Feed aggregator

The Struggle Continues
Statement on the Adoption of the ILO Convention on Domestic Workers by the Committee on Domestic Workers

MIGRANTE International welcomes the adoption of the ILO Convention on Domestic Work by the Committee on Domestic Workers which recognizes domestic work as work and bestows upon domestic workers equal rights and recognition as other workers. Indeed, this is a milestone - a product of long years of hard-fought struggle to secure the rights of domestic workers, including migrant domestic workers which MIGRANTE International has actively supported and campaigned for through its chapter organizations in the Philippines and abroad.

 

Migrante Canada sends delegates
to the ILO Labour Conference in Geneva

 

Migrante Canada will send its delegation to the International Labour Organization 100th Session of the International Labour Conference to be held in Geneva starting tomorrow, June 1 to 17.

The Migrante delegation of domestic workers and advocates together with delegates from the Canadian Labour Congress will make representations on the fourth item of the conference agenda: “Decent work for domestic workers.”

More than half of the 10 million Filipinos abroad work as domestic workers. They work in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, Middle East and North America. Most of them have left their home country due to massive unemployment and poverty to look for job and a better life abroad that their government cannot provide to them.

 

Carlos Montes at rally following FBI / LA sheriff raid on his home. (via fightbacknews)

Press Statement - May 28, 2011
Reference: Bernadette Ellorin, Chairperson, BAYAN USA
Email: chair@bayanusa.org

Drop the Charges on Carlos Montes & Other US Anti-War Activists! Stop FBI & Grand Jury Repression!

*sign the online petition to have the charges dropped, initiated by the Committee to Stop FBI Repression*

Filipino-Americans across the United States, under the banner of BAYAN USA, stand in solidarity with LA-based Chicano movement activist Carlos Montes, and dozens of other activists in the Minneapolis, Chicago, Grand Rapids and now Los Angeles areas who have been the recent targets of violent FBI raids in their homes and subpoenaed to appear before a Grand Jury. The trumped up charges against Montes include a violation of a firearm code while others in the Midwest have been charged with allegedly providing material support to US-listed terrorist organizations in the Middle East and Latin America. These subpoenaed activists are clearly being targeted by the state for their political beliefs at a time when social unrest grows over proliferating anti-people US policies and laws. We demand all these false charges by the US government be dropped and that the unconstitutional Grand Jury proceedings be canceled.

This resurrected US government campaign against progressives in the US hearkens back to the 1950’s McCarthyist witch hunts and the repressive campaigns that followed such as the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO). These operations discarded constitutional rights and civil liberties in a violent effort to debilitate and paralyze target organizations such as the Black Panther Party (BPP) and other then-strong resistance movements within the US against wars of aggression, racism, and growing economic marginalization. The tactics being employed now follow suit with the Bush Doctrine of anti-terrorism, specifically fanning anti-terrorist hysteria by targeting US-based anti-war and international solidarity activists mobilizing support for national liberation organizations abroad against US intervention that have been listed as foreign terrorist organizations by the US State Department and in a effort to quell dissent and political activism in the US.

It will not work.

This recent spate of FBI raids and Grand Jury repression must be framed in the context of the worsening global economic crisis under US imperialism, the same crisis that spawned people’s upsurge in the Middle East, North Africa, and even Wisconsin. As the perpetrator of the crisis, monopoly capitalists via banks and large financial firms continue with their bail-out campaign of hoarding the world’s private and public wealth from the people worldwide, relying on governments in both industrialized and non-industrialized countries to suppress strong and emerging people’s resistance and international solidarity through escalating political repression. The targeting of legal activists such as Carlos Montes and many others lines up with the ongoing US-funded counter-insurgency operations in the Philippines and in other regions with strong national liberation movements. In the case of the Philippines, US-crafted counter-insurgency campaigns such as Oplan Bantay Laya under the former Arroyo administration and now Oplan Bayanihan under the current Aquino administration have directly resulted in over thousands unresolved assassinations, abductions, secret detentions, illegal arrests and torture of legal, aboveground, civilian activists. Like the subpoenaed activists in the US, these activists in the Philippines have been baselessly accused of being members of so-called front organizations for groups tagged as terrorists by the US such as the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New Peoples Army (CPP-NPA). An overwhelming majority of these targeted activists were and are associated with our mother alliance, BAYAN Philippines.

Furthermore, the US government’s terrorist list has been widely criticized for being arbitrary, unilateral, and unjust. Among those who, until recently, spent years on that US State Department’s list of foreign terrorists was 1993 Nobel Peace Prize Recipient and anti-apartheid crusader Nelson Mandela. Another widely-respected figure in progressive circles worldwide tagged arbitrarily by the US as a terrorist for his politics is Professor Jose Maria Sison, international chairperson of the International League of Peoples Struggle, author, poet, and Filipino political refugee based in the Netherlands.

The insidious character of CIA and FBI operations throughout history and now currently is another level of imperialist warfare waged against the people, particularly people’s liberation struggles that threaten the interests of the world’s ruling elite and financial oligarchy. Like more overt US wars of aggression in the Middle East, the global spread of the US imperialism’s covert structure of reactionary violence in the form of CIA-crafted counter-insurgency operations, military bases and exercises, and even so-called “humanitarian” civic projects, is another expenditure footed by hardworking US tax-payers who must now contend with deadly budget cuts to healthcare, education, housing, and critical services as well as massive unemployment, union-busting, racism, and strong anti-immigrant hate legislation.

Carlos Montes and other targeted activists in the US represent all across the globe who stand for the cause of freedom, democracy, and justice. In addition, their courageous stand to not cooperate with the FBI and the Grand Jury proceedings remind us all that dissent and uprising are universal human rights and that people should never be targeted for their political beliefs. As an alliance of progressive Filipino organizations in the US actively educating and mobilizing our community against US intervention and structural reactionary violence in the Philippines, BAYAN USA recognizes that resistance is inevitably born, bred, and fueled by economic and political repression. The pain of hunger and thirst for freedom in the stomachs of the world’s impoverished by US imperialism overpowers any intimidating or suppressive force imposed by the reactionary state. As the reality of the economic crisis awakens class struggle in the United States, so does support and morale for righteous national liberation struggles abroad that have taken advantage of the conditions of the crisis to advance and reap peoples victories. Integral to this is advancing the movement for genuine democracy, human rights, and civil liberties in the world’s number one imperialist superpower.

