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Category: Vera Files

The Filipino worker today

Published by Ellen on May 6, 2012

VERA Files took snap shots of the state of the country’s greatest resource,Filipino manpower, on Labor Day:

JENNY Tanael, 47, is a wife of a minimum wage earner and mother of a contractual worker.

Her eldest son Juan Paolo keeps on hunting for a job each time his five-month contract in a fast food chain expires. Sometimes it takes him six months to find work at another branch of said restaurant. In between jobs, he relies for support on his father who earns less than P 400 per day as a security guard.

Her son has been unemployed for two months now. Since Juan Paolo is turning 24 he will have to look for another company since his former employer only accepts workers 23 years and below.

http://verafiles.org/job-contractualization-the-next-big-issue-after-wage-hike/

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63-year-old pianist puts up impromptu ‘concert’ for train commuters

Published by Ellen on January 14, 2012

This is so beautiful!

By Amer R. Amor, VERA Files

When world-renowned violinist Joshua Bell played at the Washington DC Metro Station in 2007 as part of The Washington Post’s social experiment on how people perceive and appreciate art and beauty, very few noticed and applauded. But when a 63-year-old man played the piano at the LRT 2 Cubao Station on Jan. 12, Filipino commuters stopped, paid attention, took videos, applauded, and at some point, swayed and sang along with his music.

Perhaps as a testament to British award-winning author Neil Gaiman’s tweet on Friday that it is indeed more fun in the Philippines since Filipinos applaud loudly, at least 300 commuters alternately took delight in the impromptu “concert” of pianist performer Vidalito Infante in a music retail stall at the Cubao Station from 4 to 6 p.m.

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Hacienda Luisita farmers jubilant over SC ruling

Published by Ellen on November 26, 2011


By Homer Teodoro
Central Luzon TV and VERA Files

Red flag is victory for farmers in Hacienda Luisita
HACIENDA LUISITA, TARLAC CITY–Farmers of Hacienda Luisita were jubilant when they heard from their leaders in Metro Manila Thursday morning that the Supreme Court has junked the Stock Distribution Option and ordered the Hacienda Luisita, Incorporated to distribute the more than 6,000 hectares of land to the more than 5,000 farmers of the sugarcane plantation that belongs to the family of President Aquino.

They beat drums made of recycled tin cans making sounds of joy. One even climbed the tractor and declared on top of his voice that they won against the Cojuangcos.

Feliz Nacpil, Jr. a.k.a. “Ka Dec”, chairman of Alyansang Manggagawang Bukid sa Asyenda Luisita (AMBALA), said since Tuesday they waiting for the High Court’s decision. He said they were prepared go to Manila in case the decision and rally in front of the SC if the decision was not favorable to them.

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Revisiting the almost forgotten

Published by Ellen on September 29, 2011

The deafening sound of silence
VERA Files first photobook,”Silenced: Extrajudicial killings and torture in the Philippines,” is an example of the power of images and words combined.

Launched yesterday, the book is a collection of images of human rights victims as sensitively captured by the talented Mario Ignacio IV.

“The two young daughters of a women’s rights advocate try to live normal lives even as they attend the trial of their mother’s murder in Tagbilaran City almost every month. A Lumad family in Davao continues to bereave the death of their patriarch while seeking ways to hold on to their ancestral land. A wife in North Cotabato wrestles with the fact that her husband is a bus bombing suspect and a victim of torture,” Mario describes three of the 14 images in the book.

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Sacked ‘torture’ cop now teaches criminology

Published by Ellen on July 18, 2011

By Mylah Reyes Roque
VERA Files

Binayug:bored at a Senate hearing
The Manila policeman dismissed from the service after he was caught on video allegedly torturing a theft suspect at a Tondo police station is now teaching—in a college for would-be policemen.

Police Inspector Joselito Binayug is a part-time instructor at the privately run Philippine College of Criminology-Manila Law College (PCCR-MLC), where he has been teaching Crime Detection Investigation since June.

The Philippine National Police dismissed Binayug from the service on Jan. 14, 2011 after Task Force Asuncion, which was formed to investigate allegations of torture at the Asuncion police station, confirmed that he was the policeman in the video. The footage showed a naked man lying on the floor of the police station, and was leaked to a TV station and the Internet in August.

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2 unidentified aircraft spotted in PH airspace in Spratlys

Published by Ellen on July 18, 2011


By Tessa Jamandre
VERA Files

Boxall marker
An aggressive overflight reconnaissance over the Philippine-claimed isles in the oil-rich Spratlys group of islands in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) had been monitored and reported to the Philippine military shortly after Foreign Secretary Albert Del Rosario returned from his visit to Beijing.

On July 11, two unidentified aircraft were spotted in the airspace within the country’s 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone, according to a spot report seen by VERA Files.

Filipino fishermen sighted the aircraft, a gray chopper and a green plane they said resembles a “Tora Tora” or a T-28 fighter plane, flying low at Boxall Reef located 163 nautical miles from the Philippine Navy’s naval station in Ulugan Bay or 97 nautical miles from the southernmost tip of mainland Palawan.

A group of fishermen saw the green plane at 9 a.m. and another group spotted the gray chopper at 10:40 a.m., heading in the same northern direction, the report said.

The Tora Tora-like plane was hovering in the area at an altitude of about 20 feet and the chopper at about 30 feet, it said.
Quoting the fishermen who reported the sighting of the chopper, the military said, “There were more or less five crew on board and wearing green uniform. The small markings on its undercarriage were unreadable.”

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