Anti-censorship shelter launched

First published in the Philippine Online Chronicles

In an effort to protect journalists and bloggers from increasing Internet censorship and surveillance, Paris-based press-freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has launched the world’s first “Anti-Censorship Shelter.”

The shelter is meant for use by foreign journalists, bloggers, and dissidents who face some form of Internet repression in their country that is preventing them from doing their work either through harassment, threat of force, and/or persecution.

“At a time when online filtering and surveillance is becoming more and more widespread, we are making an active commitment to an Internet that is unrestricted and accessible to all by providing the victims of censorship with the means of protecting their online information,” Reporters Without Borders said in a statement.

Refugees and journalists passing through may use the shelter free-of-charge to learn how to circumvent Internet censorship, protect their electronic communications, and maintain their anonymity online.

The shelter is the result of a partnership between the said organization and communications security firmXeroBank.

According to RSF, XeroBank is a communications security firm that has cornered the market on one of the rarest commodities in the world: online privacy. It specializes in communication solutions that protect its clients from all eavesdroppers.

Encrypted mail and web access

By connecting to XeroBank through a Virtual Private Network (VPN), the shelter’s user traffic is routed across its gigabit backbone network and passes from country to country mixed with tens of thousands of other users, creating a virtually untraceable high-speed anonymity network. The method of gaining anonymity online offered by the service is similar to an onion router.

Included in the shelter’s anonymity services are encrypted mail and web access. The network will be available not only to users of the Shelter in Paris but also to their contacts anywhere in the world and to all those – above all journalists, bloggers and human rights activists – who have been identified by RSF. They will be able to connect with XeroBank service by means of access codes and secured, ready-to-use USB flash drives that can be provided on request.

The shelter shall also provide manuals and wiki-entries on issues that pertain to Internet security encryption and censorship circumvention software. A multimedia space is also planned for journalists and Internet users who want to film and send videos. The Shelter will eventually also have a dedicated website for hosting banned content.

This means that Egyptian blogger Tamer Mabrouk’s reports on the pollution of Egypt’s lakes, which are banned in his country, and articles that are banned in Italy by its new phone-tap law will all have a place in what is intended to be a refuge for those who are still being censored.

Not foolproof

The RSF admitted, however, that the masked address service they provide is not foolproof.

Jean-Francois Julliard, secretary-general of the RSF stated during the project’s launch that determined governments could find ways around the masked Internet addresses, but said the project could still help responsible bloggers avoid arrest.

“If the CIA or other government agencies like that want to get round it they can, but this will make things much more difficult,” Julliard said.

Despite possible problems however, the project has already won support from an editor of the Chinese news blog boxun.com, who said two of the site’s contributors have been jailed in China for publishing material online criticizing the authorities there.

“It’s important to get round censorship, for the Chinese people and for everybody,” said the man, who is based outside China and asked to be identified only by his family name Wang.

This can be done “by using software etcetera… but the most important aim is to convince the Chinese to overcome their fear.”

Internet censorship

“Never before have there been so many netizens in prison in countries such as China, Vietnam and Iran for expressing their views freely online,” the press freedom organization added. “Anonymity is becoming more and more important for those who handle sensitive data.”

Meanwhile, in data collated from RSF, the OpenNet Initiative, Internet World Stats and Wolfram Apha, there are 1.72 billion people (25.3 percent of the world’s population) that are affected by some form of online censorship.

RSF meanwhile pointed out that a total of 60 countries subject their citizens to some form of online censorship and Internet filtering is in effect in some 40 of them.

There are currently almost 120 netizens (Internet users, bloggers and citizen journalists) currently languishing behind bars worldwide. Seventy-two of them are imprisoned in China, followed by Vietnam (17) and Iran (13), Syria (4), and Egypt and Burma (2). These six countries, along with Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Iran, Uzbekistan, Syria, Tunisia, and Turkmenistan have become listed in the RSF’s “Enemies of the Internet 2010.”

Other than the shelter, the media-group reported that Internet users have responded in the “cyber-war” by using sophisticated proxies and censorship circumvention tools such as Tor, VPNs, Psiphon, and UltraReach.

