Tag Archives: Dictatorship

[Statement] Power to the people’s collective struggle against autocratic rule -iDEFEND

Posted on by Leave a comment

Photo from iDEFEND website

President Duterte steadily marches towards authoritarian rule, with the Courts, the Executive branch and the Philippine Congress delivering one after the other, legislative, judicial and executive measures versus popular dissent and criticism. On February 10th Solicitor General Jose Calida filed a Quo Warranto petition before the Supreme Court seeking to forfeit the franchise of media corporation ABS CBN and subsequently sought a gag order against any public discussion on the issue. On February 14th the Quezon City Metropolitan Trial Court issued a warrant of arrest against former Senator and opposition figure Antonio Trillanes and 10 others on charges of conspiracy to commit sedition.

This week the Philippine Senate approved the Anti-Terrorism Bill, replacing the Human Security Act (R.A. 10354-2007). The bill seeks lesser penalties for erroneous arrests and human rights violations committed by law enforcement personnel in the pursuit of anti-terror operations. The soon-to-be legislation will utilize police powers over public and private communication and surveillance facilities, and allow the Courts to delegitimize civil society groups by tagging them as terrorist organizations. It also removed compensation to victims of illegal detention. The bill is the latest in the arsenal of repression pointed at human rights defenders and people’s organizations who continue to oppose political, social and economic policies of the Duterte administration.

Meanwhile, the University of the Philippines becomes a potential testing ground for a mandatory ROTC being finalized at the House of Representatives, for all senior high school and college students. The consolidated bill will eliminate the National Service Training Program (NSTP) which provided students the option to choose service programs that are relevant to them. Students and youth groups have raised the alarm over what they consider as another corrupt, sexist and abusive program designed to kill critical thinking among young people.

Alongside these measures are a string of legislation and executive issuances aimed at curbing civic spaces, among them- Executive Order No.70 establishing a “whole of nation” approach to counter-insurgency; cyber libel in R.A. 10175 (Anti-cybercrime law); DILG Memorandum Circular 2019-116 directing NGOs to submit their profiles and projects for review; and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Memorandum Circular no. 15 requiring non-profit entities to divulge information on all their partners, funders and local areas of operations, under threat of revocation of their SEC registration.

The systematic weakening of democratic institutions and processes did not start with signed orders or a proposed law; it started with a bullet to the head of the first drug suspect. Duterte does not want to eliminate a few opposition voices; he wants the population terrorized towards the annihilation of questions in the face of brazen corruption, foreign and elite economic domination, environmental destruction and tyranny.

However, we know that the fall of dictators also starts with a growing doubt, consistent voices of discontent, the whistleblowers, the small acts of defiance and courage, and finally the united stand of the people against injustice.

On the 34th commemoration of the power of the people to liberate themselves from oppressive rule, we renew our commitment to forge onwards, arms linked with freedom-loving sisters and brothers around the world, and realize a society where human rights, equality, justice, and peace drive the development of every citizen.

Read more @idefend.ph

Submit your contribution online through HRonlinePH@gmail.com
Include your full name, e-mail address and contact number.

All submissions are republished and redistributed in the same way that it was originally published online and sent to us. We may edit submission in a way that does not alter or change the original material.

Human Rights Online Philippines does not hold copyright over these materials. Author/s and original source/s of information are retained including the URL contained within the tagline and byline of the articles, news information, photos etc.

[From the web] KALIPUNAN calls on people to continue fighting for freedom, reject another dictatorship

Posted on by Leave a comment

Photo from KALIPUNAN FB page

A people power akin to what happened in 1986 may not be seen in the immediate, but plans by the Duterte administration to install another dictatorship will enhance a similar movement-building process.

This, according to the leaders of Kalipunan ng mga Kilusang Masa, has always been the case whenever a suppressed nation that was able to rise in revolt against the earlier tyrant is pushed back into the old condition by another dictator.

