've been telling criminals it's a place where you can die any time. If that's a cue for anybody, that's fine."

Davao police attribute the murders to personal grudges between criminals and to gang violence. Many residents, however, say they think a death squad is operating with the blessing of local officials, targeting suspected drug peddlers, pickpockets and other petty thieves. Duterte said in an interview that he did not know who was committing the murders, and he took responsibility for the lack of prosecutions. "I'm more interested in solving crimes against innocent people. I'm not at all interested in the killings of criminals, especially people involved with drugs," he said.

During his tenure, government officials said, the local crime rate has fallen, making Davao one of the safest major cities in the Philippines and winning it national plaudits. The city police department was honored last year by the national police commission as the country's top force. Duterte has been tapped by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as her special adviser on peace and order. The vigilante killings are quietly cheered by local businessmen. "The criminals are being eliminated one by one," said Romeo Serra, president of the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Edmundo Acaylar, the city tourism officer, added that the murders have made this coastal city of 1.1 million a safer vacation destination. "I call it the process of expurgation. Whoever is doing it, I say very good and thank you," he said. The dead are nearly all from the slums of Davao, a city where about a third of the families live below the official subsistence level. The young victims are often drawn from the growing ranks of street children, almost always dropouts who have left school to help their parents scrape out a living or to join gangs.

"This is a systematic, dramatic effort to eliminate the undesirables in society," said Bernie Mondragon, coordinator of the Kabataan Consortium of children's advocacy groups. The killers frequently work in pairs, one acting as the assassin and the other as lookout, according to human rights groups and children's advocates. They sometimes dress in black, with caps partly hiding their faces, and often ride a motorcycle without a license plate.

"Now it seems that every crime deserves the death penalty. Even petty crimes are punishable by death, based on the justice system of these vigilantes," said Carlos T. Zarate, head of the Davao chapter of the Philippine bar association, which has condemned the killings. "We believe the Davao death squad is financed and protected by forces that are coming from the state itself, either the local government or the local police," said Ariel Casilao, a leader of the Coalition Against Summary Executions. He added, "Whenever the mayor declares war on criminality, bodies are found on the street."

Clarita Alia, 48, a mother of seven whose skin has grown dark and tough from pushing a vegetable cart seven days a week in the city's main market, recalled that the police had come looking for her son Richard, 18, one night in July 2001. They accused him of robbery and assault but had no arrest warrant. "You can't take my son," she told them. The officers elbowed her aside, threatening her with arrest. But they did not take Richard. Clarita urged her son to leave town.

Two weeks later, as Richard was returning to the neighborhood, he stopped for a beer. When he stepped outside the cafe to urinate, two burly men jumped him, Clarita said, citing witness accounts. They punched him in the face and then stabbed him to death. Christopher Alia, 16, died three months later. He had recently found work as a barker on a minibus after spending time in jail for sniffing glue. Like Richard, he was stabbed with a butcher's knife.

Then there was Bobby. He had been jailed twice last year, once for carrying a knife and once on suspicion of stealing a cell phone. A brief police report confirms the basic details of the three murders. Chief Inspector Matthew Perlas Baccay, commander of the San Pedro precinct, said in an interview that the police investigation had stalled because of a lack of evidence, adding that the deaths likely resulted from a dispute between youth gangs. But social workers familiar with the Alia cases rejected this explanation.

Clarita is terrified that the violence is not over. Last month, she said, a stranger in a karaoke bar warned her that another son, Arnold, 25, would be next, ominously running an index finger across his throat as he said the name. Arnold has gone into hiding. The grandson constantly in Clarita's arms is Arnold's child. A day after Clarita stoically recounted the saga of her sons in an interview, she took the baby on her weekly visit to the hilltop San Pedro cemetery. She made her way past the larger compounds of wrought iron and marble at the front, to the farthest reaches on the back slope. There, where the grave sites are packed so tight that it's almost impossible to navigate between them, she stepped nimbly from tomb to concrete tomb, grandchild in her arms, until she reached the resting place of her sons.