The Shelter is open from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday to Friday. Anyone wanting to use it should make a reservation by sending an email to ’; document.write( ‘’ ); document.write( addy_text8602 ); document.write( ‘<\/a>’ ); //—>\n .

According to RSF, the project would not have been created without the support they received from the Paris City Hall.

Lingayen Church

Migrants issue challenge to PNoy

Written for the Philippine Online Chronicles

Original post can be viewed here.

As President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III takes the helm of the executive post, overseas Filipino workers and migrant rights advocates have issued their challenge for the new administration to address the problems being faced by the 11 million Filipinosworking abroad and their families.

According to estimates by migrant groups, everyday, some 3,000 individuals leave the country for overseas employment because of the lack of job opportunities in the country.

Based on the records of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), over 1.9 million Filipinos left the country for work abroad in 2009 alone which translates to 3,800 individuals each day.

As a result, overseas employment has become a major source of revenue for the country, with OFW remittancesballooning to USD17.3 billion (over P800 billion) last year, from over USD7.5 billion (about P348 billion) in 2003. The 2009 remittance amounts to almost 10 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The remittances have served as a cushion for the country as it confronts the continuing effects of the global financial crisis, which has wreaked havoc on the economies of the world.

OFW group Migrante International, however, described the government policy of encouraging migrant work as “forced migration.”

Ten-Point Challenge

In a statement, the group called on Aquino to take “viable steps that will provide immediate relief to OFWs and their families, and solve the worsening problems of Filipinos abroad,” with the strategic goal of “ending forced migration.”

According to the statement, Aquino must look at forced migration not as a tool for development, but as the negative effect of underdevelopment in the country.

They issued the following ten-point challenge towards the said goal:

1. The prosecution of outgoing president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for corruption on OFW funds, such as the P530 million Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration (OWWA) Medicare fund, reported to have been used for the 2004 elections;
2. Ensure justice and indemnification to migrant victims of human rights violations, and make erring officials accountable;
3. Provide direct services and assistance to migrants and their families, including the increase of the annual P1M Legal Assistance and P1M Repatriation Fund for migrant workers and OFWs in distress;
4. Repeal anti-migrant laws such as the OWWA Omnibus Policies (OOP);
5. Ensure protection and work for the legalization of undocumented workers. According to Migrante, crackdown operations has become more massive as a result of stringent and harsh immigrant laws such as the Return Directive of the European Union;
6. Create a comprehensive program for the protection for the migrant women and minors;
7. Stop all forms of illegal recruitment and trafficking. The group has also called on Aquino to fire and prosecute officials colluding with trafficking syndicates. Migrante reported that there have been 1,665 recorded cases of human trafficking in the country since 2003, with most of the victims being either women or children;
8. Scrap all exorbitant and excessive state exactions and other fees such as the mandatory USD25 Welfare Fund contribution on a per contract basis;
9. Forge bilateral agreements based on international labor standards and other instrumentalities. Review the massive deployment of OFWs to Saudi Arabia. The group also called for the scrapping of existing existing exploitative bilateral agreements like the Unified Contract (Saudi Arabia), Employment Permit System (South Korea), and Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement [JPEPA Japan)];
10. Provide migrant workers genuine representation in government or in decision-making bodies.

Local job creation

Meanwhile, foreign chapters of the group have also expressed their hope that the incoming administration shallfocus on local job generation and deviate from Arroyo’s “labor export policy.”

“We are hoping that under the Aquino administration, local jobs creation would be on the top of its working agenda, and would be glad to see positive results after its 100 days in office,” says John Leonard Monterona of Migrante Middle East.

He explained that Aquino should examine Arroyo’s labor export policy and rectify its flaws while improving the condition of local labor.

Filipino migrants have long reasoned that it is the lack of job opportunities in the country which pushed them to work abroad.

Save OFWs in death row

Migrante also posed the question of how Aquino intends to save the more than 20 OFWs now facing the death sentence in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Monterona asked Aquino to divulge his plans with regard to providing legal assistance to Filipinos languishing in Saudi’s jails.