DROP THE CHARGES ON CARLOS MONTES & OTHER ANTI-WAR ACTIVISTS TARGETED BY FBI REPRESSION!
CANCEL THE GRAND JURY SUBPOENAS!
FIGHT FOR DEMOCRACY & UPHOLD CIVIL LIBERTIES!
LONG LIVE INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY!

21 anti-imperialist organizations from across Canada unite to form ILPS-Canada Chapter

by Kabir Joshi-Vijayan, Steve da Silva, and Malcolm Guy

Toronto, Ontario, May 21, 2011 — Seventy delegates and observers representing nearly two dozen organizations from across Canada came together to launch the Canadian chapter of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS). Taking place at the Centre for Spanish Speaking People in Toronto, delegates from Montreal, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Ottawa and Toronto held a daylong conference to discuss future campaigns of the ILPS, finalize a constitution, and elect delegates to a Coordinating Committee.

It was a major step forward for anti-imperialist unity in Canada in the midst of growing popular struggles around the globe from North Africa to the Middle East and from India to the Philippines and beyond and in the face of an aggressive and war-mongering new majority Conservative government at home, the opening declaration stated.The organizations present represented groups from the Latin American, South Asian and South-East Asian communities, along with media collectives and community arts and workers’ organizations. The groups included: Anakbayan, Barrio Nuevo, BASICS Community News Service, BAYAN Canada, Casa Salvador Allende, the Centre d’Appui aux Philippines – Centre for Philippine Concerns, Canada-Philippine Solidarity for Human Rights, Damayan Manitoba, Filipino Migrant Workers Movement, Filipino Workers Solidarity Group, Immigrant Workers Centre, Gabriela-Ontario, Canada South Asia Solidarity Alliance, Migrante-Canada, Ontario Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines, Philippine Advocacy Through Arts and Culture, PINAY – Filipino Women’s Organization in Quebec, Proletarian Revolutionary Action Committee, PSG, Toronto Haiti Action Committee, Tamil Resource Centre, Femmes de Diverses Origines – Women of Diverse Origins, and the Women United Against Imperialism.

 

PRESS STATEMENT
Justice for Melissa Roxas Campaign
Contact: Kuusela Hilo, info@justiceformelissa.org

May 25, 2011

Hundreds of Supporters Worldwide Offer Open Letter to Demand Justice for Melissa Roxas, marking May 25th a Day of Survival

To mark the 2nd year anniversary of Melissa Roxas’s survival of enforced disappearance and torture and the international campaign to surface Melissa, hundreds of supporters have signed on to an open letter addressing Philippine President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, Department of Justice Secretary Leila de Lima and the Commission on Human Rights in the Philippines.

Two years ago, an international campaign was launched to demand the immediate release of American citizen Melissa Roxas and her two colleagues, who were abducted by the military while doing community health work in Tarlac, Philippines. Because of this worldwide outcry, Roxas was returned to her family that same day. Upon Roxas’ release, it was confirmed that she was a survivor of both abduction and torture.

To this day, Roxas and her two colleagues are just a handful of living witnesses to the government-sponsored enforced disappearances and torture that continues with impunity today in the Philippines. To this day, the perpetrators responsible for this ordeal remain at large, abetted by government cover-ups by officials such as Etta Rosales of the Commission on Human Rights. More importantly, two years later, international protests, petitions and prayers continue for Melissa Roxas and all those who have suffered human rights violations at the hands of the Philippine government.  “We will never forget that day in late May two years ago when we launched the campaign to surface Melissa Roxas and her two companions. We needed an international campaign to search for Melissa and her colleagues then, and we know we need to continue our international campaign today to seek justice for what was done to Melissa and the thousands of other victims of human rights abuses by the Philippine military,” said Rhonda Ramiro of the Justice for Melissa Campaign.

Since May 19, 2011, supporters of the Justice for Melissa Campaign have been holding solidarity gatherings and protests commemorating the 6 days Melissa Roxas was held incommunicado by the Philippine military. Nationwide, BAYAN USA, a convener of the Justice for Melissa Campaign, led community gatherings and protests to demand justice for Melissa Roxas. Youth, artists, friends of Roxas and community leaders created a special two-year anniversary video in Los Angeles which debuted during an intimate gathering on May 19, 2011 at Rosewood United Methodist Church to break bread and provide bolstering support for Melissa on a day now marked as a day of survival.

Links to see the outpouring of support for Melissa Roxas can be found at: www.justiceformelissa.org
Click HERE to view 2nd year commemoration video of the Justice for Melissa Roxas Campaign
Click HERE to view a 2010 Democracy Now! interview with Melissa Roxas
Click Justice for Melissa to hear the AnakBayan LA Hip Hop Song tribute for Melissa
Click HERE to see San Francisco rally for Melissa Roxas

Press Statement
Reference: Bernadette Ellorin, Chairperson, BAYAN USA
email: chair@bayanusa.org

Filipino-Americans, Supporters Across US Stand With Melissa Roxas
BAYAN-USA Statement on the 2nd Year Anniversary of the Abduction and Torture of Founding Member

Click HERE to view 2nd year commemoration video of the Justice for Melissa Roxas Campaign
Click HERE to view a 2010 Democracy Now! interview with Melissa Roxas

On the second year anniversary of the abduction and torture of Filipina-American human rights advocate Melissa Roxas by elements of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), Filipino-Americans under the banner of BAYAN USA and supporters across the United States reaffirm our support for Melissa and commitment to the pursuit of justice by way of demanding for an ongoing investigation and prosecution of the perpetrators.

