The Bagong Alyansang Makabayan-Negros said it welcomed the verdict of the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal on the complaints of human right abuses against the government of President Gloria Arroyo, a Bayan press release said.

The PPT verdict came in the wake of findings of the United Nations rapporteur and the United States senate on the role of the Arroyo government and its military in the continuing extrajudicial killings in the country.

There is now a global trend of condemnation of the atrocities committed under the Arroyo administration. This is the third international investigation which has pinned responsibility for the killings on the Arroyo regime, Bayan said in its press release. The findings of the PPT and the UN Special Rapporteur that the practice of the Arroyo government to label legal activist groups and its members, are part of the national policy that contributes to the rising cases of extrajudicial killings in the country that should be immediately bring to a halt, the press release said.

Victims of extrajudicial killings were also victims of a vilification campaign by the military accusing them of being sympathizers of the New People's Army, the press release added.*

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AGHAM supporting
Bayan Muna partylist

Partylist group AGHAM said in a press release that it supports Bayan Muna for its consistent support for the Science and Technology Agenda formulated in 2004 along with the agenda of other sectors of Philippine society.

Since its founding in 1999, AGHAM, said it had upheld that science and technology development cannot and should not be divorced from people's development.

Agham said it unites with Bayan Muna on its platform for change and social transformation that address the basic problems plaguing the country -foreign domination, feudal bondage and a graft-ridden government, the press release added.

The most oppressed and the least heard are the "common tao" - workers, peasants, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples, urban poor and other downtrodden as well as professionals, health workers and scientist, the group said. It also said that Bayan Muna has consistently been pushing for a national culture that is progressive, patriotic, scientific and popular and develop research and development in science and technology. It recognizes that while the lack of government planning and funding worsens the situation of science and technology in the country, the press release added.*

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