It's eerie how the Philippines echoes the U.S.--only the press there seems willing

[Gloria]

to fight back and report:

These articles posted in tomorrow's World Media Watch at Buzzflash.com

2//The Manila Times, Philippines—PROTESTS TEST NEW ANTITERRORISM LAW
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2007/july/16/yehey/top_stories/20070716top1.html

Protests greeted a controversial antiterrorism law that came into force Sunday amid fears it could be used to quell popular dissent against the Arroyo government. A group of about 300 leftist activists carried slogans and banners in a peaceful rally near Malacañang, demanding that the Human Security Act be reviewed by the Supreme Court or repealed by Congress. “We will file a petition with the Supreme Court in the coming week,” said Renato Reyes, spokesman for the fringe Bayan Muna political party, stressing that the law could be used to crack down on legitimate members of the opposition. The influential Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, whose stand on public issues helps shapes public opinion, last week also called on the government to review the law. The bishops said they were concerned over a provision that lets police detain suspects for up to three days without a case being filed in court. The law also gives authorities the green light to use surveillance, wiretapping and seize assets. It is the first in the Philippines specifically to address terrorist offences, defining terrorism as a criminal act that “causes widespread and extraordinary fear and panic among the populace.” Rights groups on Sunday said they feared that a spate of political killings would continue with the law giving the military some form of legal cover to go after opponents that they can easily brand as terrorists.
It could also be used to arrest members of a peace negotiating panel from the political wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines that has been working to revive talks with Manila, they said. “They are very vulnerable to be labeled as communists and be subjected to attacks as has happened to several victims of extrajudicial executions,” said a joint statement by a group of independent observers monitoring the peace talks. The law would likely “further prejudice the peace negotiations or completely end the entire peace process.”

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//Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippines—PALACE DOCUMENT SHOWS GOV’T PLAN TO NEUTRALIZE LEFT
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view_article.php?article_id=76819

The wave of extrajudicial killings, which the Supreme Court-initiated summit on Monday seeks to end, may have begun after the Arroyo administration allegedly launched a campaign to “neutralize” the Communist Party of the Philippines by curbing the expansion of the party-list group Bayan Muna. The military has tagged the party-list group a communist front. A confidential Malacañang document obtained by the Philippine Daily Inquirer indicates that the campaign began after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo took office in 2001, the year Bayan Muna topped the elections for party-list groups. The document calls for the use of massive “special intelligence operations” to counter the “grassroots clout” of Bayan Muna and its allied organizations. It was not immediately clear if the failure of Bayan Muna to dominate the party-list race in the midterm elections on May 14 was a result, directly or indirectly, of the campaign. The Philippine document was one of the pieces of evidence submitted by the Left to the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings in February to prove that a government policy was behind the series of killings of Bayan Muna officers and members.