The appeal was made after a Sudanese man was beheaded in Saudi last June 5.

He said families and relatives of these OFWs have beeen complaining that the Department of Foreign Affairs seldom gives them an update on the condition or the status of the OFWs’ cases.

“Assuming that an OFW on death row has indeed committed the crime, he still deserves to be given legal assistance by hiring a local lawyer for his defense, and this is a basic and inalienable human right – the right to defend ones’ self in court, even in a shariah court,” Monterona said.

Stop human trafficking

On the other hand, other migrant advocacy groups focused their calls on the problem of illegal recruitment and human trafficking.

In its 2010 Human Trafficking Report released early this month, the US State Department has retained the Philippines in its “Tier 2 watch list rank” which means that the country has yet to fully comply with the said agency’s standards. The report blamed the country’s “inefficient judicial system” and “endemic corruption” in government for the failures with regard to trafficking.

The country has been on the said watchlist since 2001, which incidentally, is the same year that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo came to power.

“Increasing poverty has driven many Filipinos to clutch at empty promises of bogus recruiters and human traffickers,” said Susan Ople, president of the Blas F. Ople Policy Center.

Ople cited the trend of contractualization as a major factor for Filipinos to consider migrant work in order to attain economic advancement.

The Ople Center echoed Migrante’s calls for OFW representation in the OWWA while providing additional benefits to its members. At the same time, they asked for the allocation of budgets for the immediate deployment of legal and social welfare attaches, particularly to countries with a high incidence of human trafficking and other welfare cases, such as destination points in the Middle East.

Follow-through

For Tomas Achacoso, POEA head under the administration of Aquino’s mother, the late President Corazon Aquino, the incoming president should follow-through on his mother’s policies on OFWs.

During the first Aquino administration, the government’s hand in the deployment of OFWs was subsumed under one agency, the POEA. Overseeing Filipinos’ lot in host countries, on the other hand, was cauterized from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and appended to another unit, the OWWA.

“The success of labor migration (in the Philippines) has distracted policy-makers from the original temporary role of the program,” said the former POEA chief.

Looking at labor migration as a solution to the country’s economic problem is “erroneous” according to Achacoso, for it only addresses one aspect of the domestic employment problem.

As a first step, economist Alvin Ang proposed an overhaul of government’s information campaign on migration.

He said that the government’s current pre-employment orientation seminar should be made optional while information should be specific to separately cater to high-skilled and low-skilled workers.

There should be “complete information disclosure of a destination country’s conditions, not just the pay. That way, information on the country where the worker will migrate to would be clearly disseminated.”

Gary Martinez, chairperson of Migrante International warned that should Aquino turn a blind eye on their issues, it would affirm their belief that the incoming president is no different from his predecessor.

“We hope that (Aquino’s) OFW platform presented during the presidential campaign will take real form. To prove its worth, we challenge him to start extending help to OFWs in distress even before his proclamation,” Migrante added.

Intramuros Golfcourse

Dyip

Photo of the day: Dyip

Unlocking the garden

Unlocking the Garden

It has been a while since I posted a new image here at my wordpress blog. So here is another new HDR photograph from three different exposures. This was taken almost a year ago and i found the image while reviewing my photographs after upgrading to Lightroom 3.

Highway robbery at the SLEX

Article written for the Philippine Online Chronicles

Originally published at: http://thepoc.net/thepoc-features/politi-ko/politiko-features/8052-toll-fee-hike-slex.html

A “highway robbery,” according to critics, awaits vehicle owners passing through the Alabang-Calamba stretch of the South Luzon Expressway (SLEX).

The robbery is in the form of a 250% toll hike, which was given the green light for implementation by the Toll Regulatory Board (TRB). According to Julius Corpuz, spokesperson for the TRB, the board has approved the hike last June 11.

The said hike was earlier scheduled for implementation on June 30 but suspended for implementation in deference to the inauguration ofPresident-elect Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III. The new fare rates will now take effect on July 7.

Both the TRB and the South Luzon Tollways Corporation (SLTC), which operates the affected stretch of the expressway, has defended the increase owing to the P11 billion rehabilitation and development of the expressway.

