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TEACHERS around the world have signed an urgent
resolution, urging the Arroyo administration to “immediately put a
stop to extrajudicial killings and involuntary disappearances” and
prosecute those who are responsible for the acts.
The resolution was approved
during the 5th World Congress of Education International in Berlin,
Germany, on Thursday where two members of the Alliance of Concerned
Teachers (ACT) and the Teachers’ Organization of the
Philippines-Public Sector attended.
The resolution also urged the
Philippine government to “investigate, prosecute and punish those
responsible for these acts; and ensure that its security forces
respect the human rights and civil liberties of citizens.”
Education International is a
global federation of teacher trade unions, with 30 million members
from more than 300 affiliated organizations in over 180 countries.
It held its fifth world congress in Berlin from July 22 to 26, 2007,
attended by more than 1,700 delegates. Education International holds
its world congress every three years.
ACT moved for the adoption of the
urgent resolution, which was unanimously approved by the body.
The resolution noted “that more
than 1,000 activists fighting to uphold the rights and welfare of
poor and oppressed Filipinos have been assassinated or made to
disappear since President Gloria Arroyo took power in 2001,” and
that “the victims include nine teachers, two of whom were national
officers of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers, Vitoria Samonte and
Napoleon Pornasdoro.” It also expressed “outrage that these
gross human-rights violations are carried out with
impunity.”
 --Jonathan
M. Hicap and Harley Palangchao
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