Compostela Valley Province -— The next wave of Compostela Valley’s advocacy for the poorest of the poor came to Pantukan as it holds its Gawad Kalinga Partners forum at Magnaga Waters Beach Resort, Pantukan on  June 10.  A total of 45 houses were initially pledged by the GK partners  in preparation for the soon to [...]

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/24 May) – The Mansaka tribe in Pantukan town, Compostela Valley would be the country’s pilot community in a government housing project for indigenous peoples, after Vice President Jejomar Binay asked the municipal government last week to allow the country’s housing program to adapt and pilot the town’s plan to provide housing to [...]

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/28 Apr) – On the second day of their march for justice and land, at least 300 Bagobo K’lata lumads and farmers from sitio Kahusayan in barangay Guianga will spend the night at the Mintal Gym before they proceed to Davao City tomorrow, Friday, protesting against the encroachment of their ancestral land. The [...]

MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews/23 Apr) – Descendants of the Bukidnon tribe’s Datu Mansikiabo-Datu Mampaalong in Malaybalay City have scheduled on April 30 and May 1 a “panendan” or a ritual to commemorate the historic landmark of the traditional peace agreements at the headwaters of Tagoloan River. The ritual will be held in a traditional gathering or [...]

KORONADAL CITY (MindaNews/28 Apr) – There will be no welcome news of any wage increases for workers in Regions 9 and 12 on Labor Day, May 1. Despite the high prices of petroleum products and some basic commodities, the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Boards (RTWPB) in both regions said there will be no wage [...]

DAVAO CITY – A proposed bill creating Southern Palawan Special Economic Zone and Free Port Authority gets an endorsement from the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) Board during the 2nd MinDA Board Meeting held here last March 31. House Bill 4363 seeks for the creation the Southern Palawan Special Economic Zone and Free Port (SPSEZ) as [...]

PROVINCIAL CAPITOL, Tuesday 22 March 2011:- Ambassador Harry K. Thomas Jr. of the United States paid a courtesy call on Governor Abdusakur M. Tan at the Office of the Governor at The Capitol today. Ambassador Thomas was joined by Ms Gloria Steele, Mission Director of the USAid in the Philippines and other embassy staff and [...]

Nabunturan, Compostela Valley – Governor Arturo “Chiongkee”  Uy was joined by the municipal mayors and   DepEd Officials led by Regional Director Dr. Susanna Estigoy and GILAS Project Team during the turnover event held at the social hall of the provincial government last March 16, 2011. A multi-sector, multi-stakeholder partnership, GILAS is a nationwide development project [...]

JOLO, SULU, Sunday 13 March 2011:- Secretary of the Interior and Local Government Jesse M. Robredo, in an unannounced visit, flew in today to personally inspect the scene of the March 10, 2011 bomb blast which partially damaged a school and claimed four lives and injured many others. Secretary Robredo was accompanied in his inspection [...]

MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews/10 February) – “Balaghusay,” a depiction of the traditional tribal arbitrator in the Talaandig community and nine other art works by the tribe’s visual artists are featured in the postcards published by Likhang-Lahi last year. Painted by Salima Saway-Agraan, the art work depicts the qualities every balaghusay must possess, according to the description [...]

MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews/3 Feb) – The city council here passed a resolution Tuesday for the city government to put up a separate telephone crisis hotline for women and children. Proposed by Councilor Mya Analene Rosos, who chairs the council’s committee on women and children, the resolution considers the unique needs of women and children in [...]

MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews/30 January) — Instead of just playing indigenous sports as it has been the tradition in the annual Kaamulan Festival, Bukidnon’s indigenous peoples and communities will hold the province’s Tribal Olympics on March 2 to 4. The provincial government here through the Provincial Indigenous Communities Affairs Division (PICAD) in coordination with Bukidnon’s seven [...]

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (MindaNews/20 Jan) – Two persons died, four are still fighting for dear life while 18 others sustained injuries when a fully loaded jeepney collided head-on with a 10-wheeler truck in Barangay Tablon here. The Bugo-bound passenger jeepney with plate no. KNU 981 was loaded with 27 passengers when it rammed into [...]

MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews/12 Jan) – Organizers of this year’s Kaamulan Festival in are changing the rules for the street dancing competition, the festivities’ highlights, so that it will focus on the seven hill tribes of Bukidnon and prevent modifications so as to protect and preserve the province’s true culture. Erlow Talatala, member of the provincial [...]

CAGAYAN DE ORO (MindaNews/12 Jan) – Every Saturday, Mary Grace Barlisan, 18, a second-year education student from Xavier University, wakes up early to prepare for the big day ahead. But Mary Grace is not preparing to spend the day at the malls like other students of her age are planning to do. Nor will she [...]

MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews/12 Jan) – To help avert violence against women in the villages, the Sangguniang Panlalawigan passed a resolution Wednesday urging all the cities, towns, and barangays in the province to establish a barangay desk that will focus on violence against women (VAW). Board member Jay Albarece, a lawyer, said it is meant to [...]

