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Rights defenders ask UN: ‘Probe alarming record of Marcos gov’t’

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A group of Filipino human rights advocates are in Geneva, Switzerland to attend the ongoing 54th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and seek an evaluation of the United Nations Joint Program (UNJP) being implemented in the Philippines.

A delegation of the Philippine UPR (Universal Periodic Review) Watch said the UN must conduct a comprehensive, relevant and participatory evaluation of the program as it is failing to improve the human rights situation in the country.

The UNJP is also unable to significantly address continuing human rights violations in the Philippines with the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. presidency virtually indistinguishable from the Rodrigo Duterte regime in terms of red-tagging, weaponization of laws and the people’s worsening poverty.

“PH UPR Watch calls on the UNHRC to seriously look at the alarming human rights record of the Marcos Jr. administration and the harmful policies perpetuating it,” the PH UPR Watch in a statement said.

The delegation said the Marcos government is abusing the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 and the anti-terrorism financing law in persecuting critics even as the UNJP is being implemented by the UN, the Philippine government and private sector stakeholders.

Launched in 2021, the UNJP is an attempt to help the Philippine government in realizing its responsibilities in recognizing and upholding human rights.

The program conducts trainings and dialogues with the military, police and various government agencies on human rights and international humanitarian law in partnership with the Commission on Human Rights and civil society groups.

The Duterte government agreed to the program in place of a full investigation as recommended by the UNHRC following an Iceland-sponsored resolution in 2019 to probe into thousands of deaths resulting from the so-called drug war in the Philippines.

PH UPR Watch however said that there had been no significant improvement on the human rights situation in the Philippines even after three years of UNJP implementation, evidenced by the worsening weaponization of laws and incessant red-tagging by the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict of critics and political dissenters.

The delegation also complains of an ongoing wholesale violation of the Filipino people’s economic rights as shown by uncontrolled rise in the prices of oil products and basic food items.

The PH UPR Watch delegation at the UNHRC’s 54th Session is composed of representatives from Karapatan, National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers, Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment, National Council of Churches in the Philippines, United Church of Christ in the Philippines, Alliance of Concerned Teachers, Rise Up for Life and for Rights, and the KATRIBU – Kalipunan ng Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas.

The group will engage in dialogues with various UN special rapporteurs and country representatives as well as present their findings before the UNHRC to shed light on widespread human rights violations. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Environmental group reports PH gov’t not acting on anti-climate change commitments

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The year-old Ferdinand Marcos Jr. government continues to implement anti-environment projects that cause displacement and other disastrous impacts of climate change, an environmental group told the United Nations (UN) in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Center for Environmental Concerns (CEC) said large-scale mining, land reclamation and large dams being implemented under the Marcos government are causing ecological imbalance, weakening climate resilience in the Philippines.

In an interactive dialogue, CEC executive director Lia Mai Torres reported that such projects and policies are still in place despite the Philippine government’s declarations supportive of global climate change mitigation programs.

“Aside from the continuation of climate risk projects, Filipino environmental human rights defenders are not optimistic about the prospects of genuine climate action based on the principles of climate justice in the remaining five years of the Marcos Jr. administration, given the 12 cases of killings of environmental advocates and climate activists that have already occurred,” Torres said.

CEC’s intervention in the dialogue highlighted that “while important, addressing climate displacement should not preclude addressing the issues and vulnerabilities that cause displacement and other disastrous impacts of climate change.”

CEC reported that a Philippine government representative in the dialogue said that the Philippines’ disaster risk reduction and management favors interventions related to disaster displacement that are respectful of human rights.

CEC however belied the assertion, pointing out that there are no existing policy instruments in the Philippines, like many countries, that directly address climate change-induced migration.

“We are ill-equipped and poorly prepared to face internal migrations and disruptions due to climate change, much less the possible influx of climate refugees from neighboring countries.”

The dialogue entitled “Providing legal options to protect the human rights of persons displaced across international borders due to climate change” had UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change Ian Fry and Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions Morris Tindall-Binz in attendance.

