Press Release
May 11, 2009

Press statement of Sen. Loren Legarda

ON UN HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

The government must pay full attention to the report of Philip Alston to the UN Human Rights council that its policy is at the root of the unprecedented number of extrajudicial killings of activists and journalists in our country. Alston said that this was the order of the President to the military to end the communist insurgency by 2010 "once and for all".

To the military this order meant that the government has closed all doors to peaceful negotiations with the CPP-NDF-NPA and that the only option left was that of armed force. Also the unrealistically short deadline given by the Palace to the military to end the insurgency, now barely a year away, prods the military to resort to short cuts to get the job done as ordered by the commander-in-chief.

But the communist insurgency has gone on for more than 50 years. This shows that armed force alone will not solve the rebellion. It is true the CCP-NPA has refused to go to the negotiating table unless the United States strikes it off the list of terrorist organizations. But this should not prevent our government from keeping the door open for talks. At the same time, genuine reforms could undermine the insurgent movement, depriving it of public support, like draining the water to neutralize the fish.

ON SWINE FLU

The deaths of two more persons due to swine flu in the United States and

Costa Rica, bringing the global toll to 53, should tell our health authorities not to relax their guard against the possible entry of the virus to our country. We have been lucky so far that the deadly H1N1 virus has not yet come to the Philippines, but the danger of a pandemic, as warned by the World Health Organization, reaching our shores should not be discounted.

I therefore appeal to our health authorities, as well officials in the Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Immigration and ports of entry, like the NAIA, to continue exercising maximum measures to prevent the pandemic from sweeping our country. We must remember that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

ON OFWs

The report of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration that the deployment of land-based Overseas Filipino Workers has dropped by 30 percent from 2007 to 2008 should send a message to our government that the era of relying on foreign employment has come to an end. This phenomenon might be due to the current global recession, but even if the world economy recovers, it is doubtful that the Western industrial countries and the Middle East would be as open to foreign employment as they were before.

This is because the recession has also caused greater unemployment in the United States and Europe, and caused the oil-rich countries in the Middle East to cut down on their spending. The tendency for the industrial countries would be to first guarantee employment to their own citizens at the expense of foreign workers, and for the Middle East to moderate its construction spree.

Our succeeding governments after the 2010 elect must therefore be ready with a plan to stimulate, expand and diversify our economy so that it could create more jobs for the unemployed, especially for the thousands of graduates we churn out every year. The strategy of depending on foreign markets for employment has its downsides, like unacceptable social costs and the brain drain that harm our economy and induce instability.

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