Category Archives: Philippines

Journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov win Nobel peace prize

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Filipina and Russian given 2021 award as organisers warn of threat to independent media worldwide

Campaigning journalists from the Philippines and Russia have won the 2021 Nobel peace prize as the Norwegian committee recognised the vital importance of an independent media to democracy and warned it was increasingly under assault.

Maria Ressa, the chief executive and cofounder of Rappler, and Dmitry Muratov, the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, were named as this year’s laureates by Berit Reiss-Andersen, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee.

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Nobel peace prize winner Maria Ressa: ‘A world without facts means a world without truth’ – video

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Maria Ressa, the journalist and founder of the Philippine news organisation Rappler, said 'we are fighting for facts' after she was announced the joint-winner of the 2021 Nobel peace prize with the Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov. 'This shows that the Nobel peace prize committee realised that a world without facts means a world without truth and trust,' she said. 

Ressa, a former CNN bureau chief, founded Rappler in 2012. She and her organisation have faced threats of closure and arrest after publishing critical coverage of President Rodrigo Duterte's bloody war on drugs. Ressa was named a Time Person of the Year in 2018 for her work on press freedom.

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Manila’s newly homeless tell of survival in lockdown – photo essay

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As Covid hit, thousands of Filipinos were left trapped in the capital without work. Many ended up on the street and are still waiting to rebuild their lives

Like so many others before her, Michelle Sicat, a 28-year-old single mother from the province of Nueva Ecija, had come to Metro Manila to get a job to support her family. She left her daughter with her parents so she could work as a shop assistant in one of the city’s busiest commercial districts. Sicat’s sacrifice was one that many Filipinos from rural areas have to make.

Despite missing home, Sicat was happy to have a job. But then the Covid-19 pandemic struck. The Philippine government placed the entire island of Luzon – where the Metro Manila region is located – under the strictest level of lockdown. The restrictions forced most businesses to close. Most people were ordered to stay at home.

For many living on the streets, there is no shelter from the elements

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Haitians fleeing and Hotel Rwanda case: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Myanmar to Germany

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Philippines’ youth call for systemic change at climate protest

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Protesters parading an effigy of Rodrigo Duterte in Manila call for policies that prioritise people and planet

A monstrous effigy of Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte was paraded through the country’s capital Manila on Friday as protesters joined a worldwide youth climate action.

About a hundred young people wearing masks gathered in one of several socially distanced demonstrations around the country in support of the global climate strike by the international Fridays for Future movement.

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Will she run for president? Duterte’s daughter keeps the Philippines guessing

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Sara Duterte ahead in the polls despite refusing to commit to presidential race

It was a decade ago, before her father had become Philippine president, that Sara Duterte attracted national attention. A local sheriff had ignored orders issued by her, the mayor of Davao City, to delay the demolition of a shantytown. She arrived at the scene furious and punched him, not once, but four times in the head, in front of reporters.

Duterte, 43, a motorbike lover and tough talker, has a combative image that echoes that of her 76-year-old father, the populist president Rodrigo Duterte. It is widely believed that, as he nears the end of his six-year term limit, she will follow in his footsteps to Manila’s Malacañang Palace.

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‘Their future could be destroyed’: the global struggle for schooling after Covid closures

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Hundreds of millions of children fell behind around the world as schools closed during the pandemic. We look at four countries as pupils try to resume their education

Children’s mental health suffers as schools remain shut

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‘Lost generation’: education in quarter of countries at risk of collapse, study warns

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Covid, climate breakdown, poverty and war threaten return to school after pandemic kept 1.5bn children out of classes

The education of hundreds of millions of children is hanging by a thread as a result of an unprecedented intensity of threats including Covid 19 and the climate crisis, a report warned today.

As classrooms across much of the world prepare to reopen after the summer holidays, a quarter of countries – most of them in sub-Saharan Africa – have school systems that are at extreme or high risk of collapse, according to Save the Children.

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Where’s Edelyn? The search for the Filipina maid who vanished in Saudi Arabia

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Mired in debt, the mother of three left to work as part of the Gulf’s kafala labour system. She was last heard from in 2015 and her family want answers

Edelyn Eborda Astudillo wanted a better life for her three children. The 36-year-old from Mariveles in the Philippines, and her husband, Crisanto, had been unemployed for six years and things were getting desperate. So, in early 2015, Edelyn made the decision to travel to the Middle East to get a job as a domestic worker.

After applying to a Philippine recruitment agency, Manumoti Manpower, Edelyn was soon on a flight abroad. She was placed in a house to work for a couple in Taif, in the west of Saudi Arabia.