Their three tombs were stacked one atop another under a makeshift corrugated metal roof. Clarita lit three long, yellow candles and placed them on the unfinished tomb. Then, finally, she wept. "If my sons were guilty, they should have been charged in court. And if they were jailed, I would have accepted it because that would have been according to the law," she said, tears streaking her skin. She tapped the tomb with her fingers, softly. "I don't want my fourth child to die."

Poe says he will run for president in 2004
By Lira Dalangin-Fernandez
INQ7.net with Agence France-Presse
November 26, 2003

MOVIE actor Fernando Poe Jr., an ally of deposed president Joseph Estrada, finally declared on Wednesday his candidacy for president in 2004, ending months of speculation on his political plans.

"Ako si Fernando Poe Jr. na lalahok sa pagka-pangulo (I am Fernando Poe Jr. who will run for president)," Poe announced amid the chanting of his supporters who included most of his colleagues in the movie industry.

"In the life of a person, the day will come when he has to face the toughest decision of his life, and that day for me has come," said Poe, 64, popularly known as "FPJ."

Al Qaeda Affiliate Training Indonesians On Philippine Island Persistence Startles Officials in Manila
By Alan Sipress and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Foreign Service
November 17, 2003

COTABATO CITY, Philippines -- A regional terrorist network linked to al Qaeda has continued to train its militants in the southern Philippines, aided by local Muslim separatists, police and intelligence sources said. The militants, all Indonesians, are training at a camp established three years ago and now operating under the protection of rebels from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, according to intelligence sources and a summary of the interrogation of Taufiq Rifqi, an Indonesian militant who was captured here last month.

Rifqi's testimony startled Philippine officials, who assumed they had deprived al Qaeda's Southeast Asian affiliate, Jemaah Islamiah, of its primary training ground three years ago when government soldiers overran its base. It also raises the stakes for peace talks aimed at ending the 31-year insurgency on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. Diplomatic and security sources said a peace deal could close Mindanao as a vital center for the training and transit of foreign terrorists -- what a Western official in Manila called "a kind of Afghanistan east."

Within three weeks of Rifqi's arrest, police backed by military forces raided two safe houses that contained handwritten notes in Indonesian on making biological weapons, diagrams of amateur rockets, components for jury-rigging explosives and other documents and bomb-making materials.

The capture of Rifqi, who security officials said was Jemaah Islamiah's treasurer and logistics chief in the Philippines and arrived in Mindanao in 1998, was a wake-up call for the government, which had been "in denial about the existence of Jemaah Islamiah in Mindanao," a Philippine intelligence official said. "We are open in saying that the Jemaah Islamiah is a major threat," Defense Secretary Eduardo R. Ermita said in an interview. "We know the Philippines is a good target for their activities."

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, Asian and Western intelligence officials have unearthed extensive details about the operations of al Qaeda's Southeast Asian affiliate. Under interrogation, suspects have described a geographic division of labor in which Indonesia serves as the primary theater for attacks -- two nightclubs on the resort island of Bali were bombed a year ago and the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, the capital, was hit in August. The Philippines was designated as the main training ground.

Until 1995, Southeast Asian terrorists were training in Muslim mujaheddin camps in Afghanistan, but Jemaah Islamiah's leaders decided to seek a location closer to home. Hundreds of militants, mainly Indonesians, slipped into the Philippines by fishing boat and other vessels through unregulated borders and trained at the main Moro Islamic Liberation Front camp. That site was destroyed by government troops during an offensive in mid-2000.

What officials did not know was that a new camp -- Jabal Qubah -- was set up almost immediately. Rifqi told interrogators that groups of 15 to 20 Indonesians have been attending 18-month training courses at the new site on the forested slopes of Mount Cararao in Maguindanao province, according to the interrogation summary and intelligence officials. There, in a few huts, Indonesian instructors have been teaching Indonesian recruits how to build bombs, fire weapons and read maps. Physical training and religious studies are part of the program.

The camp, several hours' walking distance from a Philippine rebel base, has operated under the protection of a rebel commander, identified by an intelligence official as Gordon Syaifullah. The training weapons were provided by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front forces, according to the interrogation. Jemaah Islamiah members in Indonesia financed the camp by transferring money through ATMs.

