Asian Time Zone

Several major offensives by Philippine elite units and US special forces in the region failed to wipe out the ASG. On the contrary: Isnilon Hapilon, a commander of the ASG, was in a good mood in a YouTube video uploaded on July 23, 2014. A $ 5 million bounty is on his arrest. His message: He and his followers profess their support for IS and they vowed to follow it and its leadership without reservation. It seems that Hapilon has consolidated its leadership role in the ASG and in the various groups operating on Basilan and Jolo under this label and is venerated as an emir by its followers. The ASG is not lacking in financial resources, especially since in the past weeks and months it has been kidnapping numerous hostages from Indonesia, Malaysia, Canada,

In addition to the ASG, leading cadres of the Bangsamoro Islamic Liberation Movement (BIFM) and its military arm, the Bangsamoro Islamic Liberation Fighters (BIFF), have signaled support for IS. On August 22, 2014, BIFM spokesman Abu Misry Mama confirmed an alliance between his organization and ISIS based on mobile phones and the Internet.

According to naturegnosis, the turn of the ASG and the BIFM / BIFF to IS is also an affront to the ongoing peace process between the Aquino government and the MILF led by Al-Haj Murad Ebrahim and Mohagher Iqbal, from which the BIFM / BIFF split in 2008. The MILF critics got the upper hand when it took several days of marathon sessions in Davao City in the first half of August 2014 to make “corrections” to the BBL text. They criticized the MILF once again “buckled”. The latter reacted by pointing out that without them and the peace process that had been set in motion the floodgates for hatred and violence in the region would be opened again. President Aquino also favored the adoption of the BBLwhich, however, did not happen during his tenure. A sufficient quorum was not found in Congress, so that a lasting peace treaty solution is still pending. The new President Rodrigo R. Duterte wants to achieve such a solution through constitutional amendment by transforming the existing presidential system into a federal system. Should this request be delayed or even thwarted by “spoilers” (“spoilers”) – especially on the part of the notorious Abu Sayyaf – he threatened them unequivocally in the manner of a Hannibal Lecter. He will then, according to Duterte, “eat the liver of terrorists – seasoned with salt and vinegar.”

Persistent culture of impunity

A leaden legacy of the Marcos era is the persistent human rights violations by police and military in the fight against crime and terrorism (see also the section “Human Rights”). A “culture of impunity”, especially cultivated during the presidency of Ms. Arroyo (January 2001 to the end of June 2010), was partly responsible for the fact that – according to information from Philippine human rights organizations such as Karapatan – almost 1,200 people were executed out of court and 205 People “disappeared without a trace”.) at. The increase in such human rights violations in the course of the fight against global terror, which in the Philippines primarily took place in Mindanao and targeted the Abu Sayyaf and other groups, was noticeable. To date, no progress has been made in the legal prosecution of the perpetrators of the massacre of 58 people on November 23, 2009, including 32 media representatives, in the province of Maguindanao.

During the Aquino era, Lumad (indigenous people) activists and environmental activists were increasingly targeted by state security forces and paramilitary gangs. After Brazil, the Philippines ranks second worldwide in terms of the number of committed eco-activists who have been murdered.

Long-running land reform

The land or agrarian reform is another unsolved problem in the country. As long as this remains unrealized, the breeding ground for rural protest and resistance will continue – a source for the recruitment of the NPA and / or paramilitary groups, which see criminal activities (hostage-taking, ransom extortion, etc.) as income-generating measures. In this context, there is also a phenomenon that has recently caused additional social upheaval in many countries around the world (including the Philippines) – so-called land grabbing, the often illegal or criminal appropriation of land by large groups international corporations with the help of state authorities or actors.

In the metropolitan area and metropolitan area of Manila, major construction and infrastructure projects are planned in the medium term, in the course of which there will be the (forced) relocation of hundreds of squatter settlements. In April 2012, an unusually brutal forced eviction of families in the Silverio grounds of Paranaque resulted in four people being killed and over 30 other people (some seriously) injured. There have also been illegal detentions. In the past, such evictions or resettlements have always meant that the prospect of alternative living space could not be used for the victims, but only by the better off.

According to the Bertelsmann Transformation Index of the Bertelsmann Foundation, the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Bertelsmann Transformation Index also states that the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Bertelsmann Transformation Index has shown that the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Bertelsmann Transformation Index has shown that the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Bertelsmann Transformation Index has shown that the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Bertelsmann Transformation Index Rodrigo R. Duterte needs to be resolved if the country does not want to risk falling further behind the developments in the neighboring countries and becoming the poor house of Southeast Asia.