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‘Monsters at the door’: migrant workers trapped in UN Afghan compound

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Security contractors among hundreds from the Philippines, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka stuck without clear plans for evacuation

When Taliban fighters started to kick at the door of a UN compound in a northern province 250 miles (400km) from the Afghan capital, Kabul, Rajesh* was certain he was going to be killed.

The Taliban had taken control of the area on that day. Rajesh, a UN security contractor from India, hurried with his colleagues into an emergency steel-doored room. Before they sealed themselves in, they saw a group of seven or eight heavily armed men.

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Philippines’ Duterte agrees to run as vice-president in 2022

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President’s ‘sacrifice’ paves way for leader to stay in power beyond June next year

The Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, has agreed to be the ruling political party’s vice-presidential candidate in next year’s elections, laying the groundwork for the leader to stay in power beyond his term.

The PDP-Laban party made the announcement before a national assembly on 8 September, where it is also expected to endorse Duterte’s aide and incumbent senator, Christopher “Bong” Go, to be its presidential candidate in the 2022 poll.

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Raging Delta variant takes its toll as Philippines runs out of nurses

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Bad pay and conditions at home and demand for Filipino nursing skills overseas have left the country with a soaring death rate

The Covid Delta variant has swept across south-east Asia over recent months, prompting lockdowns and overwhelming hospitals – from Malaysia to Thailand and Indonesia. Now the impact is being felt in the Philippines, just as the country’s chronic lack of health workers reaches a crisis point.

“The disease has become very aggressive,” said Michael Bilan, who works on a Covid ward in Manila. This time, patients tend to require a higher amount of oxygen, for longer, he said. The number of Covid patients is also at a record high: last week, 277 were receiving treatment. New wards have been opened to meet demand.

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Manila in lockdown as Delta cases soar in Philippines

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Covid death toll hits four-month high amid record case numbers in countries across south-east Asia

The more aggressive Delta variant of Covid-19, detected in the Philippines in mid-July, has spread across much of the country, reaching 13 of 17 regions, health officials have said.

On Sunday, the Philippines reported a sharp rise in daily Covid fatalities, with 287 deaths, the highest daily increase in four months. A further 9,671 new infections were also confirmed.

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Refugees hit hardest as deadly floods sweep across continents

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Death toll rises as storms continue to rip through communities, destroying homes and livelihoods

As heavy rains and floods dominate headlines around the world, displaced people and those living in conflict zones are among the worst affected.

Wind and heavy rain from monsoons and typhoons has bombarded much of Asia. There have also been downpours and flash floods in parts of Latin America and Africa.

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Health campaigners call for an end to the use of the word leper

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Derogatory use of the “L-word” has increased during Covid and is said to be further marginalising people with the curable disease

Health campaigners are calling for an end to the use of the word leper, saying the language frequently used by politicians and others during the pandemic has made people with leprosy even more marginalised.

The metaphor of the socially outcast “leper” has been used often, whether in media reports on stigma against early Covid-19 patients or by politicians in Italy and Brazil complaining about being seen as “leper colonies”. Campaigners now want an end to the use of what they call the “L-word”.

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Malawi Pride and press freedoms in Palestine: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Chile to Cambodia

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Philippines: at least 45 people die in military plane crash – video

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At least 45 people were killed and more than 50 injured when a Philippine military aircraft carrying troops crashed and burst into flames after missing the runway in the south of the country, officials have said. Ninety-two people, most of them recent army graduates, were onboard the C-130 Hercules transport aircraft when the crash happened as the plane tried to land on Jolo island in Sulu province at about midday on Sunday.

Photos taken by the local media outlet Pondohan TV and posted on Facebook showed the wrecked body of the plane engulfed in flames. A plume of thick black smoke rose above houses near the crash site

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At least 45 people die in military plane crash in Philippines

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At least 50 injured people pulled from burning wreckage of C-130 Hercules after it crashed when it missed runway

At least 45 people were killed and more than 50 injured when a Philippine military aircraft carrying troops crashed and burst into flames after missing the runway in the south of the country, officials said.

Three of those who died were on the ground.

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‘I want them to feel human again’: the woman who escaped slavery in the UK – and fights to free others

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Analiza Guevarra ended up in a living hell in London after fleeing poverty in the Philippines. Now, her organisation rescues scores of people in domestic servitude every year

The streets of west London were dark and empty as Analiza Guevarra walked towards a large, white mansion block in South Kensington in February 2019.

Just after 5am, she stood at a corner, well away from any street lights. “I’m here,” she tapped into her phone. Seconds later, her phone pinged back. “I’m coming, I’m carrying a green bag. Please wait for me.”

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