Foreign mining firm guilty of rights violations

In the nation-wide consultations conducted by AidWatch Philippines among Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), one of the most glaring issues tackled was the widespread development aggression experienced by communities all over the country.

Among the impacts of development aggression accordingly are: environmental plunder, health diseases, displacement of communities and violation of ancestral domains of Indigenous peoples.

Moreover, among the major contributors of development aggression, are mining operations by foreign corporations all over the country such as the Australian OceanaGold which is recently in the news for being guilty of many violations such as violation of the right to property, right to security of person and right to freedom.

Click here   for the story from Bulatlat.com .

AidWatch Philippines: a Reality of Aid case study

What is AidWatch?

Civil Society Organizations and aid effectiveness issues in the Philippines can often be as diverse and thriving as the thousands of islands they involve. To connect, unite and strive towards a common goal is often more difficult than one might think, yet with respect to lobbying on official development assistance (ODA), this has been largely achieved under the wings of AidWatch Philippines.

AidWatch Philippines traces its beginnings to the Philippine Aid Watch Network organized in 2003 in response to the need for a strong civil society formation on aid and development issues. The network supported its members’ advocacy campaigns through information exchange, facilitating informed dialogues and international networking.

Today, AidWatch Philippines is a broad national network of grassroots-based and -oriented NGOs working on ODA issues in the country. It has over 150 members in more than 60 provinces nationwide, including 10 national networks. IBON Foundation was part of the core group that formed AidWatch in 2005 along with civil society networks from the country’s three main island groups: Luzon (Cordillera People’s Alliance), Visayas (Solidarity People’s Advocacy Network) and Mindanao (Mindanao InterFaith People’s Conference). The national character of AidWatch is significant in itself and there is no equivalent civil society group involved in ODA issues in the country. It is also particularly unique in how its activities bring together an unusually wide range of development stakeholders: civil society groups from different ends of the political spectrum, national and local government officials, donor agencies, and parliamentarians.

Philippines CSOs and ODA

Philippine’s CSOs include a wide range of organizations of different sizes from across the country. As such, they operate in very different circumstances, engage in varied development programs, projects and advocacies, and have different roots in farmers, workers, women, youth and children, national minorities, Bangsamoro peoples, migrants, and other sectors.

CSOs as a whole have a vital role to play in the country’s ODA system because of their specific character as civil society independent and distinct from the government. The greatest strength comes from the solid grounding in basic sectors and local communities as Filipino CSOs either evolved from the grassroots themselves or engaged directly with these stakeholders. This strong foundation in the grassroots itself underpin CSOs’ vital role as development actors and of civil society as a pillar of good governance. The capacity to efficiently and effectively deliver services and implement development projects along those lines has been well-established over time. CSOs in the Philippines have also been effective in monitoring government use and misuse of aid. This kind of aid monitoring has developed into practices that are essential in empowering society’s most vulnerable and marginalized groups, and that promote the full realization of human rights.

Read the whole story, here.

Impact of fare, price increases to the Filipinos: an insightful article from investigative on-line magazine Bulatlat.com

Dire times ahead: poor braces for impact of fare, price increases
By Anne Marxze Umil, Bulatlat.com

MANILA — The year 2011 started not with a bang but a lot of whimper – whimper, that is, from many Filipinos who complain about tough times ahead.

Much of the discontent so far is focused on the increasing cost of transportation. There’s the 300-percent increase in the toll fees for the South Luzon Expressway (SLEX) ^[2]; because many of the capital’s produce are sourced from the south, this inevitably raised as well the prices of certain goods, such as vegetables.

There’s the increase as well of the flag-down rates of taxis ^[3] and the hike in the prices of basic commodities such as sugar and flour.

Then there’s the increase in MRT and LRT fares ^[4], which is eyed for implementation by March 1.

An analysis ^[5] by the online newsmagazine Newsbreak shows that the MRT-lRT fare hikes will affect the poor most. It explains that the price of single-journey tickets will increase by 100% while the price of stored-value tickets increased by only 50%. Most rail commuters opt to buy single-journey tickets because, as Newsbreak points out, a stored-value ticket, which can be bought for P100, is out of their budget. But the publication finds that a single-journey ticket costs more per trip than a stored-value ticket.

The only thing that doesn’t increase, many minimum wage earners complain, is their salary, which in Metro Manila is pegged at P404 (less than $10) that barely covers the most basic necessities of a small family.

Shirley Pascua, 35, a housewife, thinks that the poor are getting poorer under the administration of President Benigno S. Aquino III. “He is proving to be a disappointment. The price of everything is going up,” she told Bulatlat.com.

Pascua’s husband is a taxi driver. She said what he makes is barely enough to make ends meet. They have two children; Adrian, 13, and Marielle, 12. “It’s a good thing my eldest is in a good school. If not for his scholarship, we will not be able to send him to a school like that,” Pascua said. Her youngest will also apply for the scholarship in the same high school.

Read the whole story here.

From Aid to Development Effectiveness: The Road to Busan

**From Reality of Aid.

The Fourth High-Level Forum (HLF) on Aid Effectiveness in Busan will be the major international conference on development cooperation in 2011. The Busan HLF offers a unique opportunity to look back on the progress made over the past decade in improving the effectiveness of aid, and to develop an ambitious forward-looking agenda for the future.

Civil society organisations (CSOs) from Europe and globally argue that the aid effectiveness agenda needs to be developed further to address development effectiveness: How can aid be reformed to better promote sustainable change within a democratic framework that addresses the causes as well as the symptoms of poverty, inequality and marginalisation?

This seminar will explore this qualitative change from aid to development effectiveness on the Road to Busan. It debates the expectations for the Busan HLF focusing on the contribution of the European Union. It also deals with how this new concept will impact on how the European Union designs its development assistance.

This seminar is organised by three European and global networks joining together more than 1000 CSOs.

Facilitator: Ester Asin (CARE International/CONCORD)
Speakers: Jorge Balbis (ALOP/Reality of Aid)
Bodo Ellmers (Eurodad)
Gideon Rabinowitz (CONCORD AidWatch)

(Infra)structuring Mindanao: the many infrastructure projects in Mindanao

USAid projects in Mindanao

One glaring reality in the island of Mindanao is that almost all over it, development projects by foreign donor organizations can be found.

One of these projects is the USAid-funded Growth with Equity in Mindanao or GEM.

To have an idea of how far and wide the reach of this project is, click here for Northern Mindanao, here for Western Mindanao and here for Central Mindanao.

On the other hand, here is the perspective of people's organizations and Civil Society Organizations in Mindanao.

Coal-fired power plants, a burning issue

In the Visayas and Mindanao, one of the current burning development-related issues is the insistence of the coal-fired power plant projects even as the people in the areas where they are being pushed are protesting.

For the many CSOs and communities in the Visayas and Mindanao, these projects damage the environment and people's health. Furthermore, these projects do not necessarily answer/solve the problem in the lack of generated power.

In the Visayas, the province of Cebu is where these projects are being pushed currently.

Click here and here to understand more about this issue and what the CSOs in the Visayas are doing about it.