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Intensifying repression:
Growing list of victims
Benjaline Hernandez headed the Southern Mindanao chapter of the College Editors' Guild of the Philippines (CEGP) when she was killed in April 2002 by elements of the Philippine Army 12th Special Forces in North Cotabato. She was then doing research on military abuses. The government has since acquitted her killers. Edgar Damalerio was a radio commentator and editor of the weekly Zamboanga Scribe when he was shot in May 2002 by a police officer. The official has been at large since his escape. In August 2002, Sonny Alcantara was shot after criticizing a local official in San Pablo, Laguna. His case has not gotten anywhere.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on Arroyo four times this year to obtain justice for the murders of journalists in the country, but she has merely turned a deaf ear to the IFJ. The IFJ particularly mentioned the murder on August 20 of Rico Ramirez, reporter, cameraman and spinner of DXSF, a radio station in San Francisco, Agusan del Sur. Ramirez was well known for his intense criticisms against crime and drug syndicates in his area. He was found sprawled and fighting for his life a few hundred meters from the station he worked in. Two days earlier, Noel Villarante, a radio commentator in Laguna known for his sharp criticism of corrupt practices, was slain. On July 8, at the same time as the inauguration of the Garden of Heaven Memorial Park in La Paz, Tarlac, Bonifacio Gregorio, columnist of Dyaryo Banat of Tarlac, was killed. Among the things he criticized in the newspaper were corruption in government, the drug business, and the illegal conversion of peasants' farmlands into the commercial memorial park owned by the town mayor. On April 28, the progressive and fesity broadcaster Johnny Villanueva Jr. was killed in Camalig, Albay.
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 21 September 2003
English Edition
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Ang Bayan is the official news organ of the Communist Party of the Philippines issued by the CPP Central Committee. It provides news about the work of the Party as well as its analysis of and standpoint on current issues.
AB comes out fortnightly. It is published originally in Pilipino and translated into Bisaya, Ilokano, Waray, Hiligaynon and English.
Acrobat PDF files of AB are available online for downloading and offline reading printing. If you wish to receive copies of AB via email, click here. |
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