1. What are the characteristic of sovereign state?

Can you consider the Philippines a sovereign

state?
The characteristics of sovereignty are: permanence, exclusiveness, all-comprehensiveness,
inalienability, indivisibility, and absoluteness.
Yes, The Philippines continued as a U.S. territory until July 4, 1946, when the U.S. relinquished
sovereignty and recognized the independence of the Republic of the Philippines. The current
Philippine government considers Emilio Aguinaldo to have been the first President of the
Philippines and considers the Malolos Republic as the "First" Philippine Republic.

2. How does the international law affect the laws of the sovereign state?
The international human rights law also has a significant impact on state sovereignty because it
challenges the moral authority of the state. The third world or developing countries are at a
higher risk of their sovereignty being diminished, because they have very minimal influence in
the international arena.

3. Explain how the transnational actors influence global governance?

Transnational actors have come to be considered political, social, cultural, and economic agents
or groups that have transsocietal relations across borders. They pursue their goals somewhat
independently of governmental considerations.

4. Does a sovereign state have to adhere to the international law?

According to modern sovereignty, therefore, the sovereign subjects behind international law are
peoples within states, and no longer states only. If international law is allowed to regulate
internal matters, including human rights and democracy, its democratic legitimacy has to be
accepted.

5. Can a sovereign state ignore issues that are outside its boundaries? Why or Why not?
Modern territories of states were in most cases defined completely arbitrarily, without any basis
of cultural or ethnic entity, or meaningful economic unit. Weak and failed states were always
influenced by external agents though they had 'legal sovereignty' because they became dependent
on other states.

#WarOnDrugs
 5 THINGS THAT COULD STOP THE DRUG WAR KILLINGS IN THE
PHILIPPINES

On April 10, New York Times journalist Daniel Berehulak received the Pulitzer for his photojournalism
on the drug war in the Philippines. His gritty depiction of the killings in the Philippines, under President
Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war, is perhaps fitting for Holy Week — calling to mind stark images of blood
and crucifixion.

Whether politically motivated or related to drug crimes, state-sponsored killings persist, but the root
causes are the same: extreme poverty and social inequity in the country. Like soldiers casting lots for the
role of the dying Christ, so government elite in the United States and the Philippines gamble over the
lives of Filipinos.

The issues of poverty and inequity that killed Jesus under the Roman empire are the same problems at the
root of the killings in the Philippines today. The gospel Jesus spoke, the gospel that made him dangerous
to the state, was one that responded to death with life, and life that was holistic — life that set prisoners
free and liberated the oppressed. In alignment with the voices of indigenous Filipino activists and the
#JustPeacePH Campaign, here are five ways, given the teachings and sayings of Christ, to stop the
killings in the Philippines for good.

1. Declare the Year of Jubilee: Distribute land to the poor.

Before dedicating land for golf courses or to foreign corporations extracting minerals and growing tulips
or fruit for export, the Philippines should ensure the country’s food self-sufficiency first. As in the Jubilee
directions given in Leviticus 25, land should be freely distributed to the people who cultivate it.
Indigenous people should be able to enjoy the fruit of their ancestral lands, and they should have free
access to continue making the land productive, using it for benefit of their tribes, their neighbors, and the
development of the Philippines. In the Philippines, when people are stripped from their access to land,
they are stripped from their ability to sustain themselves.

2. Heal the sick: Give Filipinos health care and other necessary social services.
Instead of treating the problem of drugs in the Philippines as a crime, the government should treat it as an
issue of health. Give Filipinos access to resources that help them attend to mental and other health issues,
gain an education, and improve their overall well-being. They will be less likely to self-medicate and/or
turn to drugs for survival.

3. Set the oppressed free: End the military programs that suppress democracy and violate human rights.
The Philippines adopted numerous military plans that are patterned off of U.S. counter-insurgency plans
and funded in part by U.S. tax dollars, including the operation plans Bantay Laya, Bayanihan, and, most
recently, Kapayapaan. All resulted in the killings of unarmed civilian activists and others that stood for
human rights, including indigenous peoples defending their land from mining corporations, students
fighting for educational access, and farmworkers standing up for their labor rights. Under President
Duterte alone, 47 activists have been killed, according to human rights groups.

4. Proclaim good news to the poor: Create jobs for Filipinos at home.
There’s a reason why Filipino households overwhelmingly say “Colgate” instead of “toothpaste” and
“Kleenex” instead of “tissue.” It’s the same reason why so many Filipinos in the U.S. work as nurses and
caregivers. Despite the plethora of natural resources found in its mineral-rich lands, the Philippines has
not yet developed basic industries that would allow it to create its own toothpaste, tissue, and other
products. So, it remains dependent on imported goods. The ample, hard-working Filipinos eagerly
searching for work are unable to find it at home and forced to go overseas, living apart from their families
and working in foreign countries in order to survive. Until Filipinos are able to find good jobs at home,
they’ll be forced to take dangerous jobs overseas. Many will also join the growing number of activists
calling on the government to develop national industry — and face military harassment for doing so.

5. Beat swords into ploughshares: Support the peace negotiations between the Philippine government and
the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.
Many in the U.S. are unaware of the centuries-long struggle that Filipinos have been waging since the
1500s when they faced colonization at the hands of Spain, Japan, and the United States. The last several
decades have seen a heightening of this civil war in the Philippines, and in 2016, the Philippine
government resumed peace talks with the Philippine revolutionary movement, as represented by the
National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). These negotiations seek to resolve the roots of the
armed conflict and have taken up the “CASER” - the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic
Reforms – for discussion. The “CASER” aims to resolve historical and structural inequities in Philippine
society by enacting programs for agrarian reform and national industrialization.

Stopping the killings in the Philippines will not come without understanding the historical and material
context of the country. Only addressing the root causes of violence will fulfill the Filipino people’s
aspirations for just and lasting peace. When the Filipino people beat their swords into ploughshares, it
will be because there is land for them to till and the health and wage to do so, because a system of death
has turned to life.