What’s your development paradigm?

Inour previous issues, we talked about development and growth around areas surrounding this region. The general observations included the designation of other areas as priority for investment, which made some areas like Cebu City experience rapid growth and development. Some areas were targeted for government spending, while some seem to be left behind. One of these areas which is glaringly in the “backwoods” is Cotabato City and its environs. This has been a bone of contention for the separatist movement who points at these deficiencies as their perceived barrier to growth and development.

The word development is a controversial one, especially with the rise of concerns for the poorer sector of society. Development has been synonymous to higher production and better infrastructure, which although provide benefits to the population, usually redound only to those who have access to these benefits – the higher middle class. Humanitarian projects are therefore ignored by the poor due to this. Sociologists have now refocused development not only to the Gross National Product, but should include the increase in income and social status of those who are mired in poverty. Every development project should take into consideration that portion of the poorer society who can rise above their present status and contribute to the national income.

This was recognize by many so that “at the beginning of the 21st century there is the need for a new development paradigm that recognizes that ‘government failure’ is a much more important problem than ‘market failure’. A study came to the conclusion that ‘Privatisation’ of government services by its employees and government’s monopoly of power are the real problems today. The new paradigm must be based on a clear and non-ideological recognition of the strengths and the weakness of the state and the people.”

…..” A democratic society has enormous potential for entrepreneurship, innovation and creative development. The people, their diverse forms of activity and association such as companies, cooperatives, societies, trusts and other NGOs must be allowed and encouraged to play their due role. The state must focus on what only it can do best and shed all activities that the people can do as well or better.”

This is an eye opener to the BARMM which is still in the transition stage. Hopefully, it will hit the right ingredients to cook a better approach to development, that which is more people oriented. The present practice of government which is more distortive of laws, rules, red tape must be removed so as to give more power to the people. The state should confine itself to managing the economy so as to “accelerate employment and income growth in a self-sustaining manner, ensure that all citizens receive their basic entitlements of basic public goods and services and empower the poor so that they have equal rights (and responsibilities) with the better off citizens”. This is clearly the correct way of empowerment specially of women, providing employment that benefits the poor, giving entitlement to those who are been marginalized for so long like the indigenous people. MC

May 5 this year, as it has been since 1993, was celebrated as World Press Freedom Day. The annual celebration was proclaimed as such by the United Nations General Assembly to serve as an occasion to inform citizens of the violations of press freedom. It is also meant to remind governments of their duty to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression enshrined under Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In the Philippines, having a government that is not openly hostile to the press does not mean that the situation for media workers has improved and will continue improving. In a statement issued on the 30th anniversary edition of World Press Freedom Day last May 5, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines said: “we remind ourselves that while there have been victories — in court, with the acquittal of Maria Ressa and Rappler of tax cases, for example — many, far too many of us are still facing threats and that our freedom is still fragile.”

As of April 30, 2023 according to the NUJP, 60 “violations against the free press” have been recorded under the administration of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. – 2 killings, 19 cases of surveillance and verbal harassment, 12 cases of red tagging, 9 cyberlibel and libel cases, 6 death threats, and cases of judicial harassment, denial of coverage, arrests, online attacks and harassment, censorship, cyber-attacks and physical attacks.

On May 5, two days after World Press Freedom Day, NUJP Chairperson Jonathan de Santos and the entire NUJP leadership were red-tagged by Lorraine Badoy, and NTF-ELCAC spokesman Jeffrey Celis during their daily TV show “Laban Kasama ang Bayan,” on SMNI, the broadcasting arm of Pastor Apollo Quiboloy. They claimed that De Santos had been active in the “underground operations” of the communist rebellion in his younger years. The duo also red-tagged his media outfit Philstar.com, former Philippine Daily Inquirer correspondent and former NUJP Chairperson Nestor Burgos, and Rappler.

Days later Badoy once again red-tagged De Santos in a public Facebook post on her personal account, labelling him “an urban operative of the CPP NPA NDF.”

