News Roundup 09 March 2021
Mar 09, 2021 • 3 min Read
With 2,668 new infections, COVID-19 cases in Philippines cross 600,000 | PHILSTAR.COM – Coronavirus infections in the Philippines climbed past 600,000 Tuesday after the Department of Health reported 2,668 additional cases. Nearly a year since the government first imposed lockdowns, the country’s caseload reached 600,428. Of these, 41,822, or 7%, are active cases. This is the first time in five days that the country reported fewer than 3,000 additional cases. The department also announced that 171 more patients recovered from the disease, pushing total recoveries to 546,078. Meanwhile, seven new deaths related to COVID-19 were logged, raising the fatality count to 12,528.
Killings should not be normal, Robredo says after death of Calbayog mayor | PHILSTAR.COM – Killings should not be normal, Vice President Leni Robredo said Tuesday as she condemned the fatal shooting of Calbayog, Samar Mayor Ronaldo Aquino. “It should not be treated as normal that mayors, community organizers, lawyers, judges, journalists, children, and even victims of the drug trade are outright murdered in our streets or in their homes,” Robredo said in a statement. She said that if the country were not at a time when most have become numb to violence and killings, the shooting of Aquino would have hogged the headlines. “I pray and call for our country to wake up. This killing is not normal,” Robredo said in Filipino.
UN ‘appalled’ by killing of 9 activists in Philippines | INQUIRER.NET –Geneva, Switzerland — The United Nations said Tuesday it was “appalled” by the apparent arbitrary killing of nine activists in the Philippines by security forces targeting alleged communist insurgents. Eight men and one woman were killed as authorities executed search warrants before dawn on Sunday, March 7, the UN rights office said. “We are appalled by the apparently arbitrary killing of nine activists,” Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, told reporters in Geneva. The killings happened in simultaneous police and military operations in the Batangas, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal provinces surrounding Manila. The spokeswoman said that among those killed were labor rights, fishing community, housing, and indigenous rights activists, while six people were reportedly arrested. The Philippine government told the UN rights office that the operation was part of its counter-insurgency campaign against the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist party. “We are deeply worried that these latest killings indicate an escalation in violence, intimidation, harassment, and ‘Red-tagging’ of human rights defenders,” said Shamdasani. “Red-tagging” means being accused of being a front for the NPA. UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet’s June 2020 report on the Philippines said there was a serious lack of due process in police operations and near-total impunity for the use of lethal force by the police and the military.
VP Leni slams Calbayog mayor’s slay, calls for ‘clean and independent’ probe | Manila Bulletin – The killing of Calbayog City Mayor Ronaldo Aquino should be a wake-up call to the country, Vice President Leni Robredo said on Tuesday, March 9, as she called for an investigation to bring the perpetrators to justice. Robredo, an outspoken critic of the administration, lamented the people have become desensitized to the culture of impunity and violence in the Philippines. “Hindi normal ang pagpaslang na ito (This killing is not normal). It should not be treated as normal that mayors, community organizers, lawyers, judges, journalists, children, and even victims of the drug trade are outright murdered in our streets or in their homes,” she said in a statement. “We must connect the dots between these gruesome deaths and see the web that enables and emboldens these killings: Impunity, the normalization and incitement of violence, and the kill, kill, kill rhetoric coming from the highest offices,” Robredo added. The vice president noted the death of Aquino came a day after the bloody raids by the police in Calabarzon that left at least nine activists dead and six others arrested. Aquino was reportedly on his way to the birthday celebration of his son last Monday, March 8, when he was killed by unidentified gunmen in Barangay Lonoy.
Photo: Mt Pulag, Benguet, Philippines
Photo Source: By Benedict Kwok – Benedict Kwok, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3776990
