New President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday shot down calls from human rights groups for the Philippines to rejoin the International Criminal Court, saying the country could conduct its own investigations into deaths related to his predecessor’s drug wars ¹
The Philippine government imposed a new closure order on Rappler, a digital media outlet based in Manila renowned for its investigative journalism, when Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s presidency took office in June
The new government in the Philippines should seek loans from other sources after China left three heavily promoted railway projects unfunded during Rodrigo Duterte’s entire six-year term, a top planner for the former president said
The Court of Appeals upheld a cyber-libel conviction against Maria Ressa, the Nobel Prize-winning chief executive of the Rappler news website, and a former staffer while adding eight months to their maximum prison sentences imposed by a lower court in 2020
Sara Duterte, the daughter of outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte, on Sunday took the oath as vice president of the Philippines, in a heavily guarded ceremony in her southern hometown of Davao, where she is outgoing mayor
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana appealed to the nation to give the new anti-terror law a chance. He described it as an “essential measure” for authorities to combat the scourge of terrorism.
Wilfredo Keng, who on Monday won a separate cyber-libel case against Ressa, filed this new complaint in February but it was not made public then. This time, Keng wants Ressa to be jailed over a tweet she posted in February last year.
On April 1, Rodrigo Duterte ordered the police and military to shoot people who do not respect the lockdown of the nation. “We are really worried and shocked. We are living a double battle every day: with the pandemic or with the drug-related murders”, says Sebastian Cruz, 23, to Fides, who lives in a slum in Manila, where people are forced to leave the house to get food.
This week, Manila repatriated 12 workers from Baghdad. Meanwhile, a government labor attaché travelled to Saudi Arabia to help in the repatriation effort, though it remained unclear how many Filipinos had responded to their government’s call to return home
Fifty-eight people, including 32 journalists and media workers, died on Nov. 23, 2009, in what had been described as the world’s biggest single-day killing of members of the press. Almost 100 people have been jailed and charged with murder, but none have been convicted