The Dominion - Philippines

Is Canadian Military Aid Funding Assassinations in the Philippines?

dru — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 07:15:48 +0000

The final article in the "battle of the ballot box" series

This is the third in a series of three articles: Part I | Part II

A history of popular rebellions is woven into politics in the Philippines, from the 1986 "People Power Revolution" of street protests that overthrew the US supported dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, to the ongoing left-wing guerrilla insurgency of the New People's Army (NPA).

Economic inequality is a central element fueling political turmoil and grassroots rebellions in the country. According to the United Nations, an estimated 45 million people in the Philippines live on less than two US dollars per day.

Instability in the Philippines extends beyond the current economic crisis, as a growing international controversy surrounds the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Political killings in the country are on the rise; the Philippines is estimated by Amnesty International to have one of the highest rates of politically-motivated murders in the world.

In 2006, Amnesty concluded that "over recent years reports of an increased number of killings of political activists, predominately those associated with leftist or left-orientated groups, have caused increasing concern in the Philippines and internationally."

Today, political organizers implicated in movements for social change in the Philippines are under the gun.

In Manila, human rights advocates point to aid from the governments of Canada and the US as supporting the governmental-backed targeting and killing of local activists.

It is commonly estimated that over 860 people have been killed in acts of politically motivated violence in the Philippines since the beginning of Arroyo's term in 2001, which many local human rights activists attribute partially to a US backed "counterinsurgency" program of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). Union leaders, religious figures, progressive politicians and community organizers have all been targeted in killings that leave a bloody trail pointing to the highest levels of political power in the nation.

"Despite major international pressure, Arroyo's government has not halted the ongoing political killings," explains Benjie Oliveros the managing editor of Bulatlat, a popular alternative online news publication based in Quezon City.

"The Armed Forces of the Philippines denies that they are involved in the killings, although everyone understands implicitly that the military is directly involved," Oliveros told the Dominion over tea in Manila, "we believe that international media has a responsibility to amplify the untold violence that progressive movements are facing in our country today."

In 2007 Philip Alston, the Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Council, accused the current government of "encouraging or facilitating the killings" through the AFP. According to Alston, President Arroyo and the national military were not only in a "state of denial" about the political killings, but "complicit" in the systematic executions of those labeled "enemies of the state."

"In some areas, the leaders of leftist organizations are systematically hunted down by interrogating and torturing those who may know their whereabouts," outlines a additional United Nations report released in August 2007, "they are often killed following a campaign of individual vilification designed to instill fear into the community."

"I cannot agree on that," Lieutenant-General of the state military, Alexander Yano, told Reuters news agency in a recent interview, in contradiction to the recently published UN report, explaining "that there could be some rogue elements in the military", but it was "not state policy to allow extra-judicial killings and disappearances."

Until today the Armed Forces of the Philippines and left-wing guerrillas of the 10,000-strong New Peoples Army (NPA), remain locked in a decades-old battle for political control throughout the Pacific archipelago. Commonly viewed as one of the longest running guerrilla wars in the world, the battle between state military forces and the NPA dates back to the 1960s, when communist-driven national liberation movements spread throughout Asia.

Since 9/11, the ongoing struggle between state forces and the leftist guerrilla movement in the Philippines has been swept into the international "War on Terror," as both the NPA guerrilla movement and also the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), an umbrella organization representing left movements in the country, have been designated as "terrorist" organizations domestically and internationally by western governments, including the US and Canada.

Today, the Canadian government delivers approximately $20 million on an annual basis in overseas development aid to the Arroyo government in Manila, mainly through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Officially, the outlined objectives of CIDA’s development strategy in the Philippines is to "foster efficient, responsive, transparent and accountable governance at all levels."

Canada's international development agency describes the Philippines as a "functioning democracy with a vibrant civil society," despite the rise in political killings in the country.

In addition to Canadian "development aid," Canada's Military Training Program (MTAP) has provided army personnel from the Philippines with training in Canada on "peace support operations, staff training and language" since 1997.

According to the Department of National Defense, military personnel from the Philippines participate in training activities in Canada on an annual basis, despite official Canadian policy guidelines barring the government from offering military support "to countries that are involved in armed conflict or whose governments have a persistent record of human rights violations."