The dialogue was an event in the ongoing 53rd Regular Session of the UN Human Rights Council at the Palais des Nations in the Swiss city.

A report presented at the dialogue said that 38 million people worldwide have been displaced from their homes in 2021 while 22.3 million people were displaced by weather-related events in the same year.

Among the conclusions of the dialogue was that “the Paris Agreement should develop funding arrangements to assist persons displaced across international borders due to climate change to address their vulnerabilities.”

The CEC called on fellow Filipinos and the international community to keep a watchful eye on the Marcos Jr. administration and continue ensuring ecological balance is achieved by preventing environmentally damaging and destructive activities.

“[The Philippines must be] gearing away from false climate solutions, shifting away from the neoliberal model that facilitates the hyper-extraction by foreign interests of our natural resources, and addressing systematic inequality and poverty that strips away our capacity to adapt to climate disasters,” Torres said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Rights defenders at UN: Violations continue amid worsening economic crisis in PH

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Filipino rights defenders urged the United Nations (UN) anew to investigate violations in the Philippines at the ongoing 53rd Human Rights Council (HRC) meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.

Representatives of organizations Center for Environmental Concerns, Coalition for People’s Rights to Health, Council for Health and Development, IBON Foundation, Kilusang Mayo Uno and the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) said abuses and lack of accountability are continuing under the year-old Ferdinand Marcos Jr. presidency.

The human rights violations are happening amid worsening economic crisis, the groups that are part of the Philippine Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Network said.

The organizations reported it participated in interactive dialogues with UN Special Rapporteurs reporting before the UN HRC on the issues of physical and mental health, protection and promotion of human rights in the context of climate change, and the independence of judges and lawyers.

NUPL chairperson Edre Olalia (left) in a side event at the United Nations Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. (Supplied photo)

They added they have talked to other UN experts, working group members and their representatives, including those on enforced disappearances; extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; peaceful assembly and of association; independence of judges and lawyers; climate change; right to food; business and human rights; and on leprosy.

“Beyond the optics and rhetoric of the Marcos Jr. administration, we come once again to the UN to hold power to account by presenting our data and recommendations,” NUPL chairperson Edre Olalia said.

Olalia added that their reports can serve as an alternative to State-backed narratives on the rights of the Filipino people.

In March, Philippine government representatives formally accepted select recommendations made by UN HRC member states at the 4th cycle of the UPR of the country’s human rights record held last November.

The Philippine UPR Watch said that there is lack of progress on civil and political rights violations in the country, adding there remains the absence of significant measures to address “deeply-rooted problems.”

The groups said these include problems on wages and job-security, precarious and hazardous work, poverty and inequality, ill health and poor services, and environmental distress and climate change.

“By failing to install robust mechanisms and staunch guardrails to respect, protect and fulfil human rights in the Philippines, those who raise dissent or dare challenge State narratives face harassment, intimidation, red-tagging, surveillance, or death,” the delegation said in a statement.

“The lives of countless workers, lawyers, judges, health workers, environment defenders, and development workers are senselessly taken, and basic democratic rights are continuously attacked with impunity,” Olalia further explained.

The human rights lawyers however said these fuel their resolve to tirelessly make their voices heard by the international community and to ask them to investigate injustices in the Philippines.

The 53rd Regular Session of the UN HRC is ongoing from June 19 to July 14. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

No justice for lots of victims

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Abduction and enforced disappearance survivor to the United Nations:

“I believe that this will still be a tough struggle, especially with the worsening case of impunity, [There is] no justice to a lot of human rights violations victims. But we are still hopeful a lot of people in the Philippines are still taking the risk, who are still standing up and fighting for justice.”–April Dyan Gumanao, Alliance of Concerned Teachers Region 7 coordinator

(Image by Jo Maois D. Mamangun)

Church worker in UN reveals continuing rights violations in the PH

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GENEVA, Switzerland–A protestant church worker revealed continuing human rights violations in the Philippines under the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. government at the ongoing United Nations Human Rights Council (UN HRC) in this city.

