After nine years in power, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has left the Malacanang palace. She is no longer cloaked with presidential immunity, which she and her allies had used to shield her from corruption charges, human-rights violations and other alleged crimes against the Filipino people.

MANILA, Philippines, June 28, 2010—The Philippines did not make the list of the top 20 countries cited for their overall progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a report released by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and the United Nations Millennium Campaign revealed.
The MDGs are a set of time-bound, concrete and specific goals to reduce extreme poverty, illiteracy and …

POPULATION   Reproductive health must be viewed and not separated from the overall context of people’s health. As the economy worsens, the state of the public health system also deteriorates.

The reclassification of lands for tourism means only one thing for rural families: the large-scale physical and economic displacement of farmers and fisherfolk communities.

WOMEN’S MONTH   By Ronalyn Olea  |  A woman doing multiple odd jobs, another managing a small variety store and selling newspapers, the poorest, a scavenger — these three women from poor families are finding it increasingly difficult to make both ends meet. Family survival is a daily struggle for them, and yet they never lose hope and they always find time to fight for genuine change.

Using even the government’s unrealistically low poverty line, the number of poor Filipinos will likely increase by 4 million this year from 2006, according to research group IBON Foundation.
This figure is based on a conservative estimate, said IBON research head Sonny Africa, since it merely assumes a continuation of trends in the 2003-2006 period. Gross domestic product (GDP) growth averaged …

Twenty-two years after the Mendiola Massacre that resulted in the death of 13 farmers, Filipino farmers are still fighting for a genuine agrarian reform program.

The clamor for justice over the massacre in Mendiola Bridge that led to the murder of 13 farmers and injury of 39 others twenty two years ago still echoes today in the streets.

EDWIN ESPEJO  The military claims the NPA in Mindanao is no longer the ideological force it once was and is today dependent instead upon attracting restless and rootless young unemployed to its ranks. Yet according to the rebels, they have rebounded from their bloody past to re-establish a presence in “more than 2,000 barrios (villages) in 200 municipalities in 19 provinces in the island.”