The recent Commission on Human Rights (CHR) resolution absolving the AFP on the abduction at gunpoint that took place on May 19, 2009, while Melissa and two of her companions were conducting a community survey in preparation of a rural medical mission in La Paz, Tarlac lines up with the current Aquino administration’s overall cover-up of the crimes and human rights atrocities committed by its predecessor– Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. On July 2009, Melissa returned to the Philippines to testify in front of the CHR the details of her ordeal, under the protection of former chairperson Leila de Lima, while the latter gathered corroborating evidence as the result of an ocular investigation of nearby Fort Magsaysay, headquarters of the 7th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army, pointing to the culpability of the Philippine military.

It must be noted that shortly after assuming the office of presidency, Aquino appointed rabid red-baiter Etta Rosales to replace de Lima as the chair of the CHR, casting a questionable light on the integrity of the office to be objective and credible in handling cases of regular abuses committed against legal activists and dissidents associated with the aboveground Philippine Left. As a former House Representative of the party-list Akbayan, Rosales participated in McCarthyist tactics along with fellow Akbayan Representative Walden Bello to blur the distinct lines between the unarmed, aboveground left and the armed underground left, resulting in the wholesale targeting of legal civilian activists in the bloody counter-insurgency campaign of the Arroyo government known as Oplan Bantay Laya (OBL). In line with this, even a US citizen such as Melissa, who was volunteering for a medical mission for a poor community, was not exempt from being subjected to 6 days of heavy torture by her captors who attempted to force her to admit that she was a member of the New Peoples Army (NPA), which she refused to do.

Despite campaign promises to investigate and prosecute the wrongdoings of the Arroyo administration, the Aquino government has coddled known human rights abusers in the Arroyo administration. Not one from the over 1,200 cases of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances under Arroyo’s counter-insurgency campaign OBL has seen an arrest nor a trial. Instead, the same pattern continues under Aquino’s version Oplan Bayanihan, which additionally purports so-called community development in the most marginalized areas of the Philippines as the unabated killings of unarmed civilian legal activists continue.

As an alliance of 14 Filipino organizations across the US, of which Melissa was a founding member back in 2005, BAYAN USA has lost confidence in the integrity of the justice system in the Philippines to resolve Melissa’s case. Sadly the Aquino administration, like the Arroyo administration, has amply proven its platform of lawlessness and non-interest in putting a leash on the mercenary-character of the Philippine military, one of the largest beneficiaries of US military aid in Asia.

As Melissa continues to tell her story to listeners across the United States, a real peoples movement is growing in support of Melissa. This includes seeking justice by way of international venues and particularly the court system in the United States, which set a precedent when it ruled in favor of the thousands of victims of human rights abuses under the dictatorship of the former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos.This also includes building the movement in the US to cut US tax dollar support to the Philippine military.

Now that she is no longer protected by sovereign immunity under the presidential office, the time is ripe to arrest and prosecute Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her ilk for similar crimes against humanity. BAYAN USA will stand with Melissa and all other victims of human rights abuses in the Philippines for however long it takes for justice to be served.

Justice for Melissa Roxas!
Prosecute Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo!
Justice for All Victims of Human Rights Violations in the Philippines!
Scrap Oplan Bayanihan!
Stop US Military Aid to Philippine Death Squads!

PRESS RELEASE
Migrante Canada
16 May 2011

Rigoberto Tiglao insults Filipino migrants and their advocates

Columnist Rigoberto Tiglao insulted Filipino migrant workers in his article “Myths about
OFWs” (May 12, 2011, Philippine Daily Inquirer). Mr Tiglao is out of touch with the realities of
Filipino migrants. Even in developed countries like Canada, Filipino migrant workers are
faced with exploitative conditions and uncertainty.

He also insulted legitimate migrant advocates with his sweeping statement that NGOs exploit
the migrant situation for their own financial gain. Migrant organizations such as Migrante do
not benefit nor would even attempt to benefit from the hardships of our kababayans here in
Canada. As a matter of fact all of our organizers and advocates work on a voluntary basis.
We in Migrante Canada dare Mr. Tiglao to try to work as a caregiver here in Canada to see
how dangerous, difficult and dirty that job can be.

Reference: Bernadette Ellorin, Chairperson, BAYAN USA
email: chair@bayanusa.org

Filipino-Americans Join May Day Rallies Demanding for Jobs and Legalization in the US

On May 1, 2011, Filipino-Americans across the United States, under the banner of BAYAN USA, join workers in the Philippines, the US and across the globe in commemorating International Workers Day, a day designated around the world to celebrating the ongoing militant class struggle of workers for living wages, job security, safe working conditions, and a guarantee to pensions and benefits. Recognizing the ongoing militant trade union movement at the forefront of the struggle for genuine national independence from US intervention in the Philippines, Filipinos in the US are also working to help raise the class struggle in the US with the class demands for jobs and legalization of all undocumented immigrants. Unfortunately, the significance of May Day for the working American majority is one that has consistently been suppressed by the US government and corporate elite it serves because of the potential threat it poses to their interests.

Now more than ever, in this time of worsening economic crisis, the unity between immigrants and workers struggling together in the US of vital importance. Workers in the US, both citizen and immigrant, play a decisive role of exposing the bankruptcy of the neoliberal economic agenda responsible for the worst economic crisis in history. The potential of the power of this unity has already been recently exemplified in the struggle of public sector workers in Wisconsin, whose fight united a broad front of supporters across the country and was partially inspired by people’s struggles against the impacts of neoliberalism and US puppetry in North Africa and the Middle East.

As the fastest-growing Asian immigrant community in the US, approximately four million Filipinos– at least one million of which are undocumented– suffer first hand from the effects of neoliberalism in the Philippines and also in the developed countries they migrate to, such as the US, to find work. As a semi-colony of the US, the Philippine economy is violently crippled and denationalized by neoliberalism, including the assistance of a US puppet government, to serve foreign interests. The extraction of cheap raw materials from the Philippines to imperialist countries such as the US and structural blocks imposed by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to the national industrialization of the Philippines cultivate a chronic national debt, deepens poverty and joblessness, creates a desperate army of cheap surplus labor for export, and sows a tragic culture of forced migration and broken families in the Philippines largely facilitated through the Philippine government’s exploitative Labor Export Policy (LEP).