National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) program secretary for Faith, Witness and Service Mervin Sol Toquero reported before the international body that there had been 223 drug-related killings since July 2022, the start of the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. administration.

“There is very minimal accountability for perpetrators since the time of President Rodrigo Duterte,” Toquero said.

Toquero said they are alarmed that human rights defenders, including church people and humanitarian workers, are also targeted under the country’s anti-terrorism and related laws.

He cited the case of United Methodist Church minister Glofie Baluntong who had been “falsely accused” of attempted murder as well as charged under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

He also mentioned the case of NCCP staff member and land and environment defender Peti Enriquez who has been charged for alleged violations of the International Humanitarian Law.

The Philippine government mission was absent at the Council session when Toquero spoke,

Toquero appealed to the UNHRC to call on the Philippine government to enact the Human Rights Defenders Bill pending before the Philippine Congress.

The Human Rights Committee of the House of Representatives has recently approved the measure for the third time in two decades but is yet to be approved by its plenary and the Senate.

Toquero also asked the UN to call on the Philippine government to repeal the Anti-Terrorism Act “as it endangers human rights defenders.” 

“Relatedly, we ask this Council to continue urging the Philippine Government to cooperate with the ICC (International Criminal Court) as this would provide viable accountability mechanisms and combat impunity,” Toquero said.

The Philippine UPR Watch is participating in the ongoing 52nd Regular Session of the UN HRC’s adoptions of the recommendations made during the 4th UPR on the Philippines last November.

The Philippine government is expected to accept 215 of the 289 recommendations by UN member states, choosing however to reject substantial proposals such as rejoining the International Criminal Court, putting a stop to red-tagging and repeal of laws that are “weaponized” against rights defenders, church workers, journalists such as the Anti-Terrorism Act and Libel/Cyber-Libel.

The NCCP is a co-convenor of the Philippine UPR Watch. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

UN slams PH gov’t for failing to protect ‘comfort women’

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The Philippines failed to redress continuous discrimination and suffering of sexual slavery victims perpetrated by Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, the United Nations (UN) women’s rights committee reported on international women’s day, March 8.

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) based in Geneva, Switzerland in a decision said the country’s failure to fight for justice for the victims had essentially resulted in ongoing discrimination against them that continues to this day, nearly seven decades since the war ended in 1945.

CEDAW issued the decision after examining a complaint filed by 24 Filipina nationals, commonly known as “comfort women”, asking the Philippine government to support their claims against Japan for reparations for their suffering from sexual slavery in the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army.

CEDAW member Marion Bethel said the decision is a symbolic moment of victory for the victims who were previously silenced, ignored, written off and erased from history in the Philippines.

 “The committee’s views pave the way for restoring their dignity, integrity, reputation and honour,” Bethel said.

The complainants, members of Malaya Lolas (Free Grandmothers), an organization of sexual slavery survivors and supporters, testified that on November 23, 1944, they were taken to an old mansion called “Bahay na Pula” (Red House) in San Ildefonso in Bulacan province where there were repeatedly raped, tortured and subjected to inhumane conditions for up to three weeks.   

“They have since then endured long-term physical, psychological, social and economic consequences, including physical injuries, post-traumatic stress, permanent damage to their reproductive capacity and harm to their social relationships in their community, marriage and work,” CEDAW said in a news release.

They asserted that they had consistently raised their claims at the domestic level, requesting that the Government of the Philippines espouse their claims and their right to reparations against the Government of Japan, the committee reported.

Their repeated efforts, however, were dismissed by authorities, with their last action turned down by the Supreme Court in 2014. The Philippine government has always maintained that it is not in a position to claim compensation from Japan after ratifying the Treaty of Peace with Japan in 1956, it added.

In 2019, the victims then brought their case to the committee, seeking to establish the responsibility of the State party to fulfill its commitments under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in supporting the non-discrimination of women and girls on its territory.

The committee noted that the Philippines had waived its right to compensation by signing the Treaty of Peace with Japan.

