The Bangkok-based think-tank, Focus on Global South, reveals that a US military base construction unit has awarded a P3.5-billion contract for work in Mindanao. The award is part of a multi-billion peso contract lasting until 2012, it says.

Senator Pimentel said they will thoroughly look into the proposal submitted by Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro, Jr. for an additional Pl0 billion for the AFP budget for 2009, which amounts to a l7.7 percent increase in the P56.5 billion already earmarked for the military under the national budget submitted by Malacanang to Congress.

Leila de Lima. (Photo by John Alliage Morales/Inquirer.net)

For somebody who barely warmed her seat, the actions and statements by Leila de Lima, the new chair of the Commission on Human Rights, are impressive, probably unprecedented. Let’s just hope that this is not ningas-cogon, that de Lima is motivated by a genuine concern for human rights and not by the need to prove her mettle.

MANILA, Philippines — The supply room of Charlie Company, 534th Engineer Combat Battalion situated in Camp Kalaw, Monkayo, Compostela Valley, was reportedly looted early Saturday morning where numerous high-powered firearms were carted away.
Initial investigation conducted, by Lt Col Alfredo Soriano, Commanding Officer of 534th ECB, with the help of [...]

A military man as peace adviser? A hawk for the dovish tasks of peace negotiations? It shouldn’t surprise anyone. The Arroyo regime of ironies and mockery has done as badly and even worse. It’s a national security regime disguised as a democracy, a reign of assassins cloaked in legal cloth. It’s a regime of mockery in which an Hermogenes Esperon for peace adviser makes as much sense as a Raul Gonzalez for justice secretary.

The military may have cut off his head and mangled his face and body. But Rey Cayago’s face and name could never be forgotten by his colleagues, his family, and the migrants and their families whom he had helped.
BY EMILY VITAL
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 15, May 18-24, 2008
There is a face to the growing number [...]

Asia Report N° TK 14 May 2008
The Philippines: COUNTER-INSURGENCY VS. COUNTER-TERRORISM IN MINDANAO
Executive Summary and recommendations
U.S.-backed security operations in the southern Philippines are making progress but are also confusing counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency with dangerous implications for conflict in the region. The “Mindanao Model” — using classic counter-insurgency techniques to achieve counter-terror goals [...]

Read the ICG’s report here.

The International Crisis Group says the U.S. and the Philippines “need to refocus energies on peace processes in Mindanao or they risk new hostilities between government forces and insurgents.” In a report today, it warns that security operations in Mindanao “are confusing counterinsurgency and counter-terrorism and risk pushing the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) – their target — into the arms of the broader insurgencies.”

Click on image to enlarge.

This map illustrates the different ways and forms by which the United States has established its military basing in the Philippines. It shows the locations of the increasing number of military exercises the US has been holding year-round in venues throughout the country from Batanes to Tawi-Tawi since 2001. It [...]

Senator Pimentel said the grant of bail to Trillanes will enable him to perform his duties as elected senator of the republic. Majority of senators had signed a resolution last year urging the courts to allow Trillanes to attend Senate sessions and hearings while his case is being tried.

The Bagong Alyansang Makabayan slammed the surveillance of Bayan Muna Representative Satur Ocampo by suspected military and police agents.
Based on news reports, at around 6:00 this morning, six suspected military and police agents in civilian clothes positioned themselves in front and at the vicinity of Ocampo’s house at Soldiers Hills, Quezon City. Ocampo just arrived [...]

There had been speculation that the accused had reached a deal with prosecutors after changing their plea.

The chairman of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines
(NDFP) Human Rights Monitoring Committee Fidel V. Agcaoili today
expressed outrage over the appointment of Executive Secretary Eduardo
Ermita as head of the GRP 44-team delegation to the United Nations
Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on April
11.
Agcaoili said that Ermita’s record as the US pointguard and [...]

The Philippine Army has begun the pre-trial investigation on Major General Jose T. Barbieto on allegations of personnel and resource mismanagement. Following an order from the Ombudsman to suspend the general, he was previously relieved as the commander of the Army’s 4th Infantry Division effective March 6, 2008 to give way to a just and [...]

The National Democratic Front in Mindanao today claimed that the Communist New People’s Army in Mindanao launched 350 offensives against the government last year.

On the eve of the 39th anniversary of the New People’s Army, the Communist Party of the Philippines calls for more attacks and for the guerrillas to expand their reach to cover every congressional district in the Philippines.

(New York, March 26, 2008) – Bringing to justice the killers of an imam detained by the military in Thailand’s southern Narathiwat province will be a key test for the Thai authorities, Human Rights Watch said today. Violence is escalating in the south, where the Thai military is fighting a Muslim separatist insurgency that has [...]