As Canadian military aid to the Arroyo government continues to flow, the southern Philippines has been labeled a "new front" to the US-driven 'War on Terror' opened shortly after 9/11, in an effort to legitimate the heightened targeting of armed movements rooted in the minority Muslim community by both the Philippine military and US forces stationed in the country, according to human rights advocates.

In 2002 the Bush Administration launched Operation Enduring Freedom – Philippines, in which thousands of US soldiers and military personnel were deployed, including more than 1200 members of the United States Special Operations Command, Pacific. Armed Muslim movements such as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the shady Abu Sayyaf group are facing an overt military campaign from government and US troops in this new battleground of the War on Terror."

A 2007 feature article in USA Today claimed that in the Philippines, the "US is making progress in war on terror; US special forces have helped kill, capture or rout hundreds of Abu Sayyaf guerrillas." According to one US Army Major operating in the Philippines, "they've been kicking some butt... I think they're close to breaking this thing open."

Hundreds of Filipinos civilians are missing or have been killed in the military violence. Those affected by the military campaigns are overwhelming the Philippines' impoverished majority.

Muslims in the Philippines are estimated to comprise five per cent of the national population, known locally as Moros -- the term dates to Spanish colonial forces which ruled the islands from 1565 to 1898 -- and widely regarded as playing a central role in the struggles against both Spanish and US colonization. In recent years, grassroots political parties representing minority Muslim communities in the Philippines such as Suara Bangsamoro -- "Voice of the Moro People" -- have built alliances with left movements running in national elections.

100 years ago, US forces battled Moro fighters in the southern Philippines, during the Philippine-American War, in which an estimated one-tenth of the Filipino population lost their lives. Violent US military campaigns in Philippines during the early 20th century are a haunting historical reference point for the current US military role in the southern islands; until today, US forces have never been able to permanently subdue the Moro population.

US writer Mark Twain authored a disturbing account of US military action in the early 20th century. "We have pacified some thousands of the islanders and buried them," Twain wrote, "destroyed their fields; burned their villages, and turned their widows and children out-of-doors; furnished heartbreak by exile to some dozens of disagreeable patriots."

Silencing "disagreeable patriots" in the Philippines remains a seemingly impossible task today, as modern weaponry and US troop deployments to the Philippines as part of the "War on Terror" manifest echoes of the history of US colonialism in the country.

"People in the Philippines today are facing a deathtrap, as the international economic system creates a massive monetary outflow from the country, with over 70 per cent of our annual budget going to payments on our national debt, as administered by international creditors including the World Bank," explains Teddy Casino, sitting congressman for the progressive political party Bayan Muna.

"This economic system squeezing the people of the Philippines is a new colonialism, enforced by the Arroyo government through military force," continues Teddy Casino, "a government that is waging a war with US support against the progressive movements in this country with armed violence and repression."

A battle of ideas is apparent everywhere you visit in the Philippines, a battle that pits western-backed economic and military policies endorsed by the government of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo against grassroots progressive movements in the country, which according to all indicators are on the rise throughout the nation.

Setting Sun

Suara Bangsamoro

Battle of the Ballot Box Part II

dru — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 21:20:58 +0000

Economics, Migration & Social Change in the Philippines

This is the second in a series of three articles Part I | Part III

Violence surrounding the Philippine elections, including multiple assassinations and targeted bombings, has raised concerns internationally. Controversy over the mid-term elections of 2007, however, remains but one element of a broader political crisis facing the poverty-stricken island nation.

"At a time of immense political tension, of continuing economic unevenness and of widening social inequality, one thing has become clear: the country direly needs a new plan," Jeffery Roden wrote in Philippine Collegian, an independent student newspaper distributed at the University of the Philippines.

"For even if we elect the most intelligent leaders, if the hearts of the people are fixated with dreams of going to distant lands we will still not attain progress," Filipino student Roden wrote in an editorial published just prior to the May 2007 mid-term elections.

Government statistics from the Philippines indicate that hundreds of thousands of Filipinos depart each year to work abroad, often in substandard conditions in the Middle East, Asia and North America. Indeed, government policy actively encourages the export of Filipino workers.

In Canada, thousands of overseas workers arrive each year from the Philippines through the Live-In Caregiver Program, a joint program between the governments of Canada and the Philippines. In cities across Canada, labourers from the Philippines, mainly women, toil without permanent legal status in Canada, in many cases for years at a time. Multiple cases of physical and psychological abuse of Filipino workers in Canada under the Live-In Caregiver Program have been documented and publicized by the Immigrant Workers Center in Montreal.