At the same time, the continuing financialization of capital promoted by the world’s corporate oligarchs, banks, and firms encroachingly devastates the economies of imperialist countries, such as the US, where the gap between the ruling elite and the working majority is widening considerably. This is due to the funneling of trillions in public money towards war, military production and the unapologetic bail-out of banks and capital firms. Meanwhile, unemployment skyrockets as the same joblessness abroad that forces workers to migrate to the US in search of jobs displaces workers in  the heart of imperialism itself.

An emerging dominant trend in fascist, racist, right-wing politics aimed at sowing divisions amongst struggling peoples continues to sweep through the US with legislation such as Arizona’s anti-immigrant SB 1070, Wisconsin’s union-busting Walker Bill, the Tea Party Movement, and the corporate media’s calculated censorship of people’s resistance in the country.

Furthermore, the so-called “broken immigration system” in need of “comprehensive immigration reform” is exposing itself as a calculated instrument of US imperialism to revive a slave army of low-wage to no-wage workers by keeping over 12 million undocumented workers in the US cheap, docile, desperate, fearful, and vulnerable. This serves to further facilitate the extraction of more superprofits for US bosses and corporations.

While the crisis of monopoly capitalism continues to prove itself a deathtrap, and the ruling financial oligarchy is occupied with only saving itself, it nonetheless provides the best conditions for the development and advancement of heroic working people’s resistance that have the potential to frustrate capitalism.The thoroughgoing awakening of a sleeping giant of workers in the US to the long-suppressed fightback spirit of May Day and the need for heightened class unity with immigrants is paving the only real recovery from economic crisis in the US, and that is to seek a pro-people alternative to its present anti-people economic system. But when linked in solidarity and in coordination with concrete international struggles for national and social liberations across the globe, such as the Philippine movement for genuine national independence and democracy, its potential to threaten and chip away piece by piece at the global enemy that is imperialism knows no bounds.

JOBS FOR ALL! LEGALIZATION FOR ALL!
UPHOLD WORKERS RIGHTS!
NO TO BUDGET CUTS! HEALTHCARE AND EDUCATION FOR ALL!
LONG LIVE THE SPIRIT OF MAY DAY IN THE US & THE WORLD!
LONG LIVE INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY!

CHR Resolution only serves to maintain and perpetuate impunity
Personal Statement by Melissa Roxas

It has been nearly two years since the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHR) started their investigation into my case of abduction and torture. They have finally come out with a resolution but one that is filled with misleading and inconsistent conclusions. Not only is it a far cry from the justice that I am seeking, but by practically absolving the Armed Forces of the Philippines of accountability, and instead give the unsubstantiated claim that the New People’s Army (NPA) was responsible, the CHR is in effect complicit with the effort of the military to cover up my abduction and torture.

At great risk to my safety, I returned to the Philippines in July of 2009, to testify about my abduction and torture before the CHR, the Court of Appeals, and the Lower House of Congress’ Committee on Human Rights. I did this because I believed it was important to bring the perpetrators, the Armed Forces of the Philippines, to justice.

As a victim of enforced disappearance and torture, for the CHR to say that what I suffered through was not torture is simply reprehensible. If the CHR purports to exist in order to protect and to investigate human rights violations, using narrow definitions and making distinctions between what is “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” and what is “torture” is disturbing. It does no good in obtaining real justice for victims of human rights violations. “Cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” is torture. By any definition, what I went through at the hands of the AFP was torture.

The CHR Resolution has incorrectly concluded that there is “insufficient evidence to pinpoint individual members of the AFP as responsible or probable perpetrators” of my abduction and torture. They go on to say that they have received “credible” information that indicate that the NPA was responsible. These conclusions are inconsistent with my testimony and presented evidence that point to the AFP as the perpetrators of my abduction and torture. It also deviates from the original leads and investigations the former CHR Chair, Leila De Lima initiated.

The CHR did not present any evidence or detail to support the claim that the NPA is responsible for my abduction and torture. The CHR did not give details as to what standard was used to verify the credibility of the informant who claims this was done by the NPA. Neither does the CHR offer any rigorous review of evidence and process of investigation to substantiate this claim.

There is a lack of due process for the CHR to come up with this conclusion. By doing this, the CHR Resolution makes it obvious that it wants to distract the investigation away from the AFP as being the real perpetrators.

In its recommendations, the CHR says it has now fulfilled its constitutional mandate and left in charge State parties–the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI)–with the responsibility of further investigating my case. This is nothing else but cruel for the CHR to expect that I would obtain justice by putting in charge these state agents—the PNP being one of the respondents to my case in the courts. I suffered trauma and injuries from the abduction and torture by State agents. What kind of justice do I expect to get if the very institutions that are responsible for my abduction and torture are left to investigate my case?

The CHR has certainly not fulfilled its duty to protect my human rights. This resolution only serves to maintain and perpetuate impunity for the Philippine government and military who commit these heinous crimes.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Reference: Rhonda Ramiro, BAYAN-USA Secretary General, secgen@bayanusa.org

(photo via pinoyherald.org)

CHR Resolution Protects Torturers, Torments Victims

“This is a cover-up,” stated BAYAN-USA Chair Bernadette Ellorin in response to the release of a Resolution by the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHR) on the case of the abduction and torture of Filipino American Melissa Roxas on May 19, 2009. The result of an investigation begun on the 25th of May 2009, the CHR’s report cites copious evidence gathered through public inquiries, expert witnesses, inspections of the abduction site and military facilities where Roxas was possibly held, and sworn statements by Roxas herself, yet concludes that “In light of the lack of evidence against the persons who inflicted the physical and psychological maltreatment on the complainant, it is not possible for the Commission to reach any findings on torture” in Roxas’ case.

“With this single report, the CHR has virtually erased any progress made in its 1-1/2 year investigation into this case by the previous CHR chair. It appears that now the CHR is more concerned with covering up the crimes of the Philippine military than with uncovering the truth about human rights violations in the country,” said Ellorin.