The group issued this warning in an anti-dictatorship rally held at the Boy Scout Circle in Quezon City Monday, where it called on the people to continue fighting for freedom and in resisting another dictatorship. The action is in commemoration of the Edsa people power revolution that dismantled the Marcos dictatorship in 1986.

Meanwhile, union members from the beleaguered ABS-CBN also joined the protest action to defend press freedom, demand renewal of their franchise, as well as security of tenure for the network’s 11,000 employees.

“The Duterte administration’s mounting human rights violations – including extrajudicial killings, attack on trade union, peasant and environmental activists, red-tagging, misogyny, and now the shakedown against the non-conforming press – all point to a dictator’s playbook. But along this shrinking democratic space is a growing resistance by the basic sectors,” said Kalipunan in a statement.

Kalipunan, an alliance of movements in labor, urban poor, women, youth and environmental justice communities, has been active in promoting and defending human rights as well as the campaign for the deepening of democracy in the country.

Its agenda, however, clash directly with Duterte’s authoritarian style of governance. The President’s penchant at promoting the culture of killings, his hatred for human rights, relentless attack on opposition figures and the high-handed shakedown on non-aligned press and oligarchs, are seen by Kalipunan as “prelude to establishing another dictatorship” to satiate Duterte’s thirst for more power and to buttress his own sense of security and public order.

But the group asserted that, “On the contrary, the toiling people who have been neglected by previous regimes, as well as the present administration, need more freedom than continuing repression because job security, better living conditions, and sustainable planet are best ensured under a democracy rather than under a dictatorship.” Thus, the fight for freedom and democracy continues, added the group.

The commemoration of the 1986 people power revolution comes under the shadow of repressive policies rolled out by the Duterte administration in recent months. These include Executive Order No. 70 with the objective of ending the local communist insurgency has resulted to raids of legal organization’s offices, mass arrests, red-tagging, surveillance and profiling, intimidations and harassments, among others. In factories, it led to the establishment of JIPCO or Joint Industrial Peace Concern Office, which is a police detachment guarding the export zone against trade union organizers.

On the economic side, Kalipunan viewed the recent move in Congress to hand over public utilities to aliens as a triumph of foreign capital over our national patrimony, made possible under the pivot to China policy of the Duterte administration.

“We are all aware that the present Congress dances only to the command, not of Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano but of his President. HB 78’s passage in the plenary did come as planned, simply because the Congress itself has lost its freedom. Under Cayetano, the House of Representatives has surrendered as one,” concluded Kalipunan.
————————-
Kalipunan is composed of Alyansa Tigil Mina, Coalition Against Trafficking of Women in the Asia Pacific, World March of Women, Kilos Maralita, Partido Manggagawa, Urban Poor Alliance, Pambansang Kilusan ng mga Samahang Magsasaka, Sentro ng Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa, and Union of Students for the Advancement of Democracy

#NoToDictatorship #DefendPressFreedom

Submit your contribution online through HRonlinePH@gmail.com
Include your full name, e-mail address and contact number.

All submissions are republished and redistributed in the same way that it was originally published online and sent to us. We may edit submission in a way that does not alter or change the original material.

Human Rights Online Philippines does not hold copyright over these materials. Author/s and original source/s of information are retained including the URL contained within the tagline and byline of the articles, news information, photos etc.

[People] The Profile of a Dictator -by Fr. Shay Cullen

Posted on by Leave a comment

The Profile of a Dictator
by Fr. Shay Cullen
15 March 2018

History is full of tyrants and dictators. Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Mao Ze Dong are among the worst in past history but today dictatorship is increasingly on the rise. True democracy is in retreat as elected officials turn to dictatorship as a way to stay in power and rule with an iron fist and declare they will save their nation from evil and make the nation great. Putin, Erdoğan, Omar Al-Bashir, Kim Jong II are just a few of many that come to mind.