In 2007, the Canadian government announced an expansion of international labour agreements with the government in Manila. "To make matters worse, Canada, as part of extending its temporary workers program, is making deals with the Philippines to contract hundreds of Filipino migrant labourers to work in the oil sands of Alberta," Joey Calugay of the Centre for Philippine Concerns told a Montreal community forum in August 2007.

Today, it is commonly estimated that thousands of Filipinos leave the Philippines on a daily basis, an exodus that has been linked to the country's ongoing socio-economic crisis. According to the Philippine Central Bank, remittances from overseas Filipino labourers amounted to $12 billion US in 2006. "This global trade in people is the highest income-generating business of the Philippine government," Calugay added. "[It is] keeping its economy afloat and helping to pay for the more than $55 billion in foreign debt."

People of all stripes in the Philippines openly discuss the need for profound political change in the country; change that extends beyond the government and elections. "The problem with the country's politics is that it remains fundamentally elite-dominated and so overwhelmingly about governance for and by the elite," wrote Sonny Africa in a post-election editorial. Africa is with the IBON Foundation, a progressive social research organization based in Manila.

"This is a problem that dates back from the birth of the Philippine Republic at the turn of the century, continued through the US colonial period, and has alarmingly persisted under post-war neocolonialism until today," he wrote.

The economic crisis continues to plague the majority of the population--estimated at slightly below 90 million --creating severe political unrest and fueling support for leftist political parties and guerrilla movements. According to a 2007 World Bank study, more than 15 million Filipinos survive on less than one US dollar a day, while it is estimated by the UN that 40 per cent of Filipinos live on less than two US dollars per day.

"In the Philippines, we have an economic and political system which ensures that when Filipinos are working, whether in the fields, or in the offices, or in factories, that their labour doesn't benefit them directly because the majority doesn't control the national economic resources, including land, economic capital or industrial machinery," Africa explained in an interview in Manila.

Since taking office in 2001, President Arroyo has vigorously pursued an economic program centred on foreign investment, privatization of state institutions and World Bank-backed economic reforms.

"The Philippines is fashioning a development agenda based on an economy competitive in the 21st century," Arroyo said in a 2002 address at a Manila-based symposium on the Free Trade Area (AFTA) of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which includes 10 East-Asian nations. "Our reforms aim to create a domestic environment that will enable us to reap the benefit of global economic integration," said Arroyo.

In the Philippine president's July 2007 State of the Nation address, Arroyo said that current governmental economic policies would lead "the Philippines to become a developed country in 20 years." But a recent report from Manila's IBON Foundation stated that "the situation of Filipinos is actually sinking deeper into Third World status, deteriorating in a way that hits the poorest majority the most."

The shaky national economy is rooted in extraordinary foreign investment laws, which allow certain economic sectors to be 100 per cent internationally owned while simultaneously allowing 100 per cent of corporate profits from foreign-owned industries or companies to be channeled outside of the country. A succession of US-backed governments constructed current national economic policy, a polar-opposite to the nationalist economic programs proposed by Philippine progressive movements.

"Today, when the majority of Filipinos work, the profits of their labour go to local economic elites," said Africa, "including factory owners and feudal landlords or in the worst scenario, foreign business based in the Philippines."

"The majority of Filipinos continue to suffer in poverty."

The Child from Smokey

Tondo Motorcycle

Battle of the Ballot Box: Part I

dru — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 17:27:51 +0000

Urban Militarization, Corporate Power & the 2007 Philippine Elections

This is the first in a series of three articles: Part II | Part III

MANILA--Across the Philippine archipelago, millions of voters cast ballots in the 2007 mid-term elections in May while a wave of political violence swept the country, including multiple assassinations and fire-bombings of polling stations.

According to the Philippine National Police, approximately 130 people lost their lives during a national vote widely viewed as a test to the political legitimacy of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, an important US ally in the Asia-Pacific region.

Final results for the 2007 Philippine elections remain undetermined, as major scandals, including allegations of state-sanctioned electoral fraud, pressure the fragile Arroyo government.

On the streets of Manila, violent incidents have put a sharp accent on elections in the former US colony, contributing to an air of political volatility as the Philippines face an unparalleled economic crisis.

"Elections in the Philippines have always been characterized by 'Guns, Goons and Gold'", Elisa Tita Lubi, a political organizer with the Gabriela women's movement explained. "For this reason, many in the country have lost faith in voting."