The first American citizen to be abducted and tortured under the administration of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Roxas is a well-known Filipino American human rights advocate and was BAYAN-USA’s first Regional Coordinator in Los Angeles, CA and a founding member of the Los Angeles-based cultural organization Habi Arts. In her sworn affidavit and testimony provided in several court appearances and CHR Public Inquiries in 2009, Roxas described in detail the ordeal she experienced at the hands of the Philippine military: being abducted by approximately 15 armed men, handcuffed and blindfolded for six days, held in a jail cell, subjected to torture via asphyxiation using a doubled-up plastic bag, repeated beatings to the face and body, and having her head banged repeatedly against the wall by her interrogators, who tried to force her to admit that she was a member of the New People’s Army and advised her abandon communism and to “return to the fold.” Roxas said that one interrogator stated those who tortured her were from the Special Operations Group (SOG), and she heard one of her interrogators addressed as “Sir.” She also heard gunfire from what she believed to be a firing range as well as the sounds of aircraft, pointing to the high probability that she was held in a military camp.

By its own admission, the CHR report states that Roxas provided exceptionally consistent and detailed descriptions of the torture she underwent, the place she was held, and the physical appearance of five people involved in her abduction and detention, indicating that Roxas’ testimony is extremely credible. However, the CHR report still concludes that it has “insufficient evidence to pinpoint individual members of the AFP as the possible or probably perpetrators.”

Moreover, the CHR report dares to shift the blame from the Philippine military to the New People’s Army (NPA). “The CHR has received information that indicate the possibility that members of the NPA committed the kidnapping, and other human rights violations on Roxas,” states the resolution on page 20. In response, Ellorin said, “By making such blanket accusations without providing a speck of evidence, the CHR under President Aquino is showing that it is no different from the Philippine Presidential Human Rights Commission (PHRC) under Arroyo, which tried to dismiss Melissa’s traumatic ordeal by saying that it was fabricated. Falling for information like this is laughable, especially considering that Melissa’s captors tried to force her to admit she was an NPA member. Even worse, the CHR resolution opportunistically supports the Aquino government’s counter-insurgency program Oplan Bayanihan, which is attempting to demonize the NPA while duping the public into believing that the AFP is a peace-making force.”

International human rights advocates such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Killings have repeatedly criticized the Philippine government’s cover-up of state-sponsored torture. “This CHR resolution perpetuates the culture of impunity that reigns in the Philippines. There is still no justice for the innocent women and journalists slaughtered in the Maguindanao Massacre in 2009, not one perpetrator has been apprehended in the cases of thousands of cases of extra-judicial killings, nor the abduction and torture of people like Melissa Roxas and the Morong 43 health workers,” said Ellorin.

“The CHR resolution will just add fuel to the fire of the Justice for Melissa campaign,” continued Ellorin. “While the CHR under Aquino lacks the political will to uphold human rights, BAYAN-USA and Melissa’s supporters will persist in pursuing justice for Melissa through all vehicles available to us in the U.S.”

The timing of the release of the CHR Resolution comes as the U.S. Congress enters the final weeks of a contentious budget battle, expected by both Democrats and Republicans to result in hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to essential public services. BAYAN-USA calls on the U.S. Congress and Obama administration to stop pouring millions of American taxpayer dollars into the Philippine military, which tortures and kills innocent people under the tacit protection of the so-called Commission on Human Rights.

Coalition for Migrant Workers Justice: Raising the Voices of the Migrant Workers in B.C.

 Vancouver, B.C. (April 19, 2011) – The many migrant workers under the government Temporary Foreign Workers Program have a strong friend and ally in the newly launched Coalition for Migrant Workers Justice (Coalicion por la Justicia de Trabajadores Migrantes / Koalisyon para sa Katarungan ng mga Migranteng Manggagawa) which held a press conference last April 19 at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in east Vancouver.

 In the Coalition’s Unity Statement, the 13 members of the Coalition -- academia, faith-based groups, service providers, grassroots organizations and unions, human rights groups, and migrant workers themselves -- expose the injustice, the vulnerability, poor working conditions and barriers of the temporary foreign workers. Joe Barrett of the BC Building Trades Council said we are all connected with the migrant workers’ issue because “an injury to migrant workers is an injury to all Canadians,” most especially in the case of violations of labour standards.

OPEN LETTER TO ALL CANDIDATES

April 20, 2011

Dear Candidates,

RE:  Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Policies

Migrante-Canada, a Canada-wide organization comprised of Filipino TFWs, established immigrants and citizens would like to inform our membership and the public about your position regarding the plight of TFWs across the country.

• A recent Auditor General’s report found that Canada’s TFW program leaves migrant workers vulnerable to a range of abuses.  Examples include TFWs having to pay thousands of dollars to unscrupulous recruiters;  not being the promised wages by employers; and being subject to inhumane living and working conditions.

• In 2007, the Philippines was Canada’s largest source country for immigrants and TFWs combined.  Apart from the Americans, Filipinos comprise the majority of TFWs coming to Canada. A recent article came out from the Globe and Mail (March 11, 2011) citing the Philippines as the new “top source” of immigrants to Canada.

• The number of TFWs in Canada has increased dramatically in the last several years.  In 2008, there were an estimated 250,000 TFWs in the country compared to 100,000 in 2002.
  

Press Statement
April 8, 2011
Reference: Bernadette Ellorin, Chairperson, BAYAN USA
email: chair@bayanusa.org

Balikatan Exercises in the Philippines Anything But “Humanitarian”

Filipino-Americans, under the banner of BAYAN USA, join the people’s clamor in the Philippines and the United States calling for the withdrawal of US troops engaged in imperialist military aggression abroad, such as in Libya and in the Philippines. Not even the ruse of so-called “humanitarian intervention” can conceal the bloodthirsty character of US war and occupation abroad to expand US hegemonic control. This week’s dispatch of 3000 US troops to the Philippines for the 27th installment of the Balikatan (”Shoulder-to-Shoulder”) joint military exercises is a reminder of how the US imperial brand of “democracy” works in the most insidious of ways.

