David and Goliath battle shaping up in Cebu

From the inbox comes this SOS from fellow health and environment advocate Golly Ramos. We wish her only the best in this face-off with a powerful opponent. This blogger will continue to post developments as this case unfolds. Go Golly!

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Hello, my dearest co-advocates and fighters for good governance,

Today is supposed to be the day that Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia will file a criminal case for malicious prosecution against me. She plans to run as a Senator in the 2013 elections.

Last Friday, we, advocates and affected fisherfolk, filed administrative and criminal actions against the Governor, mayor of the municipality of Cordova, officials of the DENR and DILG for failure to perform their duties, including violations of our environmental rights and right to public participation, and undertaking and allowing an illegal reclamation projects, among other laws.

Our original plan was to file a petition for a writ of kalikasan as the project would impact diverse and abundant sea grass, corals, and mangroves ecosystems, which will be destroyed and affect the livelihood not just in cordova but also in the cities of Cebu, Mandaue, Talisay and even Consolacion. while in the process of collating the data, we requested the DILG to investigate the actions that led to the implementation of the reclamation projects. The DILG officials refused. Thus, we had no choice but to file the cases last Friday.

Last Saturday, my three co-complainants who are among the affected fisherfolk in the reclamation project, were asked to see the mayor through the former Chief of Police and the tanods. One, out of fear, went and was asked questions, the answers to which he lied because he was scared. But, he subsequently issued an Affidavit to spell out the truth.

Meanwhile,and understandably, the Governor is angry. She was the respondent in the case for Environmental Protection to stop the indiscriminate dumping of coal ash. The green court stopped the dumping of the coal ash through a Temporary Environmental Protection Order and prevented the dumping in the Balili beach front property, which her administration bought, amid issues that it is land of the public domain and that several hectares are actually underwater. She also pushed for the offshore drilling in Tanons Strait Protected Seascape, which eventually was elevated as a case filed in behalf of the fisherfolk and the whales and dolphins, before the Supreme Court in 2007. still pending.

We also sent various Notice to Sue to her and local chief executives for violations of the Ecological Solid Waste Management Law and the Clean Air Act, which contain anti SLAPP provisions. we called her attention to the non implementation of the Clean Water Act as well. The cases are yet to be filed, however, as we focus on equally pressing environmental issues.

We have also filed administrative case for her failure to deliver the requested documents on the controversial Balili case.Because of our initiatives, there was an investigation and the Balili case became a fodder in Cebu for news and commentaries for almost a year. It led to the filing of a corruption case in the Ombudsman, now in the table of Ombudsman Morales,

The former Ombudsman Gutierrez, two days before she resigned, dismissed our case. When we appealed to the Supreme Court last year, it was dismissed with unprecedented speed - within two days from filing. (This was before the TRO issued to GMA). So, we chose not to make an MR and it became final.

While I still have to receive the Governor's affidavit complaint, I am preparing for my defense. It is a harassment case, pure and simple. But, I need to present my "credentials" as an environmental law educator and advocate. I would very much appreciate your help in coming up with a signed letter or manifesto regarding my contributions in promoting rights of women and children and our rights to health, environment and public participation.

We are coming up with FAQs soon, we also need your skills and respective networks to lay the groundwork to call for a moratorium on reclamation projects nationwide.

I was also among those who shared inputs in the crafting of the Environmental Rules. I am so glad that the provision is a shining armor and a shield against harassment from public officials, for the defenders of human rights and nature.

This case is a test if our institutions are strong enough to stand behind Law, HUMAN RIGHTS, Justice and of course Nature.

What is happening is so fitting for the 2012 celebration of Women's Month: "Women Weathering Climate Change: Governance and Accountability, Everyone’s Responsibility.”

Thanks so much for your help and prayers.

Golly

Letter to sister, brother, every warrior in movement vs. state militarism

Today's inbox yielded this message from Cristina Palabay, spokesperson of Tanggol Bayi (Defend Women)-Philippines and Karapatan, and focal person, Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD)

Warmest greetings from Geneva, Switzerland!

I have been here since the last week of February as the head of delegation of the Philippine UPR Watch, a network of human rights and faith-based organizations engaging in the Universal Periodic Review process of the UN Human Rights Council, as we lobby in preparation for the UPR of the Philippines this coming May to June 2012. I spent March 8, International Women's Day, with women human rights defenders from all over the world as the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition launched the Global Report on WHRDs in Geneva, simultaneous with the launch in New York, US and in the Philippines. In a week, our delegation will be back in the Philippines.

May I share with you a video-tribute to Filipina human rights defenders and a paper where I culled excerpts of my panel presentation during the said launch. Please see attached copy of the paper and click through this link for the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96ucpEZajZ4&feature=youtu.be.

Likewise, we pay tribute to you as a sister and a fellow traveler in this journey towards a society where genuine equality, freedom and respect exist. Happy international women's day!