Including the instructors, about 30 militants -- all Indonesians – have been training at the site, Rifqi told investigators. "Our intelligence tells us because they know the military is on their trail, some may have left," said Ermita, the defense secretary. He added that about 20 Indonesian militants from several locations had fled the country in recent weeks, leaving about 30. Indonesian police agree that militants who trained in the Philippines have been returning to Indonesia.

Although security officials said they had learned of no specific attack planned for the Philippines, they were worried about the prospect of a bombing in the period from the current month of Ramadan through Christmas and New Year's. In December 2000, 22 people died in Manila in a series of blasts that police later attributed to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Jemaah Islamiah. Rifqi coordinated logistics for those attacks, a senior police official said.

Military commanders in Mindanao are planning a strike against the camp, security officials said. But senior Philippine officials, concerned that this could disrupt a four-month-old cease-fire with the rebels and undermine peace talks, have yet to approve the operation. Any offensive "should be surgical and not shotgun. There's something very important to protect here. That's the peace process," said a Philippine military official.

Rebel leaders deny that their forces are providing sanctuary to Jemaah Islamiah militants. "These foreign terrorists are like worms and nobody likes to be infected by worms. We have nothing to do with it," Ghazali Jaafar, vice chairman for political affairs for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, said in an interview here. He added, "How can we control every inch of land in Mindanao?"

More to the point, Philippine and Western officials say, is that the Front's leadership cannot control all its local commanders, some of whom maintain ties with Indonesian militants. The Front's chairman, Al Haj Murad, is struggling to consolidate his authority after replacing Hashim Salamat, who died after a heart attack in July, Philippine and Western officials said.

In fact, Murad had ordered his followers to evict all Jemaah Islamiah militants from the training camp, a Philippine intelligence official said. But Murad lacks the organizational and religious standing of Salamat, who was an Islamic scholar trained in Egypt, officials said.

Ermita, the defense secretary, said of the report that the rebels had disassociated themselves from the terrorists: "We take that with a grain of salt. It seems the local commander doesn't believe in negotiations and doesn't necessarily follow orders from Haji Murad."

Security officials point to mixed signals being sent by the rebels. They said a commander in Lanao del Sur province in Mindanao gave sanctuary to the fugitive Jemaah Islamiah bomb-making expert Fathur Rahman Ghozi after he escaped from a Manila prison in July. But security officials said that rebel sources also provided information to the government about Ghozi's whereabouts before he was tracked down and shot dead by security forces in Mindanao last month.

A Philippine intelligence official also confirmed that Riduan Isamuddin, known as Hambali, Jemaah Islamiah's operations chief arrested in Thailand in August, told his U.S. interrogators that he had sent money to a Moro Islamic Liberation Front contact a month earlier for an attack in the Philippines. But the intelligence official warned that Hambali might have been lying.

Ermita said the Philippine government was preparing to provide rebel leaders with a list of criminals and Indonesian terrorists believed to be in areas under their control. Under an agreement last year, the Front is required to "neutralize, interdict and isolate" so-called lawless elements.

Negotiators from both sides are awaiting a final round of exploratory discussions in Malaysia that would set the date and agenda for formal peace talks. Philippine officials would like to secure an agreement before presidential elections in May. As an incentive, the U.S. government has promised development aid for Mindanao if the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which has disavowed terrorism, also ends its armed insurgency.

About 300 U.S. troops are in the southern Philippines training local forces in counterterrorism. The United States proposed earlier this year to send 3,000 troops to the area to help eliminate the Abu Sayyaf, a smaller Muslim militant group designated by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization. But that plan stalled after opponents said it violated a constitutional ban on foreign combat troops on Philippine soil.

Philippines: Between democracy and disaster
By Marco Garrido
http://www.atimes.com
Southeast Asia
November 13, 2003

Not without the faintest grimace did Filipinos receive US President George W Bush's fulsome praise of Philippine democracy. Bush hailed "the first democratic nation in Asia" as an inspiration, "a light to all of Asia and beyond", when he addressed the Philippine Congress last month. And not without irony did Filipinos mark his words - "All of you in this chamber are the protectors of Philippine democracy" - which, had Bush been more canny, might have been an admonishment as much as it was a commendation.