It observed that the Philippine Commission on Women had not addressed the institutionalized system of wartime sexual slavery, its consequences for victims and survivors or their protection needs.

In contrast, Philippine war veterans, who are mostly men, are entitled to special and esteemed treatment from the Government, such as educational benefits, health-care benefits, old age, disability and death pensions.

The comfort women’s case is one of continuous discrimination, CEDAW asserted.

Given the extreme severity of gender-based violence suffered by the victims, and the continuing discrimination against them regarding restitution, compensation and rehabilitation, CEDAW concluded that the Philippines had breached its obligations under the Convention.

In particular, the Committee found that the State party had failed to adopt appropriate legislative and other measures to prohibit all discrimination against women and protect women’s rights on an equal basis with men.

The Committee requested that the Philippines provide the victims full reparation, including material compensation and an official apology for the continuing discrimination.

“This case demonstrates that minimizing or ignoring sexual violence against women and girls in war and conflict situations is, indeed, another egregious form of violation of women’s rights. We hope that the committee’s decision serves to restore human dignity for all of the victims, both deceased and living,” Bethel said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Pinoy NGO wins big in global indigenous peoples’ award

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A Filipino renewable energy program won a prestigious international award for indigenous peoples given by a United Nations (UN) agency in Rome, Italy on Thursday, February 9.

Sibol ng Agham at Teknolohiya’s (SIBAT) Community Based Renewable Energy Systems (CBRES) program won the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)’s Best Performing Non-IFAD-Funded Project Award on the occasion of the agency’s 6th global meeting in the said city.

SIBAT is honored for bringing electricity to 1,684 indigenous households in the Cordillera region through community-managed hydroelectric power generation systems.

An indigenous livelihood protection project in Bolivia and an agro-forestry for children’s food security initiative in Cameroon were also honored by the UN special agency in its forum themed “Indigenous Peoples’ Climate Leadership: Community-based solutions to enhance resilience and biodiversity.”

IFAD said SIBAT’s CBRES project has brought clean energy to homes, schools, and health facilities across the mountainous region in northern Philippines as well as fostering rural businesses, like rice and corn mills that help build livelihoods and food security while being sustainable.

“The project is designed using the principles of free, prior and informed consent through which indigenous peoples participate fully and effectively in decision-making processes that affect them. It brings together communities to oversee and operate the power system and set tariffs collectively. Older community members and persons with disabilities oversee and guide the project according to customary laws,” IFAD said.

An indigenous community setting up its micro-hydro power plant with the help of SIBAT. (SIBAT photo)

Indigenous development worker

Present to receive the award is SIBAT technician Glendo Gayed, himself an indigenous person of the Banao tribe of Malibcong, Abra.

“I saw the difficulty of not having electricity in many areas. That is why I took the job as a technician at SIBAT:  to help provide electricity in remote communities,” Gayed said.

He explained that through the project, indigenous peoples in the Cordilleras are adapting and building resilience to climate change, while conserving the watersheds, rivers and waterfalls of their ancestral domain.

“The thing I like most about SIBAT is that we don’t only provide electricity; we help the environment,” Gayed said.

SIBAT executive director Estrella Catarata, also in Rome for the forum and awarding ceremony, said there are 15 micro-hydro power systems in operation under their CBRES program that either operate 24/7 or eight to 12 hours daily in the minimum.

The systems also operate 15 rice mills, a corn mill and several sugar cane processing machines in most of the communities they assist.

Catarata said a key factor in their program’s success is their strong partnership with indigenous peoples communities and local people’s organizations.

Catarata added that their adherence to project principles such as ecological soundness and environmental sustainability, community ownership and collective management, social justice and environmental stewardship, scientific and innovative collaborations, viability and sustainability as well as gender and cultural sensitivity sustain the program.

“We thank the IFAD for this recognition as we continue to commit ourselves to contribute in the overall efforts at mitigating the impact of the global climate change crisis we are facing today,” Catarata said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Groups denounce Remulla’s red-tagging justification before UN

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A network of church and human rights groups condemned justice secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla’s justification of government’s red-tagging of critics before the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC), saying the practice is against the values of a democratic and civilized society.

