Tag Archives: Kalipunan

[Video] Kalipunan-Nagkaisa Online Protest-Forum on the Terror Bill

Kalipunan-Nagkaisa Online Protest-Forum on the Terror Bill

Main Speaker: Atty. Chel Diokno
Reactors:
Sen. Risa Hontiveros
Cong. Edcel Lagman
Cong. Carlos Zarate
Atty. Sonny Matula
Open Forum
Bayan Ko Community Singing with placards “Junk the Terror Bill”

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[Statement] Kalipunan ng Kilusang Masa Solidarity Statement for the People of Didipio, Nueva Vizcaya

Kalipunan ng mga Kilusang Masa condemns the use of force of police officers to dismantle the people’s barricade of the Didipio Community.

On April 6, 2020, more than 100 police officers escorted a diesel tanker to enter OceanaGold Philippiness Inc.’s (OGPI) mining site in Brgy. Didipio, Nueva Vizcaya forcibly. The forced entry of the diesel tanker resulted in injuring three women and the chairperson of the local people’s organization.

OceanaGold Philippines Inc.’s Financial and Technical Assistance Agreement (FTAA) No. 1 had expired on June 20, 2019. On July 1, 2019, the community members of Didipio set up a people’s barricade to prevent further operations from the mining company. The case remains pending in the Office of the President nine months after the FTAA expiration.

The community has been against the mining operation ever since it was proposed. Community members continue to campaign for the non-renewal of its FTAA. The expiration of OGPI’s FTAA means that no activity or operation should be allowed in the mining site. More so, since the implementation of the Enhanced Community Quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic, no work activity is permitted. Thus, the forcible entry of the diesel tankers is illegal and goes against the desire of the community.

Kalipunan ng Kilusang Masa calls on the Commission on Human Rights to immediately investigate the actions of the aggressors that led to the violent confrontation. We demand the Office of the President to put a stop to the mining operations of OGPI by finalizing the non-renewal of its FTAA. We call on this administration in hearing the masses and putting a stop in its encouragement on the use of violence.

In this time of the pandemic, big extractive corporations have taken advantage of the Philippine government’s draconian policies. Militarizing communities and trampling upon the people’s fundamental rights.

The government should look at supporting the most vulnerable sectors of society and not penalize them for their non-violent protests in the hope of better services. The community members affected by this mining company are agricultural workers who have lost their incomes and livelihoods due to the destruction of their mountains and contamination of water supply. Worsened by the effects of the pandemic and the Luzon lockdown, this government should support the institutionalization of a universal guaranteed income to ensure that everyone can support themselves, especially the most vulnerable sectors.

In this challenging time, solidarity is needed more than ever; we must put the interests of the people first, and not the interests of the mining industry. Kalipunan ng Kilusang Masa supports the rights of the resident of Didipio to decide for a healthier community and environment. We support our partner Alyansa Tigil Mina in its calls to put a stop to destructive large-scale mining in the country.

#StopMiningInDidipio

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

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.
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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

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[Video] Lakbay ng Taumbayan! -KALIPUNAN

Alamin ang kuwento ng pagpupunyagi, pag-asa at paghamon ng mga manlalakbay mula Marawi at Baguio hanggang Manila, kung bakit kinakailangang isulong ang adyenda ng taumbayan, labanan ang Chacha at Pederalismo, at magkaisa ang mga batayang sektor tungo sa lipunang para sa lahat, hindi sa iilan.

Ito ang mga kwento ng #LakbayNatin

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Support #KarapatDapat na Agenda campaign! Click the video to know more.

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[Statement] We will hold the line with Rappler! – Kalipunan

We will hold the line with Rappler! – Kalipunan

The Kalipunan condemns the arrest of Rappler’s Maria Ressa. The manner of arrest, the serving of warrant after office hour and NBI personnel preventing Rappler staff from taking video footage, bespeaks of the sinister nature with which the government is silencing its perceived enemies.

Kalipunan expresses its support and encouragement to the media outfit Rappler, and its chief executive officer Maria Ressa.

“Mr. Duterte is trying to strangulate what little press freedom we have,” Josua Mata, Secretary General of Sentro ng mga Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa (SENTRO), said. “We will not allow him to succeed! We will hold the line with Rappler,” Mata added.