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (MindaNews/06 January) — The post office building along Chavez and Rizal Streets here burned around 2:00 a.m. today and gutted along with it the government-owned telecommunications office at the second floor of the 36-year-old structure. Firefighters declared the fire under control after about two hours. Fire investigators said the post office [...]

KORONADAL CITY (MindaNews/26 December)—The first of the two-tranche daily wage hike for workers in the private sector in Southwestern Mindanao is now officially in effect, top regional Labor department officials said. Ma. Gloria A. Tango, Department of Labor and Employment regional chief, said the second of the two-tiered minimum salary adjustment shall be on April [...]

ILIGAN CITY (MindaNews) – National and local government offices, as well as civil society groups, are bent on fast-tracking the representation of the Higaonon tribe to the city council here, as discussed in a two-day summit that ended Friday in time for the International Human Rights Day. Summit participants discussed how to integrate customary laws [...]

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (MindaNews/05 December) – Complaints of sexual abuse and harassment were filed last week before the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in this city against the publisher of two local dailies. Bobby Goking, president of the Cagayan de Oro Press Club said they have met with the complainants and decided to back [...]

MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews/30 November) – His alleged attackers have turned the table on a broadcaster based in Maramag, Bukidnon who claimed to have been ambushed by them near Dayo Subdivision in Valencia City Saturday. In an affidavit, Rene Saligumba and Pablito Malang said it was Randy Makiputin, an anchor at Radyo Abante in Maramag who [...]

MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews/29 November) – On Saturday, he claimed to have been a victim of an ambush on the same day in Valencia City. But as far as the police are concerned, it was Randy Makiputin, a broadcaster in Maramag town in Bukidnon who shot his alleged attackers. Bukidnon police director Sr. Supt. Nerio Bermudo [...]

GENERAL SANTOS CITY (MindaNews/29 November)—European Union’s top diplomat in the country bemoaned the portrayal of Mindanao as a “land of chaos” despite its economic potentials. Ambassador Alistair H. Macdonald, head of the Delegation of the European Union to the Philippines, stressed there is a lack of awareness about the general condition of Mindanao, known as [...]

DAVAO CITY  (MindaNews/28 November) – An anchor of an entertainment program in a radio station in  Maramag, southern Bukidnon survived an ambush on his way home in neighboring Valencia City shortly after 7 p.m. Friday. Citing police reports, the November 27 alert from the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) said Randy Makiputin [...]

MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews/27 November) — Operatives of the National Bureau of Investigation have arrested a suspect of the slaying of Bukidnon State University instructor Jay Jaspher Santonińo, the chief of police here said. Police S/Supt. Erwin Bayani Meneses said Michael Abellanosa, 19, was captured “somewhere in Impalutao,”  a barangay in Impasug-ong town, on November 26, [...]

In Davao City, a kongko refers to someone who asks favor, oftentimes cash, from sources after an interview. The term, coined in the 1990s, refers to someone who poses as a media person to extort cash from politicians or businessmen.

GENERAL SANTOS CITY (MindaNews/22 Nov) – Families and colleagues of the 32 journalists who were killed in the gruesome Ampatuan Massacre will stage a caravan Tuesday to the carnage’s site in the outskirts of Ampatuan town in Maguindanao province to commemorate its first anniversary. Ricardo Cachuela, chair of the Justice Now! Movement, said hundreds of [...]

Part I: Wrong Time, Wrong Place 1st of three parts By Germelina A. Lacorte / MindaNews DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/22 Nov) — On the evening of November 22, 2009, Santos Gatchalian of the Metro Gazette sent a text message to his wife telling her he would send money the next day after their coverage in Maguindanao. He [...]

KORONADAL CITY (MindaNews/22 November) – Pressure from local politicians and groups involved in syndicated crimes and illegal activities are among the main hazards facing journalists in Mindanao as well as in other parts of the country, participants to the two-day media risk-mapping workshop here that started Sunday said. According to the workshop reports, the pressure [...]

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/22 Nov) – A year after the Ampatuan massacre that killed 58 people, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) hit President Aquino for failing to dismantle private armies which continue to perpetuate the state of impunity in the country. “Five months into his presidency, we have him refusing to dismantle [...]

MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews/22 Nov) – Members of the Bukidnon news media are commemorating the first anniversary of the Ampatuan Massacre with a mass on November 23 starting at 4 a.m. at the San Isidro Cathedral. The Bukidnon commemoration of the killing of 58 people, 32 of them journalists, in the municipality of Ampatuan in Maguindanao [...]

DAVAO CITY (20 November 2010) —  The Ateneo de Zamboanga University (ADZU) on Friday conferred on MindaNews the  ”Ateneo Peace Award”  for “making a marked difference in Journalism and Public Information in the country.” The university also conferred on the Archdiocese of Zamboanga the Archbishop Luis V. Del Rosario SJ, DD Award, the Pro Deo [...]

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (MindaNews/16 Nov) – The Pulangi V hydro electric project and the claim of a sacred burial site of the Manobo ancestors have divided the lumads in southern Bukidnon and North Cotabato and academics in the anthropological community. Supporters of and oppositors to the dam project held separate press conferences here Monday [...]