But if it was, it went unheeded. No sooner had the Great White Father conferred his benediction than the institutions of Philippine democracy returned to feasting on themselves. Bush's visit had interrupted one scandal, a congressional assault on the executive, and was swiftly followed by another, a congressional assault on the judiciary. The target in the first case was the non-person Jose Pidal; the target in the second is an equally unlikely figure, a man whose integrity was heretofore considered unimpeachable, Chief Justice Hilario Davide.

Now Davide finds himself the subject of an impeachment complaint that seems all politics and no substance. Accused mainly of "technical malversion", diverting a portion of the Judicial Development Fund (JDF) allotted to judicial employees to Supreme Court appurtenances (cars, expensive chairs, summer-session cottages), the charges against Davide have distended to include "malfeasance", "breach of public trust", and "thoughtless extravagance". The complaint has prospered despite having been railroaded through the House, despite the Commission on Audit having already found the funds to have been properly used, and despite a constitutional prohibition against impeaching the same official twice within a year (the first complaint against Davide had been filed by former president Joseph Estrada for the chief justice's "illegal participation" in the swearing-in of current President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo). The complaint has prospered, despite the law and normative procedure, because of politics.

Its sponsors and most of the 87 representatives constituting the one-third of the House needed to lodge the complaint hail from the political opposition. In particular, they hail from businessman Danding Cojuangco's Nationalist People's Coalition (NPC). And Cojuangco, it would seem, has an ax to grind with the chief justice.

Under Davide's watch, the Supreme Court declared public the funds Cojuangco had used to buy P100 million worth of shares in the San Miguel Corp. In a separate decision, the court voided a lucrative land-development contract that Cojuangco's business partner had been positioned to control. There are, of course, other reasons to explain opposition ire against Davide, although none figure so centrally as his inauguration of the Arroyo presidency.

Evidence of conspiracy aside, what matters in this case, as in the Jose Pidal case, is that a political grudge is being pursued with the veneer of legality - that is, under the pretense of being the legitimate work of a democratic institution. This is law being used as a force of disorder, in order to undermine the rule of law.

President Bush's acclaim of Philippine democracy cannot help but be a sly pat on the United States' back as well. It was the Americans, after all, who, during their administration of the Philippines (1899-1946), established its democratic institutions after the image of their own democracy. On Philippine soil, however, these institutions took on a distinctly Filipino character, one not always consonant with democratic ideals.

Ironically, the introduction of a US Congress-style bicameral legislature led to the consolidation of a national oligarchy. Sociologist Benedict Anderson points out that a Philippine Congress "proved perfectly adaptable to the ambitions and social geography of a mestizo nouveau riche", a class fostered under Spanish colonial rule. Through their interactions in Congress, these caciques, who heretofore controlled only their respective local political fiefdoms, now enjoyed national-level exposure and access. Consciousness of themselves as a ruling class deepened. At the same time, by helping themselves to the opportunities at their fingertips, they defined their relationship to the state. The character of post-independence cacique democracy is revealed by the liberties it allowed itself: the manipulation of exchange rates, the sale of monopolistic licenses, huge defaulted central-bank loans, a sprawl of pork-barrel legislation, and an enormous, ineffectual bureaucracy that doubled as a family employment agency. The effects of cacique parasitism soon became apparent as the Philippine state slid into decrepitude; Anderson notes: "from being the most 'advanced' capitalist society in Southeast Asia in the 1950s, [the Philippines became] the most depressed and indigent in the 1980s".

Only sustained US aid, investment and support held the enfeebled state together. Political scientist Paul Hutchcroft writes that "the Philippine status as an ex-colony and post-colonial client of the United States ensured the survival of the central state ... wrapping it in a cocoon that insulated it both from the need to guard against external threat and (because of a steady flow of external resources) from the need to develop a self-sustaining economy". Hence, the marriage of American electoralism to Spanish caciquism enabled oligarchy-building at the expense of state-building.