Major sectors of Philippine society, including national labour unions and opposition political parties, openly charge the government of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo with having had a direct hand in electoral corruption.

"Today, you can't be positive that if a clear majority of the population votes for a certain candidate or political party that they will win, especially on the left, as today it is the gold and goons that often dictate who wins elections, not popular choice."

Amid the political buzz surrounding elections in the Philippines, the fiscal value of ballots is openly discussed among voters, as 'vote-buying' is an integral element of any major electoral campaign. Mainstream media coverage openly describes a farcical election, "Vote buying, it happened everywhere," an editorial from the Philippine Daily Inquirer said. "It marked the conduct of the elections, that could best be described in three words; chaos, confusion, disorder."

A critical layer to mainstream electoral politics in the Philippines is intimidation.

Accounts of violent tactics by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) against voters from Manila's sprawling urban poor communities, such as Tondo, and vivid tales of military-driven electoral intervention are widespread.

"Military soldiers entered my family's home a couple of weeks before the election, giving orders on how to vote," Salvador, a community organizer in Tondo, explained through an interpreter. "Filipino soldiers, holding machine guns, gave us orders to not vote for progressive political party-lists and demanded the names of those in the neighbourhood planning on voting for anti-government parties in the elections."

Election-related violence and corruption in the 2007 Philippine vote has raised alarm globally.

A Thai international observer from the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) openly compared Philippine voting conditions to war-torn Afghanistan. "I have been to Afghanistan and observed the polling there and this is worse than Afghanistan," said ANFREL's Somsri Hananuntasuk in a recent interview. Hananuntasuk observed the NATO-enforced 2005 Afghan elections.

In contrast to the chaotic voting conditions depicted by Philippine media outlets and outlined by international election observation groups, US-backed President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo offers a strikingly different picture to the international community.

According to a statement from Arroyo shortly after the mid-term vote, Filipinos "cast their ballot, free of coercion and according to their own will." Arroyo's account stands in marked contrast to the elections as portrayed by even mainstream international media outlets. Reuters reported that "election-related violence has marred the democratic process" and that "the body count now is now over a hundred" throughout the country.

In Tondo, Manila, an observer from the US Embassy echoed President Arroyo's positive assessment of the elections, stating that "the Philippines is clearly a vibrant democracy" to the same Philippine media outlets that described the national vote as flawed with 'chaos,' 'fraud' and 'violence.'

Political violence in the Philippines, both in urban and rural settings, doesn't simply revolve around national elections. In Manila's urban poor communities, political violence is a constant reality. In recent months, the national army has established a visible presence in the impoverished communities along Manila's North Harbour.

Today's military build-up occurs as the Arroyo administration is pushing towards the privatization of Manila's North Harbour. Newspapers in the country are bubbling with editorials on the pending construction of a massive Hong Kong-style international port, as International Container Terminal Services, Inc., a major multinational, has expressed interest in developing a privatized port zone.

Privatization, a central piece of the Arroyo administration's economic policy, supported by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), is a hotly contested political issue in the Philippines.

"Privatization of the North Harbour will equal the dislocation of our community," outlined Abner Castro, a community organizer from Tondo. "People living along the port area will be forcibly displaced–-about 80,000 families–-to other regions of the country or areas of metro Manila," he said, adding that "the government is moving the military into our community to intimidate people into leaving for good."

Along the deeply polluted Pacific Ocean shoreline of the North Harbour, tens of thousands of urban poor Filipino homes were declared illegal in 2007 by state authorities. A growing military presence in the impoverished coastal neighbourhood strikes a chord of fear amongst residents.

"Why is the government deploying military into our community?" asked Abner Castro of Tondo at an open-air community meeting on the Pacific Ocean coast. "Military forces are a major part of a government effort to displace this community, to put fear in people's hearts, to ensure that we don't fight back."

A national, left-driven opposition to the US-supported Arroyo administration maintains a major political base in urban poor communities such as Tondo, important political battlegrounds, both at election time and beyond. Left Wing political parties, such as Bayan Muna--Tagalog for 'People First'--play a key role in local grassroots campaigns, including the struggle against harbour privatization in Manila.

Within this political power struggle, 2004 presidential elections delivered alarming results for the Arroyo government, as left-wing political parties secured significant electoral gains.

