NEWS STORIES BY AND ABOUT IID
News ArchiveJapan’s Peace Boat visits the Philippines; Filipinos show support and solidarity
With loud applauses, drumbeats and chants of Gambare Nippon! (Don’t Give Up Japan!), around 300 members of various solidarity groups that include non-government organizations, peace groups and other people’s movements in the Philippines today welcomed the delegates of...
Davao-based regional NGO launches relief campaign for Japan
The Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID) is urging its partner civil society organizations (CSOs) and communities especially in Mindanao to support the Japan relief drive it is coordinating with the Japanese NGO, Peace Boat. The campaign features the call for...
Peacebuilders exchange cross-cultural stories of peace and reconciliation
On Friday, September 17, 2010 Gareth Porter and Sonja Tammen, representatives from Northern Ireland peace organizations HURT and Corrymeela, respectively, joined with representatives of the Mindanao Peaceweavers, including staff from Initiatives for International...
Presidential candidates to bare Mindanao agenda
On April 16, 2010 at least five presidential candidates will bare their Mindanao agenda before an audience composed of more than 5,000 representatives of the religious, civil society, youth, and business organizations united by a vision to foster peace and development in Mindanao here in Davao City.
Presidential candidates will be given 15 minutes to present their plans for the region based on questions that will be taken from key sectoral representatives such as the Moro, indigenous peoples and women.
Right to Know Right Now Campaign Launched in Davao Today
In the Philippines, free access to information is guaranteed by the Constitution – specifically in Article II declaring the policy of State to adopt and implement “a policy of full public disclosure of all its transactions involving public interest”.
The right to information is also a necessary condition for the effective exercise of other rights by the people. However, this is not yet codified by law. The lack of a clear and defining law has helped to ensure denial of access to official information and encouraged graft and corruption which remains widespread across the country.
Mindanao Development Authority: A panacea, finally?
BY RAFAEL R. GOMEZ
When President Arroyo signed into law the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) Act or Republic Act 9996 last month, not a few voices from government burst out in superlatives. Chief of them was Virgilio Leyretana, chair of the Mindanao Economic Development Council (Medco), which was being subsumed under the new MinDA. Leyretana called the occasion “a historic milestone” and “a landmark piece of legislation which will be a legacy of President Arroyo, as well as the Congress and the Senate, to Mindanao.”