Between democracy and disaster The complaint against Davide demonstrates that Philippine democracy still lacks the backbone of a state strong enough to regulate its rambunctiousness. For the past three weeks, the House and the Supreme Court have been at loggerheads over the constitutionality of impeaching Davide. One would think the constitution is self-evident on the matter, and, were it not for lawyers, it is: it explicitly prohibits the initiation of impeachment proceedings against public officials twice within a year. Pro-impeachment lawyers have muddled the waters, however, by questioning the meaning of the words "initiated" and "proceedings".

In no time at all, a political witchhunt has become a turf war, with each side brandishing the constitution. Last week, the Supreme Court issued a status quo order blocking the transmittal of the impeachment complaint to the Senate until its constitutionality had been resolved (by - who else? - the Supreme Court). Congress chafed under the injunction, countering that impeachment proceedings fall under its purview. The court went ahead anyway, and early this week found the impeachment complaint unconstitutional. Thankfully, Congress voted to junk the complaint, although most of its initial supporters from the NPC remained stalwart in their position. They lamented their defeat as a breach of the constitution. Representative Jacinto Paras remarked ominously: "The people will have to resort to other measures to effect a regime change."

Paras may have been more prescient than he intended. All this legal wrangling is missing the point. This is more than a legal question; it is a moral one. The fact that an impeachment complaint without solid legal basis got to the point it did - to the point, very nearly, of real destabilization - suggests that laws can be scuttled or twisted to serve malicious designs. Given the law's promiscuity, then, how authoritative can it really be? True, the House ultimately respected the Supreme Court's decision, and thus, one could say, upheld the rule of law, but had the pro-impeachment forces greater moral support, it is not unimaginable that they would have imposed their will despite the law - and legalized their move after the fact. One need not even imagine it; one need only recall the events that installed Arroyo as president in 2001. This is, no doubt, precisely what has tortured the opposition's imagination.

This sense, that laws lack sufficient moral authority, is nowhere more clearly expressed than in each side's resort to drumming moral support from that fourth and most authoritative branch of Philippine government: the masses. People power has been mobilized both for and against the impeachment. They even have their colors: red for impeachment, black against. The massing of a crowd in black in front of the Supreme Court days after the impeachment complaint was made known proved irresistible even for President Arroyo, who discarded her neutrality to come out in support of Davide - and perhaps to cash in on the cachet of his support.

Furthermore, the excitement over the issue has been so frenzied and unreflective that a largely fabricated grievance has become more real. Court employees have been on the cusp of staging a mass walkout since the controversy began but have wavered because, according to Jojo Guerrero, president of the Alliance of Court Employees Associations of the Philippines, "We are still asking ourselves: Are we just being used or are we really not getting enough of the JDF?"

While shows of people power curry moral weight for one side or the other, they displace it from exactly where it should inhere: the law. Resorting to extra-legal rah-rah squads undermines the authority of democracy's legitimate conflict-resolution mechanism and licenses the politics of perpetual crisis.

The Davide case well illustrates political scientist David Apter's observation that "the moral basis of politics determines the meaning of legitimate authority". It would seem that it takes more than just the right institutions to found a civil democratic polity. A social consensus effectively defining normative behavior is essential as well.

The opportunity to build this consensus is what the American colonial regime denied Filipinos by building their institutions for them and calling it democracy. Democracy cannot be given. Nothing spares a nation the tasks and tumult involved in building its state, which, ultimately, is held together more by the process of state-building than by the institutions that have been built up. This process endows its institutions with authority. This is the very process that the Philippines is now undergoing as it walks the tightrope between democracy and disaster. George W Bush, overweening in his eagerness to plant democracy in Iraq, would do well to consider not just the light but the shadows cast by the first democratic nation in Asia.

Philippines criticizes terrorism warning
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
November 6, 2003

The Philippines government has hit out at Australia and the United States for what it calls unwarranted advisories warning of likely terrorist attacks against their citizens in the Philippines. Foreign Secretary Blas Ople says the US and Australia are at higher risk than the Philippines, and are the ones being targeted by terrorists. He was reacting to claims made recently by Australian Defense Minister Robert Hill that the Jemaah Islamiyah terror network could intensify its attacks in predominantly Christian Manila.

