Fighting back vs neo-liberal policies

Letters

WE, teaching and non-teaching personnel under the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), salute the public servants of France who took the streets around the country to protest President Emmanuel Macron’s economic policies. They are protesting policies on wage freeze, axing 120,000 jobs in the public sector over the next five years and continued spending cuts and labor reforms in favor of private capital. Because inside the country we are also experiencing the setbacks of the same policies, we cannot but be inspired by their nationwide strike.

It was the first time in 10 years that all public service unions had called for strike action. and that the participation in this strike day was very significant and praised the union unity. Alongside teachers, hospital workers made up many of the protesters in fighting back against policies that have degraded working conditions and are already hurting consumers of public services, and could displace student’s ability to stay in school.

Amid our own country’s policies where imperialist globalization, has subordinated public services including education to private profit, big capitalists downsizes its labor forces to upsize its profits resulting to loss of jobs to millions of workers and stricter measures to ensure further profit.

Politicians and corporate leaders are replacing our public-school system with a private, for-profit, competitive, market-based system that increases inequality and undermines democracy.

To continue to ignore and not resist the changes may result in the demise of public schooling. Public education is under attack across the globe because of those imperialist impositions. This process of privatizing education is occurring across the globe and the general strike happening now in France has inspired us in defending our hard-won victories. Prepare for our own battles in the home front against those neo-liberal policies being continued under President Duterte. – Benjamin Valbuena, president, Alliance of Concerned Teachers

Deplorable

KARAPATAN deplores the acquittal of Maj. Harry Baliaga Jr. from arbitrary detention charges filed on June 2011 by Mrs. Edita Burgos, mother of abducted peasant organizer Jonas Burgos, at the promulgation hearing today at the Regional Trial Court Branch 216 in Quezon City. The said acquittal is the most recent manifestation of the prevalent climate of impunity in the Philippines, where even a small fry like Baliaga cannot be made accountable for his crimes.

More than 10 years after Jonas Burgos was abducted by State security forces, Jonas is yet to be surfaced by his captors, and justice remains elusive for his family.

The Macapagal-Arroyo regime and its henchmen, then AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon (currently National Security Adviser) and then Chief of Army Intelligence Service Group Col. Eduardo Ano (currently the AFP Chief of Staff), among others, unleashed a brutal military campaign against activists, using an order of battle list, and instigated at least 1,206 extrajudicial killings, 206 enforced disappearances and other human rights violations (HRVs). Despite compelling evidence and testimonies on the role of the AFP in Jonas’ disappearance and after several legal remedies pursued by the Burgos family, the AFP denied responsibility for abduction of Jonas and refused to surface him.

Instead of prosecuting the brains behind such violations, the BS Aquino III regime absolved all the big fishes in the Burgos case, including Esperon and Ano, through a decision of the Department of Justice in 2013. This decision was again despite an earlier Court Appeals ruling that the AFP is accountable for enforced disappearance of Jonas and new evidence submitted to the Supreme Court on the involvement of Ano et. al. What has been more enraging is the fact that following their exoneration, they have been promoted to higher positions in the military, enabling a platform for their continued commission of human rights violations such as the killing of Lumad in Mindanao. General Ano has been promoted and appointed twice during the Aquino III administration, as chief of the Intelligence Service of the AFP and as Army Chief. There were also at least 333 victims of extrajudicial killings, 29 victims of enforced disappearance and thousands who forcibly evacuated due to military operations under BS Aquino III.

More than 10 years after Jonas’ abduction, the justice system continues to attempt to frustrate efforts of the Burgos family to seek accountability and find Jonas. Enforced disappearances continue under Duterte, with four documented cases of desaparecidos, and the climate of impunity has worsened, with the accused perpetrators in the Jonas Burgos case in power. This is clearly injustice many times over for Jonas, the Burgos family and all victims of State-sponsored violations. This injustice is borne out of the continuing implementation of counter-insurgency programs across regimes, programs that inflict State terror on the people, especially targetting those who uphold people’s rights and who work for genuine social change.

What remains as the silver lining amid all these is the strong resolve and unrelenting efforts for justice of the Burgos family and all victims of HRVs. In the context of the intensifying fascist attacks against the people by the Duterte regime and its mercenaries in the AFP and Philippine National Police, the fight for justice will continue, in the streets and other venues for struggle. –Cristina Palabay, secretary general, Karapatan