In 2004, progressive political parties won a number of congressional seats, including electoral victories for key political figures in the Philippine Left, such as Crispin Beltran of Anakpawis--Tagalog for 'Toiling Masses'--who lives in Tondo and who has openly called for revolutionary political change in the country since taking office.

"The majority of Filipinos are struggling against poverty, for better working conditions," explains Crispin Beltran while under government detention at a Manila hospital. After months in prison without trial and facing a deteriorating heart condition, Beltran was eventually transferred by state authorities to a detention hospital following international pressure.

"Economic justice is part of the political program of the national rebellion," continues Beltran. "Rebels are fighting to uplift all Filipinos, the majority who are very, very poor."

After the previous election, state authorities arrested Beltran, along with four other members of congress in 2006 on charges of 'sedition' and 'rebellion.'

Congressman Beltran, 74, was recently released after 16 months of imprisonment on rebellion charges deemed as "unfounded allegations" by Amnesty International, which wrote in a 2006 release on Beltran that the "nature of the charges and the manner in which they have been brought forward have intensified continuing concerns that these arrests constituted arbitrary detentions based on a deliberate invocation of unfounded allegations."

All charges levelled against Beltran by the government of the Philippines were recently dropped.

Campaign signs in Philippines

Smokey Mountain

A Mined Democracy

hillarybain — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 18:44:14 +0000

The Philippines is rife with political violence, but Canadian mining companies don't seem to mind

Ranked second in the world for political killings -- over 800 since 2001 -- it may seem obvious that the Philippines is not a shining light of democracy. Yet many Western nations hold it in high esteem as exactly this, as well as a major trading partner and an ally in the war on terror.

A group of people from Montreal who travelled to the Philippines for the country’s mid-term May elections noticed this contradiction.

Speaking in front of the St. James church on June 3, delegation participant Stefan Christoff summed up this contradiction: In contrast to the “vibrant, thriving democracy” that the United States and Canada purport the Philippines to be, said Christoff, the mid-term elections were surrounded by an atmosphere of “coercion, corruption and violence.” He also stated that in the capital, Manila, the group he was with witnessed vote-buying and interviewed residents who were visited by the military and told how to vote.

The four-person delegation from Montreal was part of the larger Peoples’ International Observers Mission, which was comprised of participants from 12 countries. The effort was initiated in response to calls from Philippino human rights and church groups calling for witnesses for the lead-up to the elections for positions in the senate, congress and municipalities. Observers were positioned throughout the country and accompanied by local counterparts.

Freda Guttman, another member of the Montreal delegation, reviewed some of the hindrances to the democratic process discovered by her group operating in the city of Makati, a suburb of the capital. These included attempts at vote-buying through offers of money or free electricity and massive disorganization at polling stations. She said that buildings were plagued by periodic blackouts, during which time voting was suspended, and that many names were missing from voter lists. During the counting of the votes, Guttman also told of a surprise visit from a prominent businessman with close ties to the president. She stated that he “strode into the arena looking like Mussolini, with armed bodyguards” and “asked people counting which party they were from.”

Despite the fact that it is difficult for foreign observers to witness blatant electoral violations, observations like those of Guttman were common throughout the delegation. Their findings were also consistently corroborated by locals they spoke to, who deal with the forces of political pressure on a day-to-day basis, usually without the mitigating influence of international monitors.

The mid-term elections of the Philippines were of critical importance for the ruling regime’s effort to hold onto power amidst growing dissatisfaction with its leadership. Particularly, a 2005 impeachment effort sponsored by some of the opposition parties could be successfully reinitiated if the ruling government of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo loses its control of the senate and congress.

The precarious nature of the government’s position on the eve of the elections led to an increased level of persecution of perceived political threats, with over 20 killings reported in the lead-up to voting day. Among such incidents, Malcolm Guy, spokesperson for the Montreal Centre for Philippine Concerns (CPC), noted the disappearance of Luing Posa-Dominado, a friend whom he first met in the 1980s. Posa-Domingo, a human rights activist imprisoned during the Marcos dictatorship went missing with her partner Nilo Arado on April 12, 2007, and neither has been heard of since. Also, two members of the Kabataan youth party were abducted and killed during the election process.

Due to the introduction of party list proportional representation in 1995, political parties such as Kabataan and Bayan Muna have been able to gain greater representation through the electoral process. However, the growth of these type of reform oriented and traditionally marginalized groups has led to their increased targeting.
being targeted.