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The Struggle for Justice and Rights for
Women Human Rights Defenders in the Philippines

Paper Prepared by Cristina Palabay
Side Event at the 19th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council
By the International Service for Human Rights and the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition

Today, March 8 2012 - International Women’s Day, we pay tribute to the women human rights defenders all over the world as we commemorate a “herstoric” event in herstory – the struggle for bread and roses, the struggle for rights and freedoms. As a young feminist, I take inspiration from this most relevant call for all of humanity, especially for all women: A woman’s place is in the struggle.

And why will we not struggle?

If we are in the place of Connie Empeno, a mother whose daughter was abducted, tortured, raped and is still missing after six years, won’t we march for justice over the rights violations against a daughter, along with other daughters, sisters and mothers who were similarly violated? This had been the common practice in the Philippines under former woman President Gloria Arroyo whose counter-insurgency blueprint has ravaged rights and lives, with 206 victims of enforced disappearances, 31 of which are women. Connie Empeno’s child, Karen, who is a young activist and sociology student, was abducted in 2006 by Maj. Gen. Jovito “The Butcher” Palparan and his cohorts in the military while she and Sherlyn Cadapan, a student leader and triathlete, were conducting research on the situation of farmers. Since then, they have not been surfaced. Their parents filed cases against the perpetrators resulting to the issuance of warrants of arrest but Palparan remains at-large.

If we are in the place of Evan Hernandez, a mother whose daughter Beng – a human rights worker and journalist – was shot summarily while conducting a fact-finding mission in a militarized indigenous people’s community, won’t you struggle for justice? Beng begged for her life and asked the military who shot her to please take pity, but impunity is that brazen and perpetrators roam freely everyday in the Philippines, from the highest government offices to the courts to the military and police, that they just didn’t care. Beng’s case was brought before the UN Human Rights Committee, where it was investigated that the state security forces are responsible for her killing. But lo and behold, during the same time that the ruling came out, the cases against the perpetrators were dismissed. Beng is among the 1,206 victims of extrajudicial killings (EJKs) under the nine-year rule of Arroyo, 153 of them women.

Such climate of impunity prevails to this day, under the one and a half years under Phil. Pres. Benigno Aquino III, with 67 cases of EJKs, four of the victims are women, three of them are WHRDs and one is a seven-year old child Sunshine Jabinez. Oplan Bayanihan, the current counter-insurgency policy, has legitimized the militarization of communities resulting to forced evacuations, threats, harassment, torture, and indiscriminate firing, the rape and sexual abuse among the civilian population, most of them women and children.

While economic and socio-cultural rights are being violated every day, Phil. state security forces continue to quell and silence those who dare lead the defense and struggle for rights of the women and the people. Comprehensive health care, including reproductive healthcare, is being denied by the government; rural women and their families are being dispossessed of lands they have tilled for many decades; women workers choose between being laid off from work or they can lay down and suffer sexual abuse and rape of their employers to keep their jobs; young women are deprived of their right to education because of the increasingly prohibitive and privileged costs of education. All of these are in the context of the immense impacts of the global financial crisis instigated by imperialist greed bringing forth these attacks especially against the poor and marginalized women of the Philippines and of the world.

And so, yes, why will we not struggle.

The Global Report of the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition provides the whole picture of violations. I believe that the intent of this document is not only to illustrate the sordid picture of the violations being suffered by WHRDs, but more importantly, it is intended to move us into action, including actions we can undertake while we engage in the UN Human Rights Council. The UNHRC is an important venue for advocacy and intervention for WHRDs, and a platform for complaints, communications and networking, where solidarity can be established and enhanced for the defense and protection of WHRDs.

Tanggol Bayi-Karapatan (Defend Women-Karapatan) Philippines and the Asia Pacific Forum on Women Law and Development, as member of the WHRD-IC, enjoins every sister and brother, every warrior in the lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual movement, to help us pressure the Philippine government to exert more efforts in arresting and prosecuting Palparan and other human rights violators, and ultimately end the climate of impunity by scrapping Oplan Bayanihan and genuinely realizing the basic human rights of the women and Filipino people.

I enjoin every sister, every brother, every warrior in the LGBT movement, amid the cold streets of Geneva, Switzerland, to keep the fire of struggle burning as we all contend against state militarism, globalization, fundamentalism, sexism and patriarchy.

Thank you very much.

Dear Sweet Filthy World

The title of this blog entry is appropriated from a coming artist’s talk of Patricia Eustaquio, an artist I admire from a distance, at the Silverlens Gallery on Pasong Tamo extension, Makati City. The title of her show comes from an Elvis Costello song.


The “A” word (appropriation) is big these days in the art scene. Discussions have filled the cyber highway on just where does copying begin and plagiarism end.


Call this a stream of consciousness sort of exercise, but at 5 a.m. that can only be one’s state of mind.