The Philippine Universal Periodic Review Watch said they take strong exception to Remulla’s remark at the 136th session of the UNHRC in Geneva, Switzerland last Tuesday that red-tagging is “part of democracy.”

“It’s par for the course. If you can dish it out, you should be able to take it,” Remulla said.

“That, for me, is probably the essence of democracy. Are we not allowed to criticize our critics too? Is it a one-way street?” he added.

But the Philippine UPR Watch pointed out that Remulla made his remarks just as the UNHRC is discussing the dangers of red-tagging on the lives of people who raise legitimate issues on government policy.

“His remarks, while a brazen official admission of the practice, do not only encourage and normalize red-tagging but also brandish it as an institutionalized and orchestrated method of the government in dealing with perceived political critics,” Philippine UPR Watch said.

“Redtagging especially of State forces and their adjuncts has dire consequences on persons, families, organizations and communities,” the network said.

The network revealed that there were 801 political prisoners as well 442 human rights defenders who became victims of extra-judicial killings at the end of the Rodrigo Duterte government, most, if not all, were red tagging victims.

In Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s first 100 days in office, there have been 10 civilians killed while four have been abducted and forcibly disappeared, the network reported. At least 37 have been arbitrarily arrested and detained, it added.

 “Feigning ignorance on these consequences and packaging these threats as mere exercise of freedom of expression are clear signals of a policy of tolerance for human rights violations and impunity,” the network said.

Red tagging explained, again

Former UN special rapporteur Phillip Alston first called the world’s attention on the practice of red tagging by the Philippine government in 2007, describing it as a classification of a wide range of groups – including human rights advocates, labour union organizations, journalists,
teachers, unions, women’s groups, indigenous organizations, religious groups, student
groups, agrarian reform advocates and others –as ‘fronts’ and then as
enemies of the State’ that are accordingly considered to be legitimate targets.”

The practice is a continuation of the McCarthyist red-baiting strategy in the 1950s employed against United States of America government critics.

At least one Philippine Supreme Court Associate Justice, Marvic Leonen, has opined that red-tagging causes human rights violations.

“To make it easy for military and paramilitary units to silence or cause untold human rights abuses on vocal dissenters, government agents usually resort to stereotyping or caricaturing individuals. This is accomplished by providing witnesses who, under coercive and intimidating conditions, identify the leaders of organizations critical of the administration as masterminds of ordinary criminal acts. Not only does this make these leaders’ lives and liberties vulnerable, a chilling effect on dissent is also generated among similar-minded individuals,” Justice Leonen wrote.

In March 2021, then Senator Franklin Drilon proposed a law defining and penalizing red-tagging as “State’s malicious labeling and stereotyping of individuals or groups as communists or terrorists. It has not been passed.

Standing ground

Following Remulla’s apparent admission of the practice, the Philippine UPR Watch called on members of the UNHRC to further denounce government’s red-tagging.

The network also voiced fears that justice for victims of red-tagging will remain elusive and human rights violations continue during the Marcos government as under the past Duterte regime.

“[W]ith an administration that has not indicated any commitment, sincerity and political will to commit to justice and accountability, it is imperative to hold our ground, push back and demand for the protection of our rights,” the network said.

Philippine UPR Watch representatives are set to travel to Geneva in November to personally deliver their statements before the UNHRC assembly. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

PH among countries that persecute rights defenders—UN

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Human rights defenders in the Philippines face reprisals and intimidation for cooperating with the United Nations (UN) on human rights, a new report reveals.

 In an annual report presented Sunday, September 25, the office of the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said reprisals against human rights defenders may have even intensified despite the coronavirus pandemic.

“In March 2020, multiple statements were delivered by Government officials accusing civil society organizations engaging at the Human Rights Council of ‘masquerading as defenders of human rights,’ channelling ‘funding support … towards actors professing terrorism,’ and serving ‘hidden agendas of deceit and violence on the ground,’” the report says.