The US-Aquino government’s PR spin over the 10-day Balikatan exercises that began this week having a focus on disaster relief training reflects the US government’s shift from an “enemy-centric” approach to intervention to a “population-centric” approach, as stipulated in the US government’s counter-insurgency (COIN) guide. By touting a thrust toward civic projects over the failed Bush Doctrine of counter-terrorism, the US military applies a soft-hand overture in order to convince the Filipino and American people that permanent US military presence and control over the Philippines is acceptable and friendly. But 12 years under the bilateral military policy under which the Balikatan exercises fall– the US-RP Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA)– has proven otherwise.

Formerly established as a direct colony of the US after the bloody Philippine-American War of 1899, the Philippines continues to suffer immensely as a semi-colony of the US and under the thumb of the US military. With this comes a modern-day master-puppet type relationship reflective in all bilateral economic and military agreements between the US and Philippine governments. In addition to being trapped in a chronic state of economic deficit and poverty under neoliberal globalization, 112+ year US military stranglehold over the Philippines continues with the VFA, whose history is laden with the memories of Filipino women such as Suzette “Nicole” Nicolas gang raped by US marines and the US military’s immunity from prosecution, of Filipina women and children driven by poverty to service US military personnel as prostitutes, of the disrespect and destruction of Philippine patrimony, of documented sightings of US military personnel illegally engaged in direct combat in the country, and even of the unresolved deaths of Filipinos within the vicinity of the US military such as that of translator Gregan Cardeno.

The US hand in the Philippines can also be seen through the steady cash flow of US military aid towards the former bloody counter-insurgency campaign Oplan Bantay Laya under the Arroyo administration and now the new counter-insurgency campaign Oplan Bayanihan under the Aquino administration. As is the case with the US military aggression in Libya, no amount of talk of humanitarianism can discard what the people of Libya and the Philippines see before their eyes as a result of US intervention– widespread bloodshed of civilians and consolidation of US power over the region.

As part of the ongoing struggle of the Filipino people against US imperialism, Filipinos in the US stand in solidarity with the Libyan people suffering directly from a newly-launched US war of aggression motivated by the US ruling elite’s quest for profitability and a path out of the economic crisis. Filipinos in the US also stand with the American working majority who are suffering from a growing spread of fascist and racist legislation across the country and deadly cuts on public spending in favor of the US war and occupation abroad.

But what the US war machine fails to remember is the unending people’s resistance it meets wherever it launches an attack, as is the case currently in the Philippines, Libya, and other regions of the world. In this time of the worsening global economic crisis spawned by imperialism and the overstretching of the US war machine, the heightening class struggle gives birth to people’s liberation movements that advance considerably, winning victories such as the fall of the tyrannical regimes in Tunisia and Egypt. It is the linking of people’s resistance around the globe under the banner of international solidarity against US intervention and hegemony that poses the biggest and most decisive threat to the US war machine.

US Troops Out of the Philippines and Asia!
US Troops Out of Libya and the Middle East!
Junk the VFA!
Stop US Military Aid to the Philippines!
Long Live International Solidarity!

Denny’s Temporary Foreign Workers’ Class Action (Herminia Vergara Dominguez v. Northland Properties Corporation doing business as Denny’s Restaurants, and Dencan Restaurants Inc.)

Click this link for the details of the class action suit

-------------------------------------------

DEMO at DENNY'S

MIGRANTE B.C. and MIGRANTE Canada, the latter with its 17 member organizations from coast to coast, support the struggle and demands of Herminia Dominguez and the Denny's workers, and the class action lawsuit that is now before the Supreme Court of British Columbia.

For many of us, we meet TFWs when they are already in Canada.  When they are already at the Denny’s restaurants cooking and serving our Grand Slam Breakfast, at the Tim Horton’s coffee shops pouring our coffee and bagging our doughnuts or at the Little Caesar’s Pizza serving us our pepperoni pizza slices.

Press Statement
March 24, 2011

Reference: Bernadette Ellorin, Chairperson, BAYAN USA
email: chair@bayanusa.org

BAYAN USA Pays Tribute to Attorney Leonard Weinglass, People’s Lawyer & Friend of the Filipino People

BAYAN USA sends its deepest and most heartfelt condolences to the family of Leonard Weinglass, people’s lawyer, ardent human rights defender, and longtime supporter of the Filipino people’s ongoing struggle for freedom and democracy. Weinglass passed away yesterday in his sleep due to complications with pancreatic cancer. He was 77 years old.

His four-decades long track record in the struggle for justice speaks for itself– defending Mumia Abu-Jamal, The Cuban Five, Angela Davis, The Chicago Seven, Kathy Boudin of the Weather Underground, and even press freedom fighter Julian Assange.

A mainstay figure in the US Civil Rights Movement, Weinglass was also a well-known supporter and advocate for international justice struggles, having been the co-chair of the international committee of the National Lawyers Guild for many years.

As an international human rights lawyer, Weinglass was a well-respected ally and friend of the Filipino people. Having been a vocal opponent to the martial law of the Marcos dictatorship, Weinglass also participated in a fact-finding mission in 1987 with fellow attorney Ramsey Clark to investigate death squads under the first Aquino administration. The mission produced a significant report that conclusively identified the ongoing problem of state repression under the Aquino regime,and particularly the hand of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the Philippine military’s counter-insurgency campaign.

Shortly after the founding of BAYAN USA in 2005, Weinglass was among the US signatories endorsing the Second International Solidarity Mission (ISM) to the Philippines to investigate human rights abuses under the administration of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Weinglass also continuously opened the door to his New York City office to meet with several human rights activists, lawyers, and abuse survivors from the Philippines over the years as he remained concerned about the human rights situation in the country. In 2009, Weinglass joined the core group of the US-based Never Again to Martial Law (NAML) movement that was formed in response to the Arroyo government’s declaration of a state of martial law in Maguindanao following the Ampatuan Massacre in November 2009.

But it was Weinglass’ most recent support as co-counsel and adviser to Filipina-American abduction and torture survivor, and BAYAN USA member, Melissa Roxas for which BAYAN USA will forever be grateful for. In his final years, Weinglass spoke out publicly in defense of Roxas and met several times with BAYAN USA leaders in his Manhattan office to discuss the campaign to prosecute former Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for gross human rights violations. Throughout his lifetime, Atty. Weinglass lent his endorsement as a renowned US political activist and international defender of human rights to the overall Filipino people’s struggle for genuine freedom and democracy.