SAN FRANCISCO, Agusan del Sur (MindaNews/15 November) –  “The Church will stand up for and defend the environment if the Department of Environment and Natural Resoruces  (DENR) cannot,” Butuan Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos said Saturday, after officiating at the mass attended by some 2,000 residents from Rosario, San Francisco and Prosperidad towns in Saturday’s [...]

MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews/13 November) —  The National Museum of the Philippines is set to declare the Apu Mamalu burial ground in Misakil, Damulog, Bukidnon  a national cultural treasure, Sen. Juan Miguel  Zubiri said at the opening program of the three-day general assembly of the Mindanao Association of Museums at the Bukidnon State University. Zubiri was [...]

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/10 November) –  At 39, Lenny, a mother of nine,  has had three induced abortion, the last of  which she did alone at home when she was two months pregnant, using a psycho-active drug whose abortifacient qualities have been discovered by women in recent years. Her husbands’ income was barely enough to answer [...]

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/10 November) – The National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) is  now out of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and back to the Office of the President,  with Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Teresita Quintos-Deles as oversight official. According to a press release from the Office of the Presidential Adviser [...]

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/07 November) —  The Mindanao Media Forum gave its 1st Agong Award to veteran journalist Patricio P. Diaz for his “well-researched and incisive commentaries on events affecting Mindanao and sharing the fundamental rights and problems of the indigenous peoples and the Bangsamoro; how the settles transformed the landscape of Mindanao; and how to [...]

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY — Eight stay-in workers that includes a seven-month pregnant woman died when a commercial establishment was razed by fire at 2 o’clock in the morning Saturday. The fatalities and injured are stay-in workers of the SP Foods Trading in Brgy. Puerto, a highly populated suburban commercial area east of the city. [...]

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/31 October) —  The Senate will heed the United Nations’ committee ruling that held the Philippine government accountable for the controversial dismissal by a local court of the Karen Vertido rape case five years ago, Senator Pia Cayetano said. In a press statement, Cayetano said the Senate Committee on Youth, Women and Family [...]

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/28 Oct) — Ten participants from the town of Esperanza in Agusan del Sur finished the Grassroots Documentation and Reporting Training organized by the Mindanao News and Information Cooperative Center (MNICC) while 12 more are attending the same program in Lianga, Surigao del Sur starting Friday (Oct. 29). The training for Esperanza participants [...]

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/27 Oct) — The country’s largest women alliance has given the Aquino government a failing mark for leaving out Mindanao and women’s issues from its priority agenda. Gabriela Rep. Luz Ilagan said there was no mention about Mindanao and about women in President Aquino’s state-of-the-nation address and in his new administration’s priority agenda. [...]

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/22 October) -  Two members of the Mangudadatu clan have been accused of  allegedly raping a 20-year old student in a downtown dormitory. Datu Naga Mitra Mangudadatu of  Tamnag, Lutayan,  Sultan Kudarat, his cousin, alias Puti, and four bodyguards are respondents in a complaint filed by “Victoria” (not her real name), who alleged [...]

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/15 October) – Lumad leaders of a peace advocacy group have written the chair of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB), complaining that the representation of the Lumads (indigenous peoples) in the primetime telenovela Noah as “non-humans and monkey-like creatures” merely “reinforces the majority of the people’s colonial misconceptions and [...]

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/13 Oct) — Over a thousand workers in the country’s largest oil palm plantation have called off their strike following an “assumption of jurisdiction” order from the government. Elmer Jamero, president of the Filipinas Palm Oil Plantations Workers Union, an affiliate of the National Federation of Labor Unions of the Kilusang Mayo Uno, [...]

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/12 October)—Pro-Life advocates are questioning an August 19 memorandum from the Department of Education here requiring 14-year-old girls in public schools to submit to tetanus toxoid vaccination. Retired Judge Melchor Quitain questioned a memorandum signed by Helen D. Paguican, DepEd schools division superintendent, asking secondary school principals, school administrators, health and nutrition section [...]

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/09 October) – Justice Secretary Leila de Lima has instructed police investigators to focus not only on the ex-militiaman who owned up to the rape of a volunteer nurse in South Upi, Maguindanao on September 25 because “the real culprit may still be at large.” De Lima also told reporters Friday night at [...]

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/09 October) — “Florence,” the 21-year old volunteer-nurse who was gang-raped and left for dead in Upi, Maguindanao on September 25, is now in stable condition and is showing steady signs of improvement, the chief of Mindanao’s biggest government hospital said Friday night. “She is out of stupor. There is slight movement in [...]

By Froilan Gallardo in Davao City and Ferdinandh Cabrera in Cotabato City DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/08 October) – No criminal charges will be filed against the six suspects in the gang-rape of a 21-year old volunteer nurse in Upi, Maguindanao on September 25. “I am inclined to believe they are innocent,” Justice Secretary Leila de Lima [...]

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/08 October) — A prominent law practitioner and the College of Law dean of the University of the East (UE) said the admission of an ex-militiaman who owned up to the rape of a volunteer nurse in South Upi, Maguindanao is “suspect”. “I hope the fiscal handling the case would examine the evidences [...]