Tambuling Batangas Publication May 02-08, 2018 Issue | Page 8

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Public school teachers storm Palace to press
for pay hike
“Even the Duterte regime could
not deny that working people,
including teachers, badly need
economic relief. But we cannot
fill our families’ stomachs with
Duterte’s pompous talk and
empty recognition.”
By ANNE MARXZE D. UMIL
MANILA – Public school
teachers led by the Alliance
of Concerned Teachers (ACT)
stormed Malacanang Palace Gate
6 today, April 27 and slammed
President Duterte’s failure to heed
their long time call for substantial
salary increase for government
employees.

This, following the
recent Pulse Asia survey showing
that Filipinos are now becoming
concerned about pay hike.

“Salary increase is a
highly sensitive issue for teachers
and it is abominable how the
Duterte regime has first played
around with, then turned a deaf
ear to our urgent call for economic
relief,” said Raymond Basilio,
ACT
Philippines
secretary
general, referring to Duterte’s
campaign promise for salary hike
for teachers, which up to now is
still unfulfilled.

The group said the
salary increase issue today is
urgent due to the continuing
increases in prices of basic
commodities resulting from
the implementation of the Tax
Reform for Acceleration and
Inclusion (TRAIN) law.

“The urgency for salary
increase has doubled since the
implementation of the TRAIN
Law in January 2018. Teachers
are already 80 percent deep in
debt last year,” said Basilio.

He criticized Duterte for
Sundan sa pahina 6..
PH to participate in global
architecture, arts event
MANILA-- The Philippines,
will once again, participate
in the 16th International
Architecture Exhibition of
La Biennale di Venezia that
will take place from May 26
to November 25, 2018 at the
Giardini and the Arsenale and
around other venues in Venice,
Italy.

Following the call
for examining an idea of
“Freespace” by the Biennale
curators Yvonne Farell and
Shelley
McNamara,
the
Philippine Pavilion seeks to
interrogate architecture and
urbanism’s ability to empower
and transform people’s lives.
“Freespace” or “Pookginhawa”
in the Philippine context
underscores the strategies by
which Filipinos use the built
environment as modes of
resistance and appropriation to
an ever-changing world.

With a curatorial
concept by Associate Professor
Edson Cabalfin titled, “The
City Who Had Two Navels,”
the idea “confronts the tension
between the vicissitudes of
the past and the challenges of
constructing
contemporary
identity.”

The Philippine Arts
in Venice Biennale (PAVB),
composed of the National
Commission for Culture and the
Arts (NCCA), the Department
of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and
the Office of Senator Loren
Legarda, selected his proposal,
and through collaborative
undertaking, were responsible
for the country’s participation.
National Artist for Literature
Virgilio
Almario,
who
chairs the NCAA, is the
Commissionaire
of
the
Philippine Pavilion.
According
to
Cabalfin,
the
inspiration
came from Filipino National
Artist for Literature Nick
Joaquin’s novel “The Woman
Who Had Two Navels” and
will highlight two navels in
constant dialogue—first, the
forces of colonialism and its
impacts on the formation of the
built environment, and second,
neoliberalism and how it has
altered the urban landscape.

“The
City
Who
Had Two Navels was a
critical response to Joaquin’s
important
literary
work
and celebration of his birth
centennial,” Cabalfin said.

“The intersection of
these two ‘navels’ represents an
emergent wave of postcolonial
Sundan sa pahina 6..
Public school teachers led by the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT)
Gabriela condemns govt’s
removal of comfort woman statue
By
RAYMUND
VILLANUEVA
Kodao Productions
MANILA — Women’s group
Gabriela strongly condemned
the removal of the comfort
woman statue along Roxas
Boulevard
in
Manila
Friday, saying the move is
a desecration of Filipino
women’s dignity.
Blaming
Japan
and the Rodrigo Duterte
government for the statue’s
removal, the group said the
move casts a foul insult on
hundreds of victims of sex
slavery during the Japanese
Imperial Army’s occupation
of the Philippines in World
War II.
Despite opposition from
women’s rights advocates,
historians and other sectors,
“Japan once again succeeded
in imposing its revisionist take
on WW II on puppet regimes
like the Duterte regime,”
Gabriela in a statement said.
Groups
and
personalities are still trying
to find out who ordered the
removal, seeking explanations
from both the Department of
Public Works and Highways
and the City Government of
Manila.
Lawyer
Dennis
Gorecho, a volunteer during
the statue’s erection and
unveiling
near
Manila
Bay’s breakwater, said the
statue was installed with the
blessings of the National
Historical Institute and should
be considered a historical
landmark and monument
protected under Republic Act
No. 10066, otherwise known
as the National Cultural
Heritage Act of 2009.

The law protects the
statue against prohibited acts
such as intentional destruction,
demolition,
mutilation,
damage, modification, and
alteration, Gorecho explained.
Gorecho
added
construction and real estate
development in any national
shrine, monument, landmark
and other historic edifices
and structures, declared,
classified, and marked by the
National Historical Institute
as such, are prohibited
without the prior written
permission from the National
Historical Commission of the
Philippines (NHCP).

This includes the
designated security or buffer
zone, extending five meters
from the visible perimeter of
the monument or site.

An image posted on
Gorecho’s Facebook account
however showed a backhoe
machine operating near the
statue. In the lower part of
the image, the statue could no
longer be seen.

Lila Pilipina, the
organization
of
women
sexually enslaved by the
Japanese Imperial Army,
Tulay Foundation, a group
whose members belong to
Manila’s
Chinese-Filipino
community victimized by
Japanese atrocities during
the war, and other groups and
individuals spearheaded the
construction and installation
of the statue.

It was unveiled last
December 8 with NHCP
executive director Ludovico
Badoy in attendance, along
with Gabriela, and others
groups and personalities.
Similar
“comfort
women” statues were earlier
erected in Korea, Australia,
Canada,
Germany,
San
Francisco and New Jersey,
USA.