“People keep saying this is an increase. [But] this is a new road, and these are new rates. Our prevailing rates are the lowest rates in the entire country. Halos wala kayong binabayaran diyan,” SLTC Spokesperson Alma Tuazon said in a report.

Rehabilitation

The SLEX rehabilitation, according to another report byGMANews.TV began in 2006 and has expanded the 1.2-km Alabang Viaduct and the 27.3-km road from Alabang to Calamba. This is connected with the 7.6-km extension from Calamba to Santo Tomas in Batangas province, linking SLEX with the Southern Tagalog Arterial Road or STAR.

With the connection of the SLEX and STAR, the covered distance is now 118 kilometers making it the longest expressway in the country.

Meanwhile, the portion from Filinvest in Alabang to Calamba in Laguna, now comprises eight lanes instead of four. The rehabilitation project, which was funded by MTD Capital from Malaysia ended last year.

According to their company website, MTD Capital is Malaysia’s second largest highway operator and owner. It manages the Kuala Lumpur-Karak highway, the East Coast highway and toll highways in five other countries, which are at various stages of construction. Other than highway development and operation, the company also has interests in property development, infrastructure, coal-fired power plants, ports and others in 31 countries.

“It will take us six years to recoup our investment and the toll collection in the Philippines may equal if not better Malaysia’s because the South Luzon highway records 170,000 vehicles a day compared with Malaysia’s 80,000 vehicles,” said MTD President and chief executive officer Datuk Azmil Khalid.

He added that the company is also “eyeing other jobs in the Philippines and has received numerous offers to build highways and other infrastructure.”

The SLTC is a joint venture between the Philippine National Construction Corporation (PNCC), a Philippine Government Owned and Controlled Corporation (GOCC) and MTD Capital’s subsidiary, MTD Manila Expressway. 80% of the venture is owned by MTD while the rest is held by PNC with a 30-year concession to collect toll in a Build-Operate-Transfer scheme.

Highway robbery

Solons and motorists have slammed the toll hike, saying that it was “justifiably anti-poor” and a “midnight highway robbery.”

“Any toll hike approved by the Toll Regulatory Board (TRB) is unconscionable as it will eventually jack up bus fares, prices of agricultural produce and some basic goods from the provinces that are transported through SLEX,” said Rep. Teodoro Casiño of Bayan Muna.

The solon urged the TRB and the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) to junk the hike, saying, “As a regulatory agency, the TRB should provide service and protect the expressway users. The investor has already been guaranteed a good return of investment with the old rates at the least burden to the public. That should be enough.”

The DOTC has supervisory control over the TRB as one of its attached agencies.

The solon added that the expressway’s traffic can go as high as 200,000 vehicles per day which would make jack-up the daily revenue from P8.68 million to an astounding P22.26 million.

“This is government-sanctioned mega profiteering,” said the militant solon.

On the other hand, Albay Gov. Jose Salceda, a former economic adviser of outgoing president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has filed a petition to the Supreme Court for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) to stop the impending hike.

The respondents of Salceda’s 17-page petition for prohibition and mandamus with application for the issuance of a TRO are the DOTC, the TRB, the SLTC, and the Manila Toll Expressway Systems, Inc.

Salceda said the TRB committed abuse of authority due to lack of jurisdiction when it entered into a contract, which prescribes for the increase in toll fees at the SLEX, in violation of Section 3 ofPresidential Decree 1112.

He pointed out that PD 1112 provides that the TRB can only enter into a contract on construction, operation and maintenance of toll facilities.

In an earlier report, Salceda slammed the toll hike saying because authorities supposedly did not take into consideration the concerns of those in the southern Luzon provinces, which included Albay and the Bicol Region whose development depends on the SLEX.

