Last week, the Sultan of the oil-rich Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, announced the start of a new criminal code based on sharia law that will impose barbaric punishments like amputation and stoning for offenses that includes being gay and pregnant outside of marriage.
A Los Angeles Times news report said “Under the first phase, fines and jail terms were introduced Thursday for offenses that include failure to attend Friday prayers, indecent behavior and pregnancies outside of marriage.
There are two letters seeking to two powerful persons who will be making their historic meeting today.
One is from the longest-held political prisoner in the country Juanito Itaas, suspect in the killing of Col. James Rowe, to visiting U.S. President Barack Obama.
The other one is from Edith Burgos, mother of Jonas Burgos, who has been missing for seven years, to President Aquino.
Rowe, a member of the elite Green Beret in the Vietnam, was the chief of the Army Division of the Joint RP-US Military Advisory Group (JUSMAG) when he was ambushed and killed on April 21, 1989 in Quezon while he was on his way to his office. His driver, Joaquin Vinuya, survived the ambush.
We did not fully get what we asked Supreme Court regarding the Republic Act 10175 otherwise known as the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 which was to declare the whole of it as unconstitutional primarily because of its libel provisions. But we can live with the Supreme Court decision released yesterday.
We still have to fully analyze the SC decision which upheld the constitutionality of the controversial law but struck down the most odious “take down”provision which empowered the Department of Justice) to restrict or block access to any online post which it deemed violating the law without any court order.
The court also said only original authors of libelous material are covered by the cybercrime law, and not those who merely received or reacted to it. So those who “liked” and shared a libelous online item won’t be punished. Good luck to whoever is tasked to trace the original author after a post is shared and reposted thousands of times.
From now on, I will not watch any Woody Allen movie in sympathy with the cause of Dylan Farrow, daughter of American actress Mia Farrow, who came out last week with an open letter re-opening the painful childhood episode with her adoptive father.
Last week Allen was honored by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association with the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award, given to those who have made “outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment.”
A few days after the award ceremonies, which Allen did not attend (the award was accepted for him by actress Diane Keaton), New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof carried the heart-wrenching letter of 28- year-old Dylan.
In an informal survey conducted by a civil society group working to stop human trafficking, they asked people in the streets what comes to their mind when they hear the phrase “human trafficking.”
Everybody answered:“Traffic.” As in vehicular traffic.
Such is the level of public awareness about human trafficking- the trade in human beings for several purposes, most commonly sexual slavery, pornography, forced labor , extraction of organs or tissues, surrogacy.
One of the memorable movies shown last year was “Alagwa: starting Jericho Rosales as the widower Robert Lim and Bugoy Cariño as the boy Brian.
Directed by Ian Loreños, it’s a heartbreaking story of the young father’s search for his son who was kidnapped in a mall.. Lim (Rosales) left the son in the Men’s Room to attend to something. When he returned for the boy, he was gone. Later, in the CCTV which the police officers obtained, they saw a man approach his son as the boy stepped out of the Men’s Room. The man must have said something to convince the boy to go with him. (Warning to parents: never leave your children, even for a moment, in public places.)
In Lim’s search for his son, he stepped into the harrowing world of child trafficking. Years later, he found his son a beggar in Hongkong.
As we celebrate the coming of Jesus Christ in the midst of trials and challenges, let’s take the examples shown by these children of supporting each other when they only have themselves to turn to:
By Ellen Tordesillas, VERA Files
Bacalso said she was informed Thursday by the embassy of Argentina in the Philippines of the award “in recognition of her work against enforced disappearance in Asia and the world. “
Bacalso will travel to Buenos Aires on Dec. 10 to receive her award in a ceremony to be attended by Argentinian government officials. Aside from her funded travel to Argentina and a plaque, Aileen will also have speaking engagements in different organizations.
Bacalso said “I will be honored to receive this prestigious award soon which will be given not only to me but also to the disappeared and their loved ones and the rest among us in this bigger global movement against enforced disappearances. Let this be an important victory for the cause of the disappeared and their families in the Philippines, in Asia, in Latin America and in the rest of the world.”
VERA Files’ Jonathan De Santos reported last week that two former employees of the Commission on Human Rights filed a complaint with the Ombudsman against Commissioners Cecilia Rachel “Coco” Quisumbing and Norberto Dela Cruz for violating the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act and the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees.
Quisumbing is also accused of bribery.
At the launching of the book, “Beyond Tears and Borders” at the office of the Commission on Human Rights, Edith Burgos, mother of farmer/activist Jonas Burgos who disappeared on April 28, 2007, said in the six-year search for her son, the emotions “vacillate between hope and despair.”
She said, “no matter what you do, there will always be indifferent people. “
She said families of the disappeared have to contend with labeling. “The moment you speak about the disappeared, you become labeled.”
But she said in the agony of the search, she has found “examples of selflessness.” She said it was her son’s love for others that made him devote his life for the farmers and caused him to be disappeared.