The New Filipino Monarchy

I'm disturbed with the photo I saw just recently in one of the Philippines' broadsheets--a photo of the First Couple toasting with the rest of the royals of Europe.

Flashback---Macoy and Meldy sharing a good turkey with the royals of their time. Is this photo a portent of things to come? Are we seeing a revival of a conjugal dictatorship? Is this a sign that the Arroyos are now our new sovereigns?

It seems that's the case.

While millions die due to poverty, with a study showing that at least 21 million Filipinos eat just five times a week (not a day), our illegitimate usurpers wine and dine with the billionaires of the world.

While millions sweat it out abroad and millions more enslave themselves to inhumane conditions here, a handful of our legislators spend 12 million pesos on a junket just to be near the royals.

Who's to blame for all of these?

I am and the millions of my generation. We are to blame for this mess that we are in. For we allow these people to govern us. We allow these gut-less grafters to rob us, steal from us and ravage us with impunity.

We allow ourselves to be controlled. We let them trample our rights. We let them shame us, make our status low before the eyes of the world. For what? For the crumbs that they gave us.

We must be ashamed of ourselves. See story below. These children deserve to live more than we do. My generation deserved to be punished for being so stupid and so dumb weaklings. We sacrifice our freedoms because we hate armed revolution? Are we so crazy? We are slowly being killed and our response is just a meek " we want a peaceful resolution" to a monumental catastrophe like Arroyo?

There is a season for peace and definitely, a season for war. And the time to act is now.


Study: Children willingly join RP guerrilla groups

Agence France Presse

Children in the Philippines are willingly joining communist or Muslim separatist guerrilla groups to escape grinding poverty, a UNICEF commissioned study released Wednesday said.

The Ibon Foundation, which carried out the study, found fear of the military, poverty and limited social services were pushing some children to join the communist New People's Army (NPA) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

"The child respondents were all conscious of their poverty and the limited social services and options available to them," the report said.

"This volunteerism is premised on the credibility these groups have in the communities, a credibility which seems to be genuine and does not merely derive from sheer military control."

The study involved interviews with 430 people including children, women, local nongovernment organizations, officials and insurgents in conflict-affected areas.

UNICEF local representative Nicholas Alipui said unlike in some war-torn African nations, there was no forced recruitment of children into armed groups, but that "children should have no place in armed conflict at all, even if they want to join."

Armand Alamon, a consultant with the Ibon Foundation, said both the NPA and the MILF used youths below the age of 18 in non-combat roles such as couriers, spies, cooks and to run errands.

The United Nations has listed the Philippines as one of the countries which has "children associated with armed groups... as combatants or in nonmilitary roles," said Forossgh Foyouzat, the chief of the child protection section of the local UNICEF office.

"In the past, it was mainly the rebel groups that had child recruits but there were now reports of similar recruitment by pro-government militia forces," she said.

The report also said military forces were deliberately attacking civilians, including women and children, as part of their counter-insurgency campaign.

Ibon research head Jose Africa said there was "conscious targeting by the military of the civilians."

Alipui said the study was "not as balanced and completely unbiased" as he would like as it made no attempt to get the military's side.

But he said it was still an important report as it allowed the children's voices to be heard.