Dictators love to conduct wars, to issue threats, to present themselves as the strong person they are not, to imprison their critics, to change the constitution, to rule with authoritarian decrees, manipulate rubber stamp parliaments or congresses. They plot to remain in power indefinitely, to enrich themselves, to grow corrupt and vindictive, to insult their perceived enemies, to brand critics as terrorists and to rule with fear and oppressive decrees.

Tyrants and dictators assign blame to others for their failures and for social problems they persecute and kill their imagined enemies. They can be misogynists and even traitors. Others change laws to eliminate rivals and curb the independent power of the judiciary.

They love power and abuse it to dominate and control others and preserve their ill-gotten wealth, protect their entitlements, privileges, and deviant pleasures. They use bribery, vote-buying and the sharing of ill-gotten wealth to buy support and consolidate political power for their family dynasty and cronies. They use the police and military to oppress and intimidate their opponents, dissidents and protestors. They cast a mantel of fear and threat that covers the population like the darkness of night and brings on the dawn of silence and paralysis of dissent. Such are the cruel tactics of a tyrant dictator.\

In Poland and Hungary, we see some of these authoritarian tendencies as they pass laws to cripple the judiciary so the politicians will be immune from investigation. We have the powerful Chinese leader Xi Jinping getting the constitution changed so he can remain in office indefinitely. Human rights violations are common practice.

Bashar al-Assad, president of Syria, is branded a war criminal for bombing with Russian help and killing and torturing thousands of his own people to stay in power. The worst dictator of our time.

President Donald Trump is a dictator in the making. He is campaigning for a second term when he has already destroyed his credibility and is facing sex abuse charges by many women and possible treason or impeachment for allowing foreign powers like Russia to subvert the election process and help get him elected. He says he approves torture and has appointed a new head of the CIA who is notorious for supporting horrific torture of suspects in the past.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey is now a dictator who gave himself additional power through an alleged rigged referendum, bringing journalists and critics to court on trumped up charges and jailing them. He allegedly tortures opponents branding them terrorists. He wages war in Northern Syria.

Sudan’s President Omar Al-Bashir has an international arrest warrant out for him issued by the International Criminal Court to be arrested anywhere to face charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

President Vladimir Putin of Russia is a “strong-man” dictator twelve years in power and going again for another six years having taken over control of all media, silenced his opponents, barred them from elections and allegedly killed journalists. He is accused of murdering former spies in the UK with Russian military-made nerve poison and radioactive substance. He wages war by proxy in the Ukraine and annexed The Crimea.

The Maldives, the so-called Indian Ocean island paradise so popular with Japanese and western tourists, is ruled by a dictator president Abdulla Yameen who has declared his deposed former president a terrorist, arrested two court justices and is mired in corruption allegations.

The list goes on and we see the suffering of the victims wherever the tyrant takes more and more power. Human suffering, poverty, deprivation and social and personal injustice mire the land, plague the cities and infect the population of a dictatorship. Economic disruption, inequality and a cloud of great sadness and pain descend to cover all in misery like soot from a polluting chimney. Such is the dire outcome of dictatorship. The dictators have their supporters and hanger-ons who seek rewards and a share of the ill-gotten wealth, petty power and privilege.

The answer to dictatorships is to spread true awareness and enlightenment among the people. Provide social and political education with the truth and organize people’s cooperatives and opposition parties when possible. Peaceful and legitimate people power movements can change corrupt regimes without bloodshed or massacres. Working daily for justice and human rights, supporting the dignity of the people in every dire circumstance are steps towards freedom from dictatorship. Above all, courage and commitment to the truth and justice is what brings peace and liberty.

Follow PREDA @
Website: http://www.preda.org
Facebook: @preda.for.child.rights
Email:predainfo@preda.org

Submit your contribution online through HRonlinePH@gmail.com
Include your full name, e-mail address and contact number.

All submissions are republished and redistributed in the same way that it was originally published online and sent to us. We may edit submission in a way that does not alter or change the original material.

Human Rights Online Philippines does not hold copyright over these materials. Author/s and original source/s of information are retained including the URL contained within the tagline and byline of the articles, news information, photos etc.