Paalam Len, and thank you for your invaluable solidarity and friendship with the Filipino people. You will be sorely missed. May your selfless example as a people’s lawyer and activist inspire others to continue in the same path.

MABUHAY ANG DIWA NI LEONARD WEINGLASS!
LONG LIVE INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY!

News Statement
March 21, 2011

Reference: Bernadette Ellorin, Chairperson, BAYAN USA
email: chair@bayanusa.org

STOP THE AIR STRIKES ON LIBYA! NO TO ANOTHER US IMPERIALIST WAR FOR OIL!

Filipino-Americans, under the banner of BAYAN USA, are joining the growing ranks of the broad public outcry within the United States against the recently launched military air strikes on Libya by US, NATO, and allied forces. On the 8th anniversary of the ongoing US war in Iraq, BAYAN USA vehemently condemns the imperialist military attacks on the Libyan people and calls for increased protest action to demand the Obama government cease and desist from creating another trillion-dollar bloodbath for oil that the situation in Iraq has become.

Washington Needs Another Puppet State in the Middle East

While the US continues to be rocked by protest movements, a la Wisconsin, that clearly signal the American people’s growing discontent and awakening to class warfare, Washington’s response is to launch another murderous and expensive war in the Middle Eastern region, this time on Libya. Capitalizing on the civil strife in Libya as an opportunity for military intervention under the guise of humanitarianism, Obama proves he is really no different from his much reviled predecessor, serving as a front man for US big business. Even justification tactics and PR schemes remain the same. Humanitarianism is to Obama what the War on Terror was for Bush, a useful pretext to launch an imperialist war of aggression. The Obama administration has also found a convenient enemy figurehead to play bounty hunter with in Muʿammar al-Qaḏḏāfī just as the Bush administration did with Saddam Hussein, all the while disguising its real objectives of seizing control of rich oil-reserves US big business has been salivating over for decades and installing a reliable US puppet regime to protect US economic interests in the region.

It must also be noted that another reliable US post in the Middle East, like Zionist Israel, is even more critical to the US in light of ongoing pro-democracy movements in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen that continue to sweep the region and threaten US interests. This is the same role the Philippines has played for the past 112 years as a reliable US puppet state in Asia serving to protect and promote US economic interests in the region since the US unleashed it’s first war of aggression on the Philippines in 1899.

Growing Class War in the US

Under the worsening crisis of monopoly capitalism, the US defense industry has become the most bankable for the US ruling elite and thus the main priority for the US government. In fact, US big business averages over $6 billion annually in arms sales to the Middle East and South Asia alone. This renders insatiable the imperialist appetite for unending war for its profitability more than anything else. But as the chronic crisis has also sent US big business in a downward spiral of its own doing, these same big businesses have no qualms stealing trillions in public funds allocated for education, healthcare, jobs, housing, unemployment, pensions, and other social services to beef up its military industrial complex. Concurrently, the US government concocts a deceitful line blaming the crisis on social spending, hoping to dupe the American people into believing that massive budget cuts and other austerity measures are required sacrifices in the path to recovery.

But the people of the US, as exemplified by the occupation of the Wisconsin State Capitol building, are not swallowing it. The $3-trillion dollar and growing waste in tax dollars that is the US war on Iraq, in addition to the astronomical cost of innocent human lives, continues to galvanize communities in the US into a perpetual state of discontent. For the past 5 years, public opinion research in the US consistently shows that the American people’s opposition to the war in Iraq far outweighs those who support it.

This discontent is additionally being fueled by increased state attacks on unions, immigrants, workers, and other communities in the US. The passing of the anti-immigrant SB 1070 in Arizona and the anti-union Walker Bill in Wisconsin are examples of how the US government exacts policies aimed at sowing divisions in the US working class. It is in the utmost interest of US big business to whip up divisions between citizen and immigrant, documented and undocumented, union and non-union, white and non-white because in its drive to save itself through war and neoliberalism, it can’t afford to be challenged by a united front of the anti-war movement, the labor movement, the immigrant rights movement, the anti-racist movement, the affordable housing movement, the education movement, the civil rights movement, and other democratic movements burgeoning in its own house.

Filipino-Americans Stand in Solidarity with the Struggling Libyan and US Majority

As one of the largest Asian groups in the US numbering at over 4 million, Filipino-Americans also bear the brunt of increased budget cuts and state repression by the US government. Like others in the US, Filipino-Americans remain inspired by the continuing revolutions that have swept across the Middle East and North Africa, and like the example of Wisconsin, Filipino-Americans are joining others in the US struggling to broaden that same pro-democracy spirit into a formidable unity to that can concretely frustrate US big business and its strategy of unending imperialist war. More and more Filipinos in the US are also organizing to struggle for genuine national independence and democracy in their homeland in recognition that US imperialism is also at the root of the Filipino people’s longtime suffering from poverty, landlessness, joblessness and corruption.

As an alliance in solidarity with all peoples suffering from US hegemony, BAYAN USA stands with the people of Libya in their struggle for national independence and democracy as well as with the growing class struggle in the US. BAYAN USA has seen firsthand and remains confident that the overwhelming majority of people of the US will never accept Washington’s unending battle cry for war overseas. Like others around the globe, the American people have also suffered from the devastation, loss, and pain caused by imperialist wars. BAYAN USA is also confident that these sufferings will encourage the continued awakening and intensification of the class struggle in the US, a struggle that when linked to other anti-imperialist movements across the globe, can decisively topple US big business and stop its imperialist war campaigns. ###

STOP THE AIR STRIKES ON LIBYA!
US OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA!
US OUT OF THE PHILIPPINES!
LONG LIVE INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY!

