Author: Julian Alejandro

Sotero Llamas, former NPA chief in the Bicol region, is the latest victim in the series of killings of activists. He was gunned down in Tobaco, Albay this morning.

Llamas was a victim of the Arroyo goverment’s propaganda, according to Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo. Llamas was killed so that it would appear that the administration’s claim that there is an on-going purge in the communist movement, Ocampo said. This would make it really convenient for the goverment to blame on the Left the spate of killings of activists.

After he left the underground movement, Llamas became a National Democratic Front consultant and later a Bayan Muna founding member and officer. He left the party-list group in 2003 to run for the post of Albay governor under Sen. Panfilo Lacson’s ticket.
fLlamas was a forr

I could imagine the late Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) Chair Haydee Yorac glaring at Commissioner Ricardo Abcede while he was happily dancing with the remaining half of the Marcos conjugal dictatorship.

The Yorac-led PCGG rejected compromise deals with the Marcoses and their cronies and was determined to send Imelda Marcos in jail for plundering our nation. Yorac and her team worked for the speedy resolution of the cases against the Marcoses and their cronies by hiring more lawyers, devoting more resources to so-called banner cases, and firming up cooperation with other agencies.

Just learned from GMANews.tv that Taylor Hicks won this year’s American Idol. There was no half-Filipino contestant in the final three this time. Meanwhile, auditions for the the local version, Philippine Idol, is on-going. It is about to air later this year.

When asked by the Sunday Inquirer Magazine about his being labeled as “guru of destabilization” by the injustice secretary, revered constitutionalist Fr. Joaquin Bernas just said it does not irritate him “because no intelligent person would take (Raul) Gonzalez seriously.

NUJP Press Statement
May 16, 2006

Saksi Ngayon photojournalist killed in Caloocan City

It is with alarm and great concern to learn that another media practitioner has been shot and killed today.

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines deplores this heinous crime.

Manila — Swathed in nothing but red hot chili peppers next to the tagline “Spice Up Your Life—Go Vegetarian!” Filipino supermodel Isabel Roces appears in a brand-new ad for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Asia-Pacific touting the many benefits of a meatless diet. Isabel wants people to know that going vegetarian is the best way to stay trim, fight animal abuse, and avoid life-threatening illnesses. The ad was shot in Thailand by ace photographer Amat Nimitpark.

OUR FIGHT FOR PRESS FREEDOM CONTINUES

We commemorate World Press Freedom Day today anguishing over the lack of genuine freedom of expression in our country and girding our loins to resist yet other attempts to muzzle the Philippine Press.

The statistics are grim enough:

Seventy-six of our colleagues were lost to the ultimate form of censorship – murder – in the past two decades since the supposed restoration of democracy in the country in 1986. Thirty-nine of the killings happened only in the past five years during the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, making her administration the deadliest for Filipino journalists.