THE Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao effectively keeps security threats off provincial boundaries in Lanao del Sur by constructing the standard Philippine National Police municipal police station (MPS) buildings designed to withstand heavy fire discharges during attacks.

General Allan Nobreza, BARMM Police Regional Office chief, says the Bangsamoro government has completed and turned over seven MPS in different towns of BARMM.

In a statement issued following the redtagging of De Santos and the NUJP leadership, the Commission on Human Rights expressed “grave alarm” on this repeat incidence of redtagging by this SMNI program]. It added: “As we have repeatedly warned, red-tagging exposes the tagged party to intimidation, violence, and unnecessary state surveillance, which directly impede journalists’ human rights, most notably their right to the freedom of opinion, expression and the press.” It also mentioned its CHR Report on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, which said red-tagging has also resulted to the endangerment of the life, liberty, and security of targeted individuals or groups.

The CHR statement said the Commission “reminds the state of its obligation to protect these freedoms as a state party to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both asserting that all people have the right to freedom of expression, opinion, and information through any media. When red-tagging is used to suppress these freedoms, it becomes a tool to shrink civic space. Further, it creates a climate of fear and silence that is not conducive to open exchange of views and ideas, which is essential to a free press that must bring to light legitimate social concerns.”

So while this administration may show no hostility to the press, the tactics and approaches by several of its functionaries against members of the press who do not see things their way or who they perceive to be antagonistic to their agenda or whose views are inconvenient to them, highlight the real situation of press freedom in this country.

As NUJP states, “on World Press Freedom Day and despite all these, we remind ourselves that we will continue to insist on being free.”

Fr.

Chief-Executive-Officer

Eva Kimpo - Tan, Editor-in-Chief

Edwin O. Fernandez, News Editor

Gemma A. Peñaflor, Administration and Marketing Executive

Julito P. Torres, Circulation Officer

Karl John B. Daniel, Graphic-Layout Artist

John

NORTH / SOUTH COTABATO CORRESPONDENTS

Williamor Magbanua, Romer “Bong” Sarmiento & Louige Allan Tutor

CARTOONIST

Lourd Jim Diazon

According to Nobreza, eight more MPS buildings were being constructed and soon will be turned over to the BARMM PRO.

Minister Naguib Sinarimbo of the BARMM Ministry of the Interior and Local Governments (MILF), said the MPS here worth P 6.5 million was built with the modern standard rooftop vantage area designed with the hard concrete walling to effectively repel attacks at the first instance.

It can be recalled that the Marawi City siege in 2017 had snowballed from the takeover of Butig town.

Engineer Abibazar Sali, chief of the Project Management Development Division (PMDD) under Sinarimbo’s office, said similar projects under MILG’s Support to Local Moral Governance (SLMG) Program has funded since 2021 the construction of MPS buildings in Maimbung, Talipao, Northern Kabuntalan, Tandubas, Tawi-Tawi and Hadji Mohammad Ajul in Basilan. Seven more will be built under the 2022 SLMG funds.

Lt Dan Ducot, COP Gen Allan Nobreza chief of police of Amai Manabilang said the town “has positioned itself as one of the most peaceful towns,” adding that the residents—among them, followers of traditional religions and the indigenous people’s coexist peacefully in the town.

Interestingly, the BARMM government is supporting sustainable programs in Pagayawan town including conflict management, the town being the passage way of ISIS-inspired extremists during the Marawi siege in May 2017.

Mayor Khalida Palao Sangila said conflict management program includes a distinct scheme of mandatory imposition of municipal ID System for residents 18 year old and above, in addition to the National ID system.

The lady mayor said madaris or Arabic schools in her town are usually “sanitized” from lessons possibly “imported” in from the Afghanistan experience which breeds extremism.

She said the same khutba or sermons are delivered in the town’s mosques during the Friday Muslim congregation. This, she said, is to protect the town from some foreign ideology that would introduce extremism to the locals.

Sangila says it is a matter of choice in leadership to be firm or the new generation would tend to repeat the same mistakes that their forebears had committed.