NEWS STORIES BY AND ABOUT IID

The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines has committed to call for a National Consultation among business leaders, non-government organizations, and religious leaders to discuss the peace agenda for Mindanao.

This developed as the diplomatic community also committed to help find “models” that could possibly help break the impasse in the peace negotiations between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

The Mindanao lobby group that went to Malacanang today to appeal to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to “exhaust all means and exercise more political will” to bring back the government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) peace talks to its track have agreed to target in their campaign those who have misgivings on the ancestral domain issue that caused the impasse in the negotiation.

“This is our government’s worst kind of Filipino hospitality—that it should demolish the houses of the poor people just because we have foreign visitors coming by December. By doing so, the Philippines betrays the vision of the ASEAN which is to build a sharing and caring Asean community,”said Gus Miclat, executive director of the Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID), in reaction to the reports of demolition of houses in Cebu City in preparation for the 12th Asean Summit in December.

“Including Burma in the UNSC agenda is indeed a major victory for the International democratic community and civil society movements who have been campaigning for the return of democracy in Burma for so many years now. But let us not be complacent. What we have won is just a single battle in this tedious war against the illegal regime in Rangoon.”

AT A TIME Timor-Leste has just emerged from socio-political turmoil that threatened its fledgling democratic institutions, a Davao-based advocacy and solidarity organization will co-anchor a four-day solidarity and democracy mission to the world’s youngest nation. The mission is set on 27 – 30 August 2006.