March is usually called Women’s Month (which again brings to mind a spoof magazine Amadis Ma. Guerrero, old comrade in arts and letters, once got hold of in the pre-martial law ’70s: Imelda’s Monthly). I didn’t realize this month was about to end until I turned on my cell phone upon waking up at my usual time of 5a.m.


Jeez, talk about how time goes by. My observant daughter, a follower of this blog, once asked, “Have you given up your journal for your blog?”


“No,” came my quick answer. I explained how I’ve managed so far to keep both an online journal and a diary where I handwrite all sorts of stuff. The latter is unfiltered, unexpurgated; the blog, well, it’s where I put what is still permissible but otherwise unpublishable (mainly because entries like this one are too personal) in conventional media.


Last week went by so fast that, as I texted another old gal pal asking if I was ready to meet about another book project, rest these days takes the form of trips to the bathroom. I summed up to her my mental checklist of unfinished interview transcriptions, writing and editing assignments apart from two large-scale paintings I was working on when her message came in.


“Yep,” she texted back, “just like you to take on a work load fit for a pack of wild horses. But enjoy!”


The adrenaline rush has kept me going these two weeks that when my phone’s alarm clock went off at 5 a.m. on March 24, Wednesday, my automatic move was to turn over to my left side, forgetting that I was lying on the hardwood bench on someone else’s sala in Munoz, Nueva Ecija. Three hours before I had just emailed my copy of a report on Cecile Licad’s outreach concert there. I fell hard on the marble floor, natch, a rude awakening, literally.


I managed to catch the van in San Jose bound for Baguio. I thought I’d make good time if it left on the dot at six. What I didn’t know was vans like this one that double as public utility vehicles don’t push off until it’s filled to capacity. The long Calvary had begun as I waited. The driver told me to stay put and be patient; the bus to Baguio was not air-conditioned and the trip longer (about five to six hours) with lots of stops. Once on its way, the van could be in Baguio in, oh, an hour and a half, he said.


Well, the van did make it to Baguio in that span of time, but it left Nueva Ecija at half past 10 a.m. by which time I was sticky, filthy and weepy from half-despair, half-exhaustion.


Meanwhile, I kept in touch with my one kith-kin in Baguio (long-suffering partner of almost 26 years) and Baboo Mondonedo and Toottee Chanco Pacis, the women who pinch-hit for me in helping organize a merienda meeting with Sen. Pia Cayetano. The compañera senadora was city-hopping in Northern Luzon to promote breast and cervical cancer awareness and the women’s agenda that has marked her career in the legislature. Trust women to be efficiency experts and not to be shy about introducing themselves to the senator and taking over.


My old partner, no matter how grouchy he can be, is right on this score: no one is indispensable. I was resigned to just catching the tail-end of a women’s meeting.


By the time the van was about to turn right on Gov. Pack road, I screeched, “Para!” Got down with my luggage, hopped into a cab, got to a dark house (city-wide brownout, wow, perfect timing). But this was one occasion when a curse became a blessing. Brownout meant cold shower. That was what I had. And it couldn’t have been more welcome when one was feeling filthy physically and weepy psychologically, the last from self-imposed pressure.


The women gathered at Café by the Ruins were frank and to the point with their questions just as the senator was with her answers. She hit it off with them so well that she vowed that after the whole hullabaloo on May 10 is over, she’d return for a longer visit.


Carol Brady said after the merienda ended, “This is so refreshing. I’m glad I came. This meeting gives me hope that not all politics is dirty. Please tell Pia I hope and I pray that she continues to hold her own in the Senate.”


Afterwards, the rest of the week went by in a whirl of laughter, tears, colors, paint brushes, meals downed in a hurry, errands and duties in different parts of town from the taking down of paintings at the Baguio-Mt. Provinces Museum at the close of our latest Baguio Aquarelle Society exhibition to interviewing sources for another assignment on sustainable development. At each step, little acts of kindness meant the week could be made tolerable until duties were done away with.


After a dinner of reheated leftovers following an afternoon of painting in the company of my teacher Norman Chow and his son Chino, I did the last of my evening rituals: check my email for any urgent messages that need to be answered.


Lo and behold! Odette from the Population Center Foundation years was there, responding to my invite to a solo show next week.


She wrote, “Thank you for the invite. I hope to see you there! I remember you were just starting your art lessons when we went to Malabang, Lanao Del Sur in . . . does it surprise you that I can't remember when? I distinctly recall you picked a taro leaf from the path and drew it. Did you keep that one? I want that one.

“The lesson you taught me has stayed with me since: Pare everything down to the barest essentials.”

Thanks, too, Odette, I need to relearn that lesson again.


Photo of Patricia Eustaquio's installation by ARJAY BLANCO. Eustaquio's talk is set for April 17 at 3 p.m. at Silverlens Gallery, 2320 Pasong Tamo extension, Makati City.