There is a lot of enthusiasm in the Philippines for initiatives such as the party list legislation and the potential for change they represent, says Tess Tesalona, former resident of the Philippines, and also with the Montreal CPC. But the social elite are feeling their dominance increasingly threatened and are responding accordingly, she says.

Given the political violence and high levels of poverty in the Philippines, bribery and the threat of violence significantly hinder the possibility of legitimate elections. With 80 per cent of the population living on two dollars per day or less, and the richest 10 per cent of the population earning 21 times more than the poorest 10 per cent, it is no surprise that bribery has proven to be an effective political tool for the wealthy to maintain their power in the Philippines.

Although often characterized by the military and government as the result of political infighting between rebel forces, widespread violence is another important tool of political influence, according to organizations such as the Philippine human rights group Karapatan. Most of the 858 politically-related killings since 2001, when the Arroyo government took office, were church activists, lawyers, union leaders and others working for political change through non-violent means. Karapatan says that culpability for these acts lies directly with the state security forces and associated paramilitaries. Circumstances of death documented show that most were killed through methods of professional assassination or murder, preceded by kidnapping and torture. The fact that only verified killings are used in the figure of 858 makes it likely that the actual number is much higher.

In February of this year, UN human rights envoy Philip Alston conducted an inquiry in the country wherein he concluded that many of the political killings taking place in the Philippines can be “convincingly attributed” to the military. Earlier in the year, the Philippine-based Melo Commission drew similar conclusions, with the head of the armed forces conceding that the military was involved in some of the deaths. Both of these reports lack any form of binding recommendations, however, and neither make a link to President Arroyo, head of the Philippine armed forces.

While the social and political environment in the Philippines remains dismal, the country’s relationship with the West is close. This amounts to a problematic situation, according to the Montreal delegation, since countries that publicly espouse common values of democracy and human rights are benefiting from a relationship with a government that is violating these deeply held principles.

For the United States this relationship has been a long and sordid one, beginning in a brutal military occupation that lasted almost five decades. In early 1991, the Philippines banned American military bases from its territory, but this was rescinded in 1999. The island nation has since been regaining a prominent strategic position in American foreign policy. Human rights organizations such as Karapatan believe that the influence of the US in the Philippines is contributing to a familiar situation in which proponents for social change, whether violent or not, are characterized as variations of communist or Islamic terrorism. This is seen as a mutually beneficial arrangement for protecting the interests of both the US and its client regime.

Canadian trade with the Philippines tops one billion dollars per year, according to Industry Canada, and investment in the mining sector has been singled-out by human rights groups, both within the Philippines and abroad, for Canadian firms’ involvement in environmental and human rights abuses.

A recently released report from Rights and Democracy criticizes the Calgary-based TVI Pacific corporation for its project on the island of Mindanao. The report states that TVI has “deprived thousands of small-scale miners of their livelihood,” and “contributed to a militarization of the area” that has had a “negative impact on the ability of the Subanon [the local indigenous population] to enjoy the human right to security and the human right to housing.” These charges refer to actions by the 160-person security force working for the mining company hired from the Philippino army and given tasks such as the displacement of settlements and manning of blockades.

Other Canadian human rights and church groups have cited Vancouver-based mining companies Placer Dome Incorporated and Crew Development Corporation for their record of environmental destruction and lack of transparency in the Philippines.

In a manner that is even more direct, a number of former members of Canada’s military and police forces are working with Grayworks, a Philippine company engaged in combating the guerilla organizations of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Abu Sayyaf, and the New Peoples’ Army, primarily on the island of Mindanao.

With the elections over, the efforts of Canadian Philippino human rights organizations are being focused on other projects. A national coalition of groups, including the Centre for Philippine Concerns, recently submitted a 5,000-signature petition to parliament calling for a review of all Canadian relations with the Philippines and the impact these relationships are having on human rights in the country. The CPC is also continuing with its demonstrations on the first Sunday of each month, beginning at St. James church at the intersection of St. Catherine and City Councillors Street, in downtown Montreal.

The final tally of the election shows mixed results, with widespread success for the ruling coalition at the local and regional level and opposition parties gaining ground in the senate. In light of the conditions surrounding the election seen by the Montreal delegation, it would be premature to correlate polling results with popular desire and the functioning of a healthy democracy in the Philippines.

Protesting for a Just Peace in the Philippines