“The arrest of journalist Maria Ressa is an attack on press freedom, an attack on critics of the Philippine government,” Jean Enriquez, Executive Director of Coalition Against Trafficking in Women – Asia Pacific (CATW-AP) and World March of Women. “It is also an attack on social movements that need a free press to push for our basic demands for jobs and justice,” Enriquez emphatically added.

“Curtailing press freedom has always been the favorite device of dictators to prevent stories that challenges their narratives from reaching the consciousness of the people. The recent arrest of Rappler’s Maria Ressa is the current government’s way of protecting its narrative built on broken promises,” Jaybee Garganera, National Coordinator of Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM), declared.

The arrest emanates from the recent Department of Justice (DOJ) recent approval of the filing of a cyber libel case against Ressa and her reporter Reynaldo Santos Jr., accordingly, for violating Section 4 (c)(4) of the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 (Republic Act No. 10175).

The case stemmed from the complaint filed by businessman Wilfredo Keng, who was the subject of a Rappler article titled “CJ [then Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona] using SUVs of controversial businessman” — “CJ” referring to then-, who was then under an impeachment trial.

The businessman rumored to be close to the administration denied the allegation and requested that the article be taken down, but Rappler declined saying its basic press freedom.

the justice department cited “defamation” as the basis for the ruling which led to the arrest.

“The arrest is totally abhorrent in democratic societies which recognize the positive role of the press. Particularly in the case of the Philippines, excesses committed by governments were only exposed to the greater number of masses through the press, hence the Philippine press has always been at the service of Filipino people,” Soc Banzuela, National Coordinator of Pambansang Kilusan ng mga Samahang Magsasaka (PAKISAMA), said.

“Fortunately, we, the people are not helpless in this case. Let us use the very medium this government is trying to control—the online information,” Wilson Fortaleza of Partido Manggagawa (PM), said. “We, therefore, appeal to all freedom loving individuals to continue posting and reposting articles that challenges this draconian act, articles that shed light why this government is sacrificing the institutional press in favor of an individual businessman,” Fortaleza added.

Kalipunan calls on the people to dig deeper into the stories this regime wants to bury, and narrate them as they are.

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[Statement] Kalipunan Statement Against Crackdown on Progressives

Kalipunan Statement Against Crackdown on Progressives

The on-going crackdown and intensified attacks of the Duterte administration on legal progressive forces, who are suspected of being part of or playing a vital role in the rebel movement has reached a disturbing level. As organizations grounded in the experiences of communities, we condemn the violence that has resulted in the loss of lives. We are alarmed by the current situation marked by increased tension at the grassroots level, and the instilling of an atmosphere of fear and suspicion, which can allow the setting up and justification of authoritarian rule in the country.

On Monday, Fr. Marcelito “Tito” Paez of the Diocese of San Jose, who was committed to communities and victims of human rights violations in Nueva Ecija and Central Luzon, was gunned down hours after facilitating the release of a political prisoner. On the same night, the arrest of transport leader George San Mateo was ordered. Prior to these attacks, Pastor LovelitoQuiñones of King’s Glory Ministry was shot by soldiers while on a motorcycle on his way home. Several other cases of human rights violations have transpired in provinces in the recent weeks following the pronouncement of the President “to surrender or die.” The intensified crackdown reminds us of how military and police personnel committed atrocities and abuses against civilians, including opposition leaders, journalists, and activists, 30 years ago during the authoritarian Marcos regime.

Before these recent attacks, we have already witnessed how state forces have disregarded their constitutional duty to serve and protect the people as they have in fact, done the opposite as evidenced by the thousands of men, women, and children silenced by the War on Drugs and extra-judicial killings. We are threatened by the continued disregard and disrespect of our rights, the silencing of dissent, and the escalation of violence and deaths.

We in the Kalipunan ng mga Kilusang Masa, a growing assembly of social movements, lament the senseless violence and the loss of lives of our fellow Filipinos. We call on the government to end impunity by doing its job of finding the culprits as well as prosecuting and punishing them. We, likewise, urge the government to stop playing with the Filipino people’s lives and instead, protect it and end the assault on human rights. We stand indignant against the intensification of police and military operations and the targeted attacks of progressive groups. In a society where the loss of life and violence have become commonplace and widespread, it must be realized that this should not be the norm. If anything, the government must be bettering the lives of all, not ending them.

PRESS STATEMENT
KALIPUNAN
Kalipunan ng mga Kilusang Masa
5 December 2017

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