Thu Jun 22, 2006

Cory speaks at Liberals’ int’l meet today

Former President Corazon Aquino will address over 100 top Liberal leaders from over 30 countries during the opening session of the joint Liberal International (LI), the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), and the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD) meeting at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) at 9:30 a.m. today, Thursday.

Senate President Franklin Drilon, principal host of the affair, said Mrs. Aquino, whose late husband former Sen. Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. is one of the martyrs of the Liberal Party (LP), is expected to dwell on the role of liberal democrats throughout the world in the face of economic and security challenges in the 21 st century.

Mrs. Aquino will also talk about the plight of millions of Filipino overseas contract workers and the issue of international migration in the global scene. The event is the joint CALD-ALDE-LI Meeting focusing on Population, Migration, and the Globalization of Labor, Drilon added.

The visiting Liberals, including 30 members of parliament and senators, five incumbent ministers, and a number of national and local officials, are in the Philippines to attend the CALD-ALDE-LI Meeting in Manila, Cavite province, and Tagaytay City starting today until Saturday, June 24.

Among the prominent Liberal leaders present are Lord Alderdice, president of Liberal International and member of the British Parliament; Member of the European Parliament Graham Watson, who is also ALDE leader; Dr. Wolfgang Gerhart, former leader of the German Liberal Party and current Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF) chair; former International Labor Organization (ILO) Chairman Chung Eui-yong, MP, and Dr. Yoo Jay Kun, MP of the ruling Uri Party of Korea; Malaysian Senator Dr. S. Vijayaratnam; Italian MP Lappo Pistelli; and MP Sam Rainsy, leader of the Cambodian National Opposition and president of the Cambodian Sam Rainsy Party.

While in the Philippines, the international liberal leaders will discuss not only the strengthening of ties among Liberals worldwide but will also tackle the alarming and unabated killings of militant political leaders and journalists in the Philippines under the Arroyo administration, according to Bukidnon Rep. Nereus Acosta, concurrent LP and CALD secretary-general. Drilon is now the CALD chairman.

"Obviously, any Liberal Democratic party will really look at this with great alarm because it goes fundamentally against all basic principles of liberal democracy, which is upholding civil rights, say, primacy of individual freedom," said Acosta, referring to the rash of political killings in the Philippines allegedly by death squads.

Since President Arroyo assumed the presidency in 2001, hundreds of political leaders and journalists have been killed by suspected death squads. The latest killings claimed the lives of Mindanao couple George Vigo and Maricel Alave Vigo on Monday.

The International Federation of Journalists on Tuesday decried the killings. IFJ affiliate, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, reported that Vigo was a contributor to the Union of Catholic Asian News. His wife, Alave Vigo, hosted a program at the local radio station DXND.

Acosta said the international liberal leaders have expressed their grave concern over the unabated killings, noting that the Liberals’ position was that "everything has to be resolved in the political area through dialogue, not by killing or taking of human life."

"This is the reason why we are against death penalty and any baseless action that infringes on that very basic right of the individual and the individual’s liberty," Acosta said.

He said terrorism and civil liberties will be the subjects of discussion by the leaders of CALDALDE-LI during the international academic conference at the Yuchengco Center of the De La Salle University in Manila on Friday, June 23. The conference is organized by the National Institute for Policy Studies (NIPS) and the La Salle Institute for Governance (LSIG).