By: Deric Lostutter

The Philippines election is at hand and corruption is taking over.

The Philippines has a long history of political corruption.

Gloria Arroyo, a former Philippines president, even openly admitted to rigging the voting machines to win, using a method called “dag-dag bawas“, and nothing was done about it.

After ousting Ferdinand Marcos, Corazon Aquinos of the Liberal Party was placed in office in the late 1980’s and eventually led a bloody legacy of killing 13 farmers and protesters in the Mendiola Massacre.

Mar Roxas of the Liberal Party is campaigning for presidency and using bribes, extortion, and censorship to do it.

“-They were distributing money behind the stage, away from the cameras (as one guy admitted, he got a t-shirt and 50 pesos, on top of the packed meal, 2 ballers, slippers, fan, and picture of Mar that were given to the attendees)”

Rodrigo Duterte is the representitive of PDP-Laban, or, Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan, which means basically Demecratic Filipino party, Strength of the Nation, and is the new hope of the Filipino people against the Liberal Party who has been in positions of power including the presidency since the 1980’s after the fall of dictator, Ferdinand Marcos.

Duterte has been a mayor of the city of Davo for almost 22 years and the crime rate under his mayorship has significantly dropped as he managed to weed out the corruption in the city.

In Camiguin city, they have banned any political posters that are not pro Mar Roxas’, and the local government cut power to a building that housed an opposing rally.

Citizens of the Philipines reached out to TruthVoice in a pleading to get international coverage about the oppression and censorship that is occuring in their country, impoverishing thousands.

One citizen, Angel, tells TruthVoice that Mar Roxas comissioned rented jeeps and trucks, to “round people up from the fringes of the city (Rogongon, Digkilaan, etc.)” forcing them to attend a pro Roxas rally or they would take down their name and threaten to take away their 4ps (government assistance).

Unbeknownst to most of the impoverished citizens, Roxas does not have the power to take away their government assistance.

Angel went on to state that protesters received bribes, and clothing if they vote for Roxas.

Roxas’ party erroneously tweeted that 10,000 people, (who were extorted to attend), attended his rally at Illigan City Plaza, which can only hold a maximum of 1000 people, elbow to elbow.

Angel went on to state that “a lot of people went because they were (falsely) told Kathniel (a famous T.V. couple) would be there.”

When asking Angel what she wanted to say to the rest of the world, she replied:

“All I wants is an honest to god chance at an honest election for once, and I, like a lot of the Filipino people believe this may be our only shot at real change.”

Another resident alien, who is actually still a United States citizen spoke to TruthVoice about the police corruption in the area.

-Right now in the Philippines, it is not uncommon for a police officer to stop you for nothing and tell you if you do not pay them they will find something to fine you for, for a lot more money. I have had this happen to me personally, and who do you turn to? The police? They are the ones doing it, lol. “

When asking the U.S. citizen what he would want to tell the world, he replied:

“Most people won’t care because “Oh, who cares it’s just some third world country” but it is more than that, it is a third world country trying to make themselves better, but being held down by the neck, by people who are profiting by it being beaten down.

I would ask that the world watches, and gets as angry about it as I am, then maybe something can be done when people are oppressed like this action can be taken.”

A shopkeeper in the same area confirmed that merchandise was ordered for her store, and the Philippines Customs agents seized her shipment, trying to extort her for 3 times what the shipment was worth to obtain it, or they would keep it. Luckily for the shopkeeper, she knew someone in Customs, and the package was cleared.

“-In the Philippines it is all about who you know.”

-By Jordan Freshour

A Cincinnati police officer singles me out of the crowd for photographing illegal arrests.

Saturday, September 19th, 2015 I was arrested for photographing the police in Cincinnati, Ohio. This was my first arrest and I want to talk about it.

I have gradually become involved with the police accountability movement over the last year. I’ve had the good fortune of meeting the most influential and hard-working gonzo journalists and activists in the Midwest, and with them I have found a safe place to fight for the rights of my friends and neighbors here in southwest Ohio, my home. It is my friendships with these people which allowed for the viral outbreak of support after being locked in a cage.

That being said, I was immersed in a new experience regarding the police state in America. Foremost, the risk of losing your own freedom because of principles is real. I was doing nothing more than photographing the arrest of Talis Gage when my hands were grabbed and tightly zip tied behind my back. I tossed my camera to the curb and went peacefully, for there is no reasoning with psychopaths. This video of my arrest was shot by Benjamin Virnston, who was also arrested for documenting the event:

After being kidnapped for 7+ hours, I was released due to the good will of Micah ben David posting bond. I was searched three times, fingerprinted twice, my belongings were taken, and I was given an armband – all normal procedure, but a dehumanizing one which treat citizens like cattle. Once processed, an officer herded me to the top floor of the Reading Road Corrections Center and into an isolated cell, completely alone and without explanation for the next three hours. Frankly, it was anxiety-inducing not knowing if my bail was posted or when I would be released. I did push-ups and read the names of past prisoners scratched into the drab, semigloss-painted cinder block walls to pass the time.