Earlier this week, a spokesman for a US military contingent in joint training with Filipino troops said American soldiers were to be restricted to camp to avoid being "high risk" targets by local terrorists. But Mr. Ople has denounced such warnings saying there are no specific terrorist threats against the Philippines.

US Marines begin joint operations in Philippines amid tight security
November 3, 2003

CLARK, Philippines (AFP) Some 400 US Marines arrived in the Philippines Monday for joint training with Filipino troops amid intense security because of the threat of terrorist attack, the US military said. The US troops would be restricted to camp because of the potential threat from Muslim militants linked to the al-Qaeda network and local communist insurgents, said Colonel Steven Busby, co-director of the two-week maneuvers.

The US Marines were here for training and there would "no liberty" for them during their stay in the country, Busby told reporters after the opening ceremonies at this ex-US airbase north of Manila. The 15-day exercises called Talon Vision involving the Americans and about 900 Filipino soldiers would see both forces training at an army base north of Manila and a Marine base just outside the capital. "As with every military operation, there is an element of danger. However, force protection is our number one priority, so US military members are required to take safety precautions," said US Marine spokesman Captain Burell Parmer.

"However we are confident in the security arrangements being made between the Philippine and US armed forces," he said. The US forces will use 20 military aircraft, mostly modern combat helicopters, in their training with local forces, Busby said. Parmer said the training would not focus on counter-terrorism but stressed that it would boost the capabilities of Filipino forces who are battling communist and Muslim separatist guerrillas. Among the local security concerns are Muslim rebels who are believed to have ties with the al-Qaeda terror network and the Jemaah Islamiyah group. Colonel Flaviano Valduheza of the Philippine air force, the co-director of the exercise, said that US and Filipino troops would be sharing tactics, techniques, and procedures and would jointly operate US and Philippine military aircraft and equipment.

Single, white and looking
Singapore Strait Times
Forget Sarong Party Girls. Single white women are up against a new breed of Asian women dating white guys. Skin color doesn't even enter the picture
By Arti Mulchand
November 4, 2003

GIRL TALK - THEY are spoiling the market. So concludes an American friend about Asian women dating Caucasian men. And this said to me, an Asian who is dating a Caucasian man. It was hard to miss the irony, but then came her quick clarification. 'I mean the Party Girls,' she says. Ah, yes, the infamous Sarong Party Girls - boon to Caucasian men who want to sow their wild oats in Asia, and bane to single, white females who find themselves in the midst of the ang mo's Asian playground.

My friend, let's call her Sandy, is smart, svelte, sexy and intelligent. But, she says, it is impossible to score a decent date in Singapore because her male Caucasian counterparts are busy having their Asian fetishes serviced. 'After all the gushing and fawning by the SPGs, the guys can't deal with anything less,' she laments. 'Their egos are so inflated, they think every girl is dying to rub up against them. And these are guys who probably wouldn't even get a second look back home, sometimes not even a first look.' I was more surprised at her complaints than I was at being made to feel like a market-spoiling SPG, however briefly.

I thought that Asia being a white man's playground was old news. And I thought everyone was done slamming SPGs. She wasn't. 'When I got here a year ago, I was really surprised. I thought Singapore, where the women are better educated, would be more like other places I had been, like Australia, New York or Vancouver,' she continues. 'I didn't think it was like Bangkok or Jakarta.' As a disclaimer, she adds that she is more than open to dating Asian men, though she says they seem to write her off, too. So, SPGs are back on the hate radar - at least for lonely Sandy. In fact, her tirade had not ended. She recounts how an American guy recently told her that he didn't date white women because they require 'too much energy'. He would have to think about what he says and does.

'Right now, he doesn't have to try very hard. He'll have someone else tomorrow. SPGs don't even care what a man looks like, as long as he's white,' she concludes. UNTIL fairly recently, there weren't that many single Caucasian career women in Singapore, or in Asia for that matter. More seem to have come, mainly with hopes of fast-tracking their careers, though it doesn't appear to be doing likewise for their private lives. The topic was dealt with last month in an Asian Wall Street Journal article by Stan Sesser. In it, he quoted executive Julia Sleva, a 30-something Canadian living in Bangkok. Apparently, Ms Sleva's on the career superhighway, but her love life moves slower than peak-hour Bangkok traffic. Most Caucasian men in Bangkok are either married, gay or have a young Thai hanging on their arm, while most Thai men don't date expat women, she complains.