“Trade with Manila is the lifeblood of Bicol and the SLEX is the main artery. The SLEX toll fee amounts to an unavoidable imposition on our traders, farmers, students who study in NCR, workers who work in [Philippine Economic Zone Authority] zones in Cavite, Laguna and on ordinary families who visit their relatives in Quezon City. We cannot even protest by not using it. The prohibitive cost is tantamount to a curtailment of trade and our freedom to travel,” he said

Other solons who voiced opposition to the toll hike include Senator Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr., chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Works and Services.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, meanwhile, has revealed plans of a Senate investigation on the toll hike. Returning Senator Ralph Recto has expressed his support to the planned Senate probe.

Bus fare hike looms

As a means of offsetting the profits that would be lost as a result of the toll hike, bus operators are now mulling a fare hike for commuters from Manila to Southern Luzon and the Bicol Region.

South Luzon Bus Operators Association head Homer Mercado said “our last recourse is a fare increase.”

According to Mercado, a bus going to and from Quezon province for four to six times a day would lose at least P450 daily.

The transport group added that this means transport fare will rise by an average of 20 centavos per kilometer. As a result, they estimated that a commuter currently paying P50 for a ride from Alabang to Calamba, Laguna will have to pay P6 more.

PNoy to review hike

Meanwhile, incoming President Noynoy Aquino said he would review the hike, which is now one of the issues that shall greet his incoming administration.

“One has to wonder why the increase is that big. Was the rate given to them insufficient to begin with to justify the massive changes?” said Aquino in a press conference.

Aquino was also quoted in another report saying that “I am holding responsibility for all of it (now).”

According to TRB’s Corpuz, the regulatory board shall respect Aquino’s decision should the latter decide to put off the increase.

However, deputy presidential spokesperson Gary Olivar warned Aquino that problems could arise if the hike was part of the provisions of the contract between the government and the toll way’s private investors.

“If this (provision for toll increase) is already included, it would be hard to withdraw because we want to honor our commitments, and second, if we rescind that, our reputation is tarnished before the international community. Maybe future investment requirements may be affected,” Olivar said in an interview with government-run dzRB.

The SLEX was built in 1975 and is South East Asia’s first toll highway.

Grim human rights situation await PNoy administration

Article written for The Philippine Online Chronicles
Original post can be viewed at http://www.thepoc.net/thepoc-features/politi-ko/politiko-features/7805-human-rights-and-president-noynoy-aquino.html

Apart from massive government corruption and worsening poverty, President-elect Beningno “Noynoy” Aquino Jr. will inherit a grim human rights situation from his predecessor.

In its 2009 report, the human rights group KARAPATAN has listed 1,188 victims of politically motivated extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary execution and 205 victims of enforced disappearances since the start of outgoing President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s term in 2001. Most of the victims were members of militant and left-leaning organizations and party-list groups, or members of the media.

Until now, only former Datu Unsay Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr., among 198 suspects charged with murdering 57 people including 32 journalists in the Maguindanao Massacre has appeared at a trial that began in January. Six other members of the family are in custody, waiting to be arraigned.

After the May 10 elections, five persons were killed. Last May 16, activist Jim Galez was shot in Panabo City, Davao. Labor leader Edward Panganiban of Pagkakaisa ng mga Manggagawa sa Timog Katagalugan was shot by unidentified motorcycle men in Sta. Rosa, Laguna early this month. Two days ago, human rights advocate Benjamin Bayless was shot in Himamaylan City in Negros Occidental.

Also last June 14, yesterday, two journalists were killed within a period of 24 hours. Radioman Desidario Camangyan of Sunshine FM was shot while he was on stage hosting an amateur singing contest in Manay, Davao Oriental. Joselito Agustin, a commentator of dzJC Aksyon Radyo Laoag was shot while riding his motorcycle on the boundary of Laoag City and Baccara in Ilocos Norte. Agustin is the 139 media worker slain since 1986.

Calls and challenges
As Aquino awaits his inauguration on June 30, more groups are issuing challenge to the incoming administration to solve the human rights problem and bring justice to the victims of human rights violations.

Among the latest group to make such call is the New York based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). In an open-letter posted on their website, the group asked Aquino to “translate your strong electoral mandate into a firm commitment to end the culture of impunity that has resulted in the extraordinarily high number of media killings in the Philippines.”