News Statement
March 11, 2011

Reference: Bernadette Ellorin, Chairperson, BAYAN USA
email: chair@bayanusa.org www.bayanusa.org

BAYAN USA Stands in Solidarity with Wisconsin Workers, Supports Call for General Strike

The unremitting campaign of the Wisconsin State legislature to illegally railroad the wildly unpopular budget bill proposed by Governor Scott Walker is being confronted head-on by a wave of people’s upsurge across the Midwestern United States led by workers. These are workers who are simply fed up and have lost their fear to fight for what belongs to them. Filipino-Americans across the United States, under the banner of BAYAN USA, salute this people’s upsurge, stand in solidarity with the workers of Wisconsin, and support the growing call for a general strike right in the heart of world’s number one imperialist superpower.

The Wisconsin State Congress, and the corporate ruling elite they serve, are fools to think they could get away with such foul maneuvers as to ram both the State Senate and Assembly votes for the destructive bill by cutting out the budget portion in order to avoid the quorum requirement. In addition, these bandits in government convened for a vote without a 24-hour notice, as is required by law. This display of right-wing thuggery typifies a widening trend in state governments across the US to pass legislation aimed to strip people of their livelihood and dignity. Just as Arizona governor Jan Brewer pushed for anti-immigrant hate legislation emboldening armed racists and ensuring the deaths of migrants of color, Walker’s so-called budget repair bill unleashes wholesale attacks on unions, essentially stripping workers of their rights to organize and collectively bargain.

Much like the struggle of Filipino workers and peasants against the deadly impact of neoliberal globalization under a semi-feudal economy, the struggle against the Walker bill in Wisconsin is part of a larger global people’s resistance against the death trap that is monopoly capitalism, or imperialism. In this time of spiraling economic crisis, it is the direction of imperialism to aggressively campaign for its survival by hoarding public wealth, state subsidies, and intensifying its exploitation of workers for the extraction of superprofits. Inextricable to this campaign is the destruction of unions, or the collective power of workers to organize for their rights and welfare. The struggle against union-busting in Wisconsin is very much akin to the struggle of Filipino unions against the guns and goons of multinational corporations such as Nestle, Dole, Toyota, not to mention the likes of colluding landlord dynasties such as the Cojuangco-Aquinos.

It must also be noted that the Walker bill drive is bankrolled by none other than David and Charles Koch, better known as the Koch Brothers, the wealthiest industrialists in the US notorious for funding the likes of the extremist Tea Party. This allegiance to corporate oligarchy over public interest reeks of moral bankruptcy and thrives on human suffering. The workers fight in Wisconsin, and the growing united front across the country in support of it, is a glaring reminder that not even the US is exempt from straightforward, unapologetic class warfare. In these trying times for workers in imperialist countries, one of the most effective tools the people must use to stifle the capitalist bloodline of their governments is to paralyze production through a general strike.

The intensification of class struggle in the US via the workers struggle in Wisconsin must be supported by and linked to all other oppressed people’s resistance against imperialism and reaction worldwide. As an overseas alliance of Filipinos integral to the national liberation struggle of the Philippines, BAYAN USA links arms with all oppressed peoples in the US and calls for solidarity with Wisconsin workers through emulation of their example. On the heels of people power victories and continuing upsurge in the Middle East and North Africa, now more than ever these inspirational examples must lead to concrete and widespread peoples movements of which imperialism is no match. ###

KILL THE WALKER BILL!
STOP UNION-BUSTING!
WORKERS UNITE TO FIGHT FOR OUR RIGHTS!
THE PEOPLE UNITED WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED!

News Statement
March 8, 2011

Reference: Bernadette Ellorin, Chairperson, BAYAN USA
email: chair@bayanusa.org, www.bayanusa.org

BAYAN USA Celebrates 100 Years of Women in the People’s Struggle

On this centennial anniversary of International Women’s Day, BAYAN USA, an alliance of 14 Filipino organizations in the United States, salutes all the women on the frontlines of national and social liberation struggles working to frustrate and dismantle all forms of social oppression, especially US imperialism and its agents of reaction. Women are proving that not only do they hold up half the sky, they are taking up the duty of liberating it. As women risk their lives in these heroic and emancipatory struggles, they further expose the reality that the greatest violence unleashed upon women and children comes from and is institutionalized by imperialism itself.

Now more than ever, amidst the worst economic crisis in world history, women worldwide are providing the best examples of militancy, resistance, and self-determination in the face of structural repression and reactionary violence. From People Power in Egypt’s Tahrir Square to armed struggle in the Himalayas in Nepal to labor strikes in Guangzhou, China to the occupation of Madison, Wisconsin’s State Capitol Building, to women domestic workers organizing for recognition of domestic work as formal work, women are deeply engaged in advancing peoples struggles.

Like their sisters worldwide, Filipina women are engaged in all forms of people’s resistance against oppression. The militant Filipina women’s alliance, Gabriela Philippines, is continuously raising broad social awareness of violence against women. From violence unleashed by the Philippine state’s mercenary military apparatus to the domestic violence commonly inflicted by intimate partners in the form of rape, molestation, and sexual assault, Filipina women leaders and organizers are re-shaping traditional attitudes around gender, class, sex, marriage, divorce, family, healthcare and government. At present, the Gabriela Women’s Party is at the forefront of a growing movement for the passage of its Comprehensive Reproductive Health Bill as well as its Divorce Bill against a dominant, social current anchored by centuries of colonial rule of Spanish Catholicism and US imperialism.

Six years after the violent gang rape of Suzette “Nicole” Nicolas by 6 US marines stationed in Subic Bay, led by US Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith, in addition to countless other cases in history of sexual terrorism against Filipina women and children by US military personnel, the US and Philippine governments continue to insist on US military presence in the country under the auspices of joint military training exercises. However, numerous eye-witness accounts reveal the US military engagement in combat operations which violate the Philippine constitution.

Recognizing the role of Filipinos in the US in Philippine movement for genuine national independence and democracy, BAYAN USA helped to found the US chapter of Gabriela Philippines. Launched in 2009, Gabriela USA has worked tirelessly to organize Filipina-American women to link their rights and welfare struggles and concerns to the larger context national liberation of their homeland. Gabriela Philippines and its US Chapter also