Sesser adds: 'The difficulties of many single white women in Asia are so widespread that counselors are dealing with it every day.' It's apparently no different in Singapore. One British female friend tells me: 'Many Caucasian men arrive as normal human beings and morph into total idiots after sleeping their way around the SPG hangouts. 'They can't go back home and find a woman because it would shatter their illusions of being a sex god.' Another friend, an Australian, adds: 'Everywhere you look, a white guy is holding an Asian girl's hand. What's left for us? 'Worse yet, after they've had them, the guys want everything small and submissive, and no questions asked.' WELL, at least it's a consolation that although I'm going out with a Caucasian, Sandy does not consider me an SPG.

I'm different, she says. 'You speak your mind and you are who you want to be; you don't just stand there and take everything,' she says. Indeed. I like to think I make my man - whatever color of the rainbow he happens to be - put in as much energy into our relationship as he would have to with a Caucasian woman. Perhaps it's because the relationship I'm in has nothing to do with me wanting to find an easy way out of Singapore, or him wanting to find an easy way into me. Neither has it to do with the color of our skins. In fact, I'm surprised that the single, white female doesn't see us - this new breed of Asian women dating white men - as a bigger threat than the fawning, you-are-a-white-god SPG. Because, if we are both avoiding the same sort of men - those who go through SPGs faster than you can say sarong - then aren't we potentially fighting for the same segment of men left?

That is, white men who don't believe in the 'Asian and therefore easy' myth? White men who - gasp! - go out with a woman because of her character, brains and his interest in her culture? Whatever the case, I suggest to Sandy that she just ignore the SPGs and their white men. But she insists that it's not possible, given how SPGs have forced down standards across the board. They give in to their partner's obsessions so easily, the men take women for granted, SPG or otherwise. Still, I see an upside to all this, even for women like Sandy. SPGs are actually doing women - white and otherwise - a favour by attracting the potential trash among Caucasian men. In fact, they are helping to separate the Richards from, well, the Dicks, so to speak. And everyone - Sandy and myself included - stand to benefit.

Gordon assails Payumo for 'smuggling' in Subic
By Joel P. Mapiles
October 31, 2003

TOURISM Sec. Richard Gordon assailed Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) Chairman Felicito Payumo for the alleged rampant smuggling of cars, radio equipment, rice and chicken in Angeles City. Gordon said Subic, under the stewardship of Payumo, has gained nothing but economic setback based on records of the National Economic Development Authority (Neda). Gordon disclosed that Subic now is employing only 15,000 workers as compared to the 16,000 workers of Clark.

The secretary said the situation in Subic would result to its economic downfall due to the poor performance of Payumo. Gordon suggested that Payumo encourage the setting up of new factories in Dinalupihan, Hermosa and Morong that would create more jobs. Gordon claimed that "Payumo is spending money for some members of the press just to cover up the poor image of Subic." The secretary said Payumo is allegedly fooling the governors in Central Luzon as he belied reports that the provincial governors are asking for his ouster as Cabinet Officer for Regional Development (Cord). In fact, Gordon said, he asked Governor Lapid on the veracity of the report.

Gordon added that even Bulacan Gov. Josefina dela Cruz belied the report as de la Cruz even supported his proposal for every municipality to allot 100 hectares as commercial and residential areas along the north diversion road to disperse industries in Central Luzon. On the other hand, Gordon revealed that President Arroyo is planning to put up an expressway from Porac to Subic to speed up the transportation of goods and products.

Special correspondent John Zarocostas interviewed the Rev. Shay Cullen of the Missionary Society of St. Columban last week in Geneva about the plight of street children in the Philippines, where the Irish-born Roman Catholic priest works.

