IBON Foundation

Day of the Landless: Deepening foreign control over PH farmlands thru financialization

March 31, 2016

Peasant and indigenous people’s groups in the region mark 29 March as the Global Day of the Landless. Initiated by the Asian Peasant Coalition (APC), it highlights the rural communities’ continuing struggle for land. In the Philippines, such struggle remains meaningful amid widespread landlessness still gripping its countryside. Decades of attempts at land reform have […]

Better jobs, better water? Privatization undermines work, water rights–WPN

March 22, 2016

  ​#BeyondElections2016 | ​As International Water Day is celebrated, water right advocacy group Water for the People Network (WPN) reiterates how neoliberal privatization has displaced jobs in the public water sector and led to more expensive water. The United Nations themed this year’s Water Day “Better Water, Better Jobs”. It stated that that 1.5 billion […]

Aquino gov’t borrowing billions for failed anti-poverty program

March 22, 2016

#BeyondElections2016 | The Aquino administration is borrowing more for an anti-poverty program of dubious anti-poverty impact, said research group IBON. Despite billions of pesos spent on the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) since 2011, poverty remains widespread and the program is failing even on its health-related conditionalities. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank in […]

People’s voices shut out: Educators hit SC rejection of petitions vs K-to-12

March 18, 2016

  #BeyondElections2016 | Progressive teachers’ network Education Forum for Development (EfD) said that the Supreme Court ‘s (SC) rejection of petitions to stop the K-to-12 education program is a disservice to Filipinos. The high court turned a deaf ear on the people’s mounting opposition to the program’s ill impacts, said the group. The SC recently […]

Next admin should address deepening jobs crisis–IBON

March 15, 2016

#BeyondElections2016 | Research group IBON warned that the steadily falling labor force participation rate (LFPR) and growing underemployment are signs of underlying problems in the labor market, even as unemployment reportedly fell in January 2016. The next administration will need to reverse the neoliberal policies of the Aquino administration to improve the jobs situation, said the […]

World Consumer Rights Day 2016: #AntibioticsOfftheMenu #SafeFoodForAll

March 15, 2016

IBON Network/ Consumers International/ This World Consumer Rights Day, Consumers International, calls on three major restaurant chains to make global time bound commitments to stop serving meat from animals routinely given antibiotics used in human medicine. Antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to global health facing us today. Around half of the antibiotics produced […]

Mega Dams: Profiteering in Infrastructure

March 14, 2016

“The circa 1970s Laiban dam has been recently revived supposedly to augment Metro Manila’s water supply that other dams cannot provide especially during dry months. Also, the last remaining hydro-electric government facility. Angat dam in Bulacan has been offered to bidders after the sale of Magat, Ambuklao-Binga and Pantabangan-Masiway to big private corporations in previous […]

Filipino women workers worse off under Aquino–IBON

March 8, 2016

The plight of Filipino women workers worsened under Aquino more than one hundred years after the first International Women’s Day was celebrated, said research group IBON. According to the group, the government refuses to significantly raise wages and instead promotes neoliberal policies such as labor flexibilization and contractualization. This has only created further job insecurity and […]

“No home birthing” policy: burden to Filipino mothers

March 8, 2016

A mother in the town of Mansalay, Oriental Mindoro who belongs to the Mangyan tribe recalled how her husband had to pay a penalty at the municipal hall so that he could get their child’s registration of live birth. Meanwhile, another mother in the hinterlands of Eastern Samar had to borrow money to rent a house for […]