Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières
Intervention of Walden Bello in the Webinar on the “Program for a New Normal in Agriculture” sponsored by Greenpeace Philippines and other organizations, May 29, 2020.
Thank you for inviting me to be part of this panel.
I was originally intending to give the main points of a recent article I (...)
We publish below the fith article of a series of five.
In an unprecedented uncertainty with the country’s $331 billion economy put in frozen animation by a pandemic, what more would it mean for another lockdown in whatever form? When do policy-makers of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s (PRRD) (...)
We publish below parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 of a five part series
Click here for all ESSF coverage of the Coronavirus pandemic Introduction: The Global and Regional Contexts of COVID-19 1. Brief Chronology of Events in the Philippines 2. Steps taken by the Philippine Government in Fighting the (...)
As locked down workers in the Philippines and the world celebrated May 1 in online actions, the labor group Partido Manggagawa (PM) slammed Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello’s push for a “Balik Probinsya” scheme.
“The ‘balik probinsya’ [back the province] plan of Sec. Bello and the ‘balik trabaho’ [go (...)
Revolutionary Salute to the Workers of the World! Revolutionary Salute to all Comrades in the Revolutionary Workers Party-Mindanao, Comrades in Arms in the Revolutionary Peoples’ Army and all other Revolutionary Friends and Allies! Capitalism is in crisis putting us all, humanity and the (...)
The covid pandemic has exposed all the ills and contradictions of capitalism. The state has intervened massively in society to contain the infection and maintain the social fabric. Still the workers and the poor are disproportionately bearing the burden of the pandemic.
The lockdown has put (...)
As the extended unilateral ceasefire of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)-New People’s Army (NPA) expired at midnight of April 30 without an extension — just like the earlier non-extension by the Philippine government of its initial unilateral ceasefire from March 19 to April 15 to (...)
We publish below the fourth article of a series of five.
II. Impact of COVID-19 on People’s Lives
As the Philippines enters its 6th week of a social lockdown and shuttered economy manifestations of political fatigue and cultural toxicity have unfolded among PRRD’s administration and the (...)
As government and the private sector attempt to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic by instituting both health and social amelioration measures, the assumption reigns that when all this is over things will go back to normal and it will be “business as usual.” This means going back to the (...)
Volunteer healthcare workers and underpaid nurses are keeping the virus at bay, for now. [We are not reproducing here the many photos illustrating this reportage. Go to the original article to see them.]
Rose Ann, a rural nurse, checks the temperature of a traveler at a checkpoint. (Xyza (...)
We publish below the third article of a series of five.
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III. CURRENT STATUS of the COVID-19 Situation in the Country
Unlike the Housing, Real Estate, Financing and banking meltdown of 2008, COVID-19 is a contagion which has affected public health that has hit (...)
We publish below the second article of a series of five. II. STEPS TAKEN by the Philippine Government versus COVID-19
Since the official declaration of Chinese Health officials that there is the existence of a deadly and very contagious novel corona virus in their country on the 1st week of (...)
Curfew violators, poor and displaced residents, activists, and alleged “fake news” disseminators are facing arrest and persecution as they accuse authorities of failing to provide relief.
On March 12, hours before Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte announced a community quarantine would be (...)
The Coronavirus-19 was early detected in Wuhan, China last November 2019. The Chinese government leaders tried to manage the problem by suppressing and withholding information from the world. However, medical workers in Wuhan, like Dr. Li Wenliang who later died from COVID-19 as a frontline (...)
In the Philippines we have a combination of the worst features of the state under the current conditions of global capitalism.
The Duterte regime’s strong-armed response to the COVID-19 pandemic contrasts with its failure to deliver basic public services, including healthcare, to the people. (...)
Flaviano Villanueva was in tears last Thursday. It was day five of the “enhanced community quarantine” in Metro Manila, where the priest runs a homeless centre. The sprawling Philippine capital of 13 million people had been sealed off, and police and army troopers were guarding municipal (...)
24-hour curfews are outright denials of the right to travel and movement, human rights lawyers say
MANILA, Philippines – Under a state of public health emergency and in a lockdown to contain the coronavirus outbreak, human rights lawyers will admit restrictions to movement are warranted, but (...)
MORE and more cities and municipalities are shutting down their borders following Metro Manila’s de facto lockdown last week. President Rodrigo Duterte said the ‘enhanced community quarantine’ measures, which has been expanded to include the whole of Luzon, is projected to last till April 14. (...)
President Duterte said that those who violate the strict quarantine rules could get arrested, but critics argue that many are not privileged enough to follow them.
Checkpoints run by police and military currently line city borders across the Philippines’ largest island of Luzon. They started (...)
What were the people in charge of Malacañang’s communications office thinking last Thursday evening when they made President Duterte announce the lockdown of Metro Manila — with uniformed police generals seated behind him? Clearly, it was their way of saying this is henceforth a peace and order (...)
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