Question: Can you elaborate on the death squads that are killing street children in the Philippines?
Answer: Several years ago, we were contacted by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Davao City. They asked us to help them to look into the problem of mainly street children who were being shot dead by death squads. These are a group of men riding around on black motorcycles, all like a team dressed in a kind of a black uniform. The death squads are armed and obviously connected by radios, as if they're official, and killing children on the streets in pools of blood. So we did an investigation and contacted various NGOs to help, insofar as it was possible, to identify the children who were killed. Because some are homeless, they're vagrants, just grown up in the streets, nobody knows who they are. We found out many of them were 12, 13, 14, 15 years old. Since 2000, it was Mayor Benjamin de Guzman who was in charge [of Davao City], but we got no satisfaction. So I began an Internet lobbying campaign to challenge what he was doing. Speaking at an international conference and calling for the setup of an international court for children's rights. Or a part of the International Criminal Court should have a section for children, specifically. But he got very angry with us, and he sued me. But that's the way to try and stifle us, keep us from speaking out, speaking to the media, telling our story, standing up for human rights. That was in the year 2000, and we fought that case in court, defending our right to protect children. Eventually we won that case, but the killings went on. He lost the next election two months later and his rival, Rodrigo Duterte, came to power — and he's still in power — and the killings got worse, and went on. And this gang still acted with impunity, shooting and killing.

Q: Overall, how many children have been killed in Philippine cities?
A: I can't say overall. They do not report. It's covered up. Even in Davao City and surrounding areas, we are looking at 56 [killings] over the last three years. ... They are reckoned to be minors, but we cannot fully confirm that because they don't have birth certificates. ... A rough estimate is something like that. But in other cities, more have been reported in newspapers.

Q: And in total?
A: We reckon hundreds [of children] are being killed in cities all over the place. Three were beheaded in Quezon City, right in front of the congressional building — well that's last year. I can only say hundreds. But many more are picked up and tortured, and beaten and jailed illegally in terrible, terrible conditions. We're working on rescuing them. But how many are killed may be many more than we are estimating.

Q: In the U.N. Human Rights Committee meeting last week, the issue of the death squads came up. Were you satisfied by the expert commissioners, and what were the responses of Philippine authorities?
A: Well, we briefed the members of the committee, and they responded very positively — with shock. They did not realize the extent of this killing of street children. We went to the hearings, and they really questioned thoroughly the members of the Philippine delegation, who had no answers. They had no way to explain these killings. So we're very happy we were able to take up this issue with the help of the [District-based] World Organization Against Torture and bring it to the attention of the Human Rights Committee.

Q: Do you think Philippine authorities will follow up, now that the issue in the U.N. spotlight?
A: Well, we still have to make this known to them through these reports and through the media. The world is looking at this, and they will sit up and take notice. And we hope President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will withdraw her endorsement of the mayor of Davao City as her crime consultant, because his methods are brutal and he espouses violence.

Q: Your organization has also visited a lot of prisons. What did you see?
A: Well, we have visited 37 prisons. The conditions are subhuman — the children are mixed in with the adults, who are criminals. In many cases, they are raped inside jail. As punishment, the females are handed over to prisoners or to guards and are sexually molested and abused. The males are also sexually abused, because they're mixed in. The crowding is unbelievable. We have just been to Novotas, in Metro Manila, the latest prison visit, and here we have 17 minors mixed in with 33 adults in a room adequate for about 15 people.

Q: How young are these children?
A: In our visits to different jails, we see them as young as 10 years old.

Q: How many prisons that you've visited are not up to minimum standards?
A: We've been to 37 jails, and 80 percent would be considered substandard — absolutely. And not only that, but we see violations of basic human rights under the conditions in which they live. We went to the Olongapo center [on Subic Bay]. It's not even a jail — it's a child and women care center — but they have prison cells there that are bare floors. There's no toilet — a hole in the floor full of excrement — with rats, and insects, mosquitoes, and sleeping on concrete floors, being beaten, having cold water thrown on them. Food is placed on the floor outside the bars, to make them reach out like animals and eat with their hands, on the floor, th

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News and Info Archive 2	3/01 - 2/00	News and Info Archive 1	- 1999

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