Many have had a night in jail, and sadly many have experienced far worse treatment from police. A fortunate man I would be to escape the brunt of cop violence for the rest of my life. Thousands are not able to say that. There is no comparison between me and them, and I do not think my story to be more important than another’s, however such a thing does not make the behavior of Cincinnati’s Lamest any less condemnable.

Micah and his son, Elijah patiently waiting for the release of myself, Talis Gage, and Benjamin Virnston

I am a highly social person, as many are. In those few hours of isolation, I understood the purpose of incarceration in a new way. Being in jail is not a punishment – banishment from the world is. I realized jail is not a place where bad people go to be rehabilitated, or to serve “their time”, but rather a coward’s device used to silence opposition. Any individual who thinks it is acceptable to isolate another person from all outside interaction – even for a short while – is not human him/herself, and shouldn’t be given the dignity of being recognized as such. Police are sub-mortal creatures mentally, emotionally, and spiritually to perform these duties without apprehension of conscience.

As a mobile person who (to the surprise of some) has a professional life as well, it can be difficult to explain the nature of police brutality to associates and family who have never given it critical thought. Often I leverage my good nature and lighthearted attitude as an example for others as to what the solution for government subjugation entails. All hatred and violence is disarmed by loving your neighbor – by nourishing the traits of peace, forgiveness, hope, and a short memory. Outside of these qualities, there is and will never be a solution to police – or any kind of – brutality.

I don’t know exactly how embracing abstract ideas translate into a better world. But I do know these are the guiding principles for myself and most of humanity. Every person deserves dignity, but that dignity is forsaken the moment initiated violence becomes acceptable. For government officials, understanding this as a reality is paramount.

In closing, if CPD or any government official of Cincinnati is reading this, I implore you to give up the ghost of authoritarianism. It does not work, and if you continue to behave in a manner such as at the March for Justice, you will and should have riots to deal with. Do not mistake the message of peace and love for pacifism. If you continue down this path, your own will die, your temples will burn, and your ruling elite will be thrown into the impoverished streets which you have created. This is not a call to violence, but merely the lesson which history teaches us is the eventual outcome of iron-fisted rule. We are all waiting on justice for the wanton violence of your law enforcement officers, the arrogance of the Fraternal Order of Police, and the careless training of those who wield power.

Wake up.

LONDON — A police officer who knocked part of a man’s tooth out with his riot shield during a student protest in 2010 has been sentenced to eight months in prison.

PC Andrew Ott, 36, struck William Horner as the Royal Holloway student tried to break free from a kettled area on Parliament Square in central London.

Ott was found guilty on Tuesday of one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, but cleared of perverting the course of justice.

At Southwark crown court on Wednesday, Ott sobbed in the dock as he was sentenced.

The judge Jeffrey Pegden told him he had carried out “gratuitous and unnecessary violence” and abused his power as a police officer.

He said: “This offence was committed in a sterile area, in relative darkness, when you had the victim cornered and no violence was necessary at all. An extremely serious aggravating factor is your abuse of power as a police officer.

“You hit him with a full-force blow to his face with your shield. That was wholly gratuitous, unnecessary violence, and I have considered the stress on William Horner over the last few years.”

Ott wiped his eyes with a tissue, and a woman in the public gallery broke down in tears after the sentence was passed.

Ott’s colleagues PCs Calvin Lindsay and Thomas Barnes were cleared of perverting the course of justice.

Jurors heard that Ott was taped on his personal recording device threatening violence towards the crowds that had gathered near the Houses of Parliament and talking about “getting” the protesters.

Ott, from Rochester, Kent, chased Horner as he tried to scale a fence, and was captured on the audio device

saying “poked the little cunt right in the eye” and “I’ve had enough of these cunts, I just fucking hit him”.

During the protests, riot police were pelted with missiles, including rocks and concrete blocks, and statues in Parliament Square were daubed with graffiti. No action was taken against Horner, who was 20 at the time.

The judge said he had no doubt that policing the protests on 9 December 2010 was “frightening, stressful and exhausting”.

However, he said Horner had “simply wanted to go home” and had not committed an offence when he was attacked.