The group asked Aquino to conduct a probe into the circumstances surrounding the massacre, which they described as the “single deadliest attack against the press anywhere in the world since CPJ started monitoring violations in 1981.”

In their Global Impunity Index, the CPJ has ranked the country as having the third-worst record in the world for bringing the killers of journalists to justice, next to Iraq and Somalia.

According to their research, Task Force USIG, which was formed by Arroyo to investigate the extrajudicial killings in the country, has been unsuccessful in achieving substantial convictions in 62 of the 68 journalist murder cases recorded since 1992. The CPJ added in their letter that only “partial justice” was reached in the other six cases.

Meanwhile, Rev. Rex Reyes, head of the Ecumenical Voice for Peace and Human Rights in the Philippines, has asked the United Nations to urge Aquino to “stand by his campaign promise” to promote human rights in the country.

The plea was made during his oral intervention last June 8 to the 14th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council. The Philippines is a member of the council and a signatory to major UN human rights instruments.

Aside from the Maguindanao Massacre, Reyes also cited the arrest and detention of 43 Health Workers in Morong, Rizal last year as the most recent brazen case of human rights violations.

With Reyes was Roneo Clamor, husband of Dr. Merry Mia-Clamor, one of the Morong 43 detainees, who narrated to the council the human rights violations allegedly committed by the Philippine military against the health workers.

The violations included illegal arrest and detention, various forms of coercion, intimidation and indignities as well as psychological torture and sleep deprivation.

Clamor’s intervention was supported by Civicus: World Alliance for Citizens Participation, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, Franciscans International, Lawyers Rights Watch of Canada and the Association of American Jurists.

Disappointment

Earlier, media organizations have reported that Aquino has disappointed another New York based international human rights group, the Human Rights Watch (HRW).

In its report, abs-cbnnews.com has quoted HRW executive director Kenneth Roth saying “He [Aquino] waxed eloquently about his desire to rid the country of private army. He repeated this a number of times… Unfortunately, he was playing word game.”

“When we asked him whether he vows to rid the country of private armies meant that he was going to end reliance on special CAFGUs, the civilian volunteer organizations (CVOs), and police auxiliary units–in other words, the real paramilitary forces that are used as private armies–he said no. Those were all force multipliers in his view,” Roth added.

According to Roth, Aquino had a “narrow” definition of private armies, and that he was only committed to go after “forces that are completely autonomous from government authorized forces.”

“Those who say that the paramilitary forces are necessary to fight insurgency, are necessary to provide security, are basically saying that serious human rights violations are necessary to fight the insurgency,” Roth said.

Closure promised
Meanwhile, Aquino has vowed “closure” to the spate of unresolved murders after a group of European ambassadors and heads of mission from the European Union (EU) paid him a courtesy call last March 31.

The EU has earlier expressed concern over the human rights situation in the country and has even provided the Philippines with 3.9 million Euros last February to help the judiciary and the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) solve the problem.

According to Aquino, “Cases of extrajudicial killings need to be solved, not just identify the perpetrators but have them captured and sent to jail,” in a press conference after meeting with the EU ambassadors.

He added that this is part of his incoming administration’s agenda along with “judicial reform.”

“There has to be closure as soon as possible, which means not the usual average of six years,” he added.

The President-elect reiterated his promise of justice to the massacre victims by saying that families “who think they are above the law” shall no longer be tolerated and that their influence could be brought to an end by withdrawing their security details.

Other than his pronouncements condemning the Maguindanao Massacre and other rights violations, Aquino’s other contribution in advancing human rights in the country was his filing of Senate Bill 2159 or the Superior Responsibility Act of 2008 which would adopt the doctrine of ‘Superior Responsibility’ for all military and police personnel, in response to extrajudicial killings.

According to the Senate records, however, the bill remains pending at the Committee level since its filing in April 22, 2008.

Photo of the day: Bata na may hawak na bandera

1/100 sec
F6.3
ISO 100
August 28, 2009, Plaza Miranda, Manila

A view of Mt. Samat

HDR processed from three exposures
1/200 sec ± 1 EV
F13
ISO 100