The report added that in June 2019, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) learned that a current member of the Philippine government-affiliated Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women had reprimanded Philippine civil society present at a Council meeting.

The report also mentioned former Senator Leila de Lima, the group Karapatan Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights and its secretary general Cristina Palabay as among those who face reprisals from the government.

De Lima had been in jail for nearly six years for alleged drug trafficking but is considered as the Philippines’ most prominent political prisoner by a large portion of the international community.  

Karapatan, the country’s biggest and most active human rights group, meanwhile suffer continuing red-tagging by the Philippine military, police and counter-insurgency groups.

Palabay has been slapped with criminal charges and arrest warrants the Philippine National Police (PNP) once tried to serve with arresting officers in disguise, a violation of its own procedures.

The UN said it has already called upon the Philippine government as early as June 2019 to cooperate with the OHCHR and the Council’s mechanisms, including restraining itself from intimidation or retaliation.

“The High Commissioner called on the Government to ensure that there were no reprisals for cooperation with OHCHR for her Council-mandated report,” it says.

The report covers May 1, 2021 to April 30, 2022.

Red-tagging as threat

The report’s first annex described the government’s red-tagging activities—labelling individuals and groups as communists or terrorists—as a persistent and powerful threat to civil society and freedom of expression.

It noted Philippine government’s response to UN’s concern by stressing the OHCHR’s data gathering and analysis methodology needs to be more transparent and should take into account so-called local political context.

The report said the Philippine government instead alleged that the “vibrant civil society in the country which is exploited by terrorist organizations purporting to be ‘human rights defenders,’ who are able to access funding to serve violent agendas in communities on the ground.”

It added that the Philippine government statement that it has no policy of censoring, interfering with, or monitoring the activities of independent human rights experts, human rights defenders, and civil society actors.

The UN however mentioned other forms of reprisals against human rights workers deemed critical of the Philippine government, such as the public stigmatization and calling for the resignation of the late Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Chairperson Chito Gascon.

The OHCHR also said it received information that the CHR continued to be the target of threats, intimidation and public questioning, given its engagement with the UN.

It also mentioned about the killing of at least two Karapatan members and the barrage of text messages to Palabay threatening death and rape from accounts of the PNP, the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict.

“Despite positive developments, including pledges and shared commitments by Member States against reprisals, this report once again shows the extent to which people are pursued and persecuted for raising human rights concerns with the UN. And we know that, shocking though this number is, many cases of reprisals are not even reported,” Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ilze Brands Kehris said.

 “The risks affecting women victims, as well as women human rights defenders and peace builders, who share testimony and cooperate with the UN remain daunting.  We will continue to work to ensure that all can safely engage with the UN,” Kehris stressed as she presented the report to the Council in Geneva.

Aside from the Philippines, the other 41 States referred to in the report are:

Afghanistan, Andorra, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Brazil, Burundi, Cameroon, China,  Cuba, Cyprus, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Israel, Kazakhstan, Laos People’s Democratic Republic, Libya, Maldives, Mali, Mexico, Morocco, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, State of Palestine, Thailand, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Viet Nam, and Yemen. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Will the UN Decade of Family Farming solve lack of land among poor Filipino farmers?

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The Philippine government since 2019 has participated in global discussions for the crafting of national action plans for the support of family farming. Led by the Department of Agriculture and with the participation of multi-stakeholder partners, the Philippine National Action Plan for the support of family farming was announced by the agency in May and formally launched in July of 2021. The Philippines is one of the first three countries in the entire Asia-Pacific Region with an approved National Action Plan, along with Nepal and Indonesia.

Kodao Productions has been tasked by Communication Development Asia and the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters-Asia Pacific in behalf of the Food and Agriculture of the United Nations to produce these two radio magazines (in Filipino and English) in line with this global program. It asks, “Will the Decade of Family Farming solve the most basic problem of Filipino farmers: lack of land?”

Filipino version
English version