In mitigation, Kevin Baumber said his client had been diagnosed with depression and suffered from severe stress.

He told the court: “Your honour may think on that day he was pushed into losing his normally sound judgment in what was a long, tiring and terrifying day. It was a day that was traumatic. It was a trauma that still lives with him.”

Ott, who has served as a police officer since 2003, faced the “double jeopardy” of criminal proceedings and disciplinary action and was in danger of losing a career “that is dear to him”, Baumber added.

An investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission found all three officers have a case to answer for gross misconduct, and they will face Metropolitan police disciplinary hearings.

Deputy assistant commissioner Fiona Taylor, of the Met’s directorate of professionalism, said: “We are naturally disappointed that an MPS officer has been convicted of an assault.

“His behaviour clearly fell well below the high standards we expect of our officers, even in challenging circumstances such as the violent disorder in which this incident occurred, and it is right that he was held to account in the criminal courts.

“His case and that of the other two officers involved will now be subject to the misconduct process. Until this is completed it would be inappropriate for us to comment further.”

This story originally reported by The Guardian

A man is carried by police officers as arrests are made near Union Square, Wednesday, April 29, 2015, in New York. People gathered to protest the death of Freddie Gray, a Baltimore man who was critically injured in police custody. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

When several thousand protesters gathered in Union Square on April 29 for the biggest local demonstration against police killings of Black people since the massive “Millions March NYC” on Dec. 13, many immediately recognized something had changed.

“This is the New York City Police Department,” a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) mounted on a police truck at the edge of the square blared into the crowd.

“Please be advised that pedestrians are not permitted to walk in the street or roadway,” it warned. “Pedestrians are also prohibited from obstructing sidewalks.”

“If you unlawfully obstruct pedestrian traffic or walk in the street or roadway, you may be placed under arrest and charged with disorderly conduct, a violation of New York State penal law.”

As the looped message continued, Community Affairs officers in distinctive blue jackets offered fliers with a similar warning to protesters near the edge of the rally.

The difference from earlier protests against the killing of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Missouri, as well as Eric Garner and Akai Gurley by the NYPD itself, could not have been starker.

At those demonstrations, the NYPD had maintained a cautious distance from the crowd, largely avoiding contact with it unless officers spotted an opportunity for a major arrest.

But at the first gathering in response to the death of Freddie Gray on April 19, after he sustained a lethal spinal injury while in Baltimore police custody a week earlier, the NYPD seemed eager for a fight.

“The most brutality I’ve seen”

Protesters engage with police officers near Union Square, Wednesday, April 29, 2015, in New York. People gathered to protest the death of Freddie Gray, a Baltimore man who was critically injured in police custody. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

It came as soon as demonstrators pushed into a street by the park, as the full extent of the NYPD’s operational shift became apparent.

Police leapt into action, quickly establishing a line to prevent marchers from proceeding further.

As demonstrators retreated, massing by the square before pushing a different direction, more police lines sprang up, dividing the crowd.

Officers then tried to push the split crowd onto sidewalks. When protesters were slow to move, police responded forcefully: shoving a woman with a club, slamming a man’s head into the hood of a car before arresting him.

After an uneasy cat-and-mouse game continued into the early hours of the morning of April 30, police said they had arrested 143 demonstrators across the city, with most receiving the promised charge of disorderly conduct.

For protesters who, only months earlier, had marched on city streets at will, shutting down bridges and highways with ease, the rough tactics came as a shock.

“I’ve come to all these protests since Ferguson,” Isaiah Brown, a protester from Brooklyn, told MintPress News. “But this is the most brutality I’ve seen, even compared to my neighborhood.”

By Friday, when a May Day march left Union Square, the NYPD took even fewer chances, deploying officers to line its entire route through the Lower East Side with metal barricades.

“It seems that the NYPD is escalating their intensity during protests,” Benjamin Ndugga-Kabuye, New York City organizer for the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, told MintPress. “This has included more arrests, physical confrontations, also an added emphasis on steering the direction of marches.”

“The authorities are not happy”

NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton did not deny his department’s shift in tactics

“I didn’t see much different last night from what I saw in December,” Bratton told reporters on April 30. “But we are going to be much more assertive dealing with efforts to close down tunnels, close down bridges, and will be much faster to make arrests if in fact they attempt to move in that direction.”

Over the past week, protest organizers and participants have discussed possible reasons for the change.

Some have seen reflections of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s rumored aspirations to higher political office, or his acquiescence to the anger of NYPD officers after injuries to three officers, during two separate altercations with protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge on Dec. 13 and April 14, as well as the shooting deaths of two others on Dec. 20.

De Blasio seemed to suggest as much last week, when he acknowledged at a separate press conference that the NYPD had made “tactical adjustments” in response to the injuries.

Many suspect a reaction to unrest elsewhere in the country, coupled with desperation to avert it locally.

The shift happened “because of Baltimore,” Josmar Trujillo, an organizer with the Coalition to End Broken Windows, told MintPress. “De Blasio gave word to Bratton that he and his footsoldiers were unshackled, lest an uprising in New York City begin to take place.”

Along with the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, the Coalition to End Broken Windows is a participant in the Safety Beyond Policing campaign, which has organized a series of “No New NYPD” protests against the hiring of 1,000 further officers.

Some suggest the NYPD’s practice could mark the culmination of its existing doctrine, which blends counter-terrorism with protest policing.

“Perhaps this the community policing or rebranded Broken Windows policing in practice,” Ndugga-Kabuye said. “This community policing has coincided with the criminalization of protests and rhetoric that creates an overlap between terrorism and protest.”

Others suspect the crackdown on protests has more to do with their perseverance.

“Mayor DeBlasio and other ‘leaders’ called on people to stop protesting at the end of December using arrests, threats, lies and distortions to try and kill this movement,” Travis Morales told MintPress about a request by de Blasio for the “suspension” of protests after the two officers were shot and killed on Dec. 20.

Morales is a member of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network NYC steering committee, which organized the first major protests in the city since the deaths, on April 14.

“They tend to peter out on their own”

Estimated by organizers to include 1,500 participants, the April 14 demonstration was not only the largest demonstration against police brutality since December, but also withstood a high level of arrests, with 42 taken into custody.

The Millions March, which reached into the high tens of thousands, passed with a single arrest, although police detained several activists after the event.

Demonstrations earlier in December had seen hundreds of arrests, but many were intentional acts of civil disobedience made as other activists blocked the city’s street grid.

Shifts in the NYPD’s approach to protesters have been hard to miss, Morales said. “Unlike last year, their response to blocking the Brooklyn Bridge on April 14 was knocking a man unconscious, throwing a woman on a short metal tree fence, beating people, drawing a gun on teenage protesters, pulling leaders out of the crowd to arrest them, and mass arresting people.”

Despite these clashes, Trujillo said the change had come later. “April 14th protesters were still generally allowed to take the streets.”

Few deny that the NYPD’s forceful response is a reversion to the department’s longstanding norm, rather than a new innovation.

“The NYPD was always brutal and arbitrary with their policing of demonstrations,” Trujillo said. “Their more hands off approach during last winter’s demos was the exception, not the rule.”

The change boils down to the protests’ longevity, Morales said. “The authorities did not like the fact that on April 14, after several months of no mass protests, we re-seized the political initiative, bringing people back out into the streets across the country to shut it down.”

Bratton might have indicated the same on Dec. 5, when he told the Observer his strategy: “The history of these things is that they don’t go on forever, they tend to peter out on their own.”

With protests returning en masse to the streets after a winter lull, the flaws in this earlier approach may, from Bratton and de Blasio’s perspectives, have now become obvious.

“You might see things more like Baltimore and Ferguson”

A person is arrested by police officers near Union Square, Wednesday, April 29, 2015, in New York. People gathered to protest the death of Freddie Gray, a Baltimore man who was critically injured in police custody. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

“Future protests will have to be more creative,” Ndugga-Kabuye said. “Police are aggressively steering marches and finding ways to dampen dissent. Activists have to tap into new forms of registering demands.”

Trujillo shared his hopes.

“It’ll hopefully force protesters to be more creative and focus more on tactics than mass numbers,” he said. “But it’s also possible that [some] demonstrators will want to listen to daddy de Blasio and work more with cops–which will piss off a lot of people.”

By cracking down on protests, police may push them toward further militancy, others say.

“Until now, we’ve kind of had an understanding with the cops,” Tania Cruz, a protester from Manhattan, told MintPress.

“We’re disruptive, but disciplined, and they keep to themselves. But if they’re going to start attacking and arresting everyone, you might see things more like Ferguson and Baltimore here.”

Morales hopes that public violence by the police can attract greater support. “This brutal repression is because the system has no other answer to the righteous demand for justice and that the police stop murdering our people,” he said.

“This repression is unjust and illegitimate,” Morales continued. “We may be able to draw even more people into the movement to stop murder by police, mass incarceration and all the horrors coming down on black and Latino people.”

BRIDGETON, N.J. — What started as a peaceful protest against police brutality and unaccountability outside the Cumberland County Courthouse in New Jersey ended in the arrest of two people, following a suspected provocation by police. On Saturday, Feb. 28, police armed with AR-style rifles arrived at the protest and ordered the demonstrators, who gathered on public grounds, to disperse.

Protestors gather outside the Cumberland County Courthouse in Bridgeton, N.J.

The protest was organized by the National Awareness Alliance, a civil rights group based in Salem County, N.J. The stated intent for the demonstration was to unite families in the surrounding area to demand justice for loved ones injured or killed by police. The demonstration started at the intersection where Bridgeton police officer Braheme Days shot and killed Jerame Reid, 37, of Bridgeton, on Dec. 30, 2014. It was the fifth demonstration demanding justice since Reid’s death.

The half-mile march of approximately 200 protesters was led by Reid’s mother, Sheila Reid. Also among the protesters were Tanya Brown Dickerson, whose son Brandon Tate-Brown, 26, was killed by police in Philadelphia on Dec. 15, Regina Ashford, the mother of Kashad Ashford, 23, killed by police in Rutherford, N.J., on Sep. 16, and Ikea Coney and her 17-year-old son Darrin Manning, who were victims of a vicious attack by police in Philadelphia earlier this year.

Moments before the police attacked the crowd of demonstrators, a Jeep driven by a New Jersey state police officer barked commands that that the crowd leave the area. When the protesters refused to disperse, an SUV came from behind the Jeep and drove straight into the crowd, striking a man. The man responded by kicking the tire of the SUV, which immediately prompted dozens of police vehicles to descend upon the demonstration. Police arrested the man who was struck by the SUV and made no attempt to apprehend the driver involved in the vehicular assault.

Protest organizers were quick to denounce the attack as a provocation by police designed to silence Sheila Reid, who was preparing to speak when the assault occurred. The attack came minutes after Bridgeton Mayor Albert Kelly addressed the protesters. Demonstrators reported that they had spotted police equipped with paramilitary gear on the roof nearby restaurant, taking photographs of the rally.

Police in New Jersey have a history of attempting to silence recent protests. In February, Bridgeton police officers broke up a demonstration and violated the rights of four protesters by issuing citations for violating a city ordinance requiring people to walk only on sidewalks.

A Recent History of Deadly Police Stops in Philadelphia and New Jersey

Officer Braheme Days moments before murdering Jerame Reid

On Dec. 30, 2014, Jerame Reid was the passenger in a car which was pulled over by police for allegedly failing to completely stop at a stop sign. The murder was recorded by a dashboard camera of a police vehicle, and showed Reid was unarmed and had his hands in the air when Bridgeton police officer Braheme Days shot and killed him. In response to the murder of the unarmed man, Officer Days has been placed on paid administrative leave while the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office allegedly investigates the murder. Since Days shot and killed Reid, he has also been accused in a $25 million lawsuit of coercing a New Jersey woman into having sex with him in order to avoid a shoplifting charge. The alleged rape happened days before Officer Braheme Days murdered Reid. Officer Days has yet to be charged with a crime.

15 days prior to Reid’s murder, on Dec. 15, 2014, Philadelphia police shot and killed Brandon Tate-Brown after detaining him for allegedly driving with his headlights off. Tanya Brown Dickerson, Tate-Brown’s mother, spoke at the recently attacked protest and noted that many fatal encounters with the police start with “routine” traffic stops. Tate-Brown also noted that the lights of her son’s car appeared to be on when the police killed him, standing contrary to the police’s claims.

Police alleged that Tate-Brown was attempting to reach a stolen gun they claim was visible on the passenger’s side console of the car. Video of the killing captured by a police patrol car shows minutes of Tate-Brown struggling and being assaulted prior to fleeing the vehicle altogether, at which time he was shot in the back of the head. The officers who killed Tate-Brown have yet to be identified or charged with a crime for the incident.

Kashad Ashford was shot and killed by police while a witness claims he was unconscious on Sep. 16, 2014 in Rutherford, N.J. Ashford was driving a stolen SUV when Rutherford police attempted to pull him over, and gave chase when Ashford failed to do so. Ashford crashed the SUV into a guardrail, which the passenger says left Ashford unconscious. Officers dispute this claim with their own, in which they say Ashford backed the SUV into police cruisers at a high speed with only several feet to do so, while the officers were still in their vehicles, causing them to fear for their lives and shoot him in self-defense. The police story was also contradicted by a resident at the scene who said the cars had stopped moving prior to officers firing their weapons. The officers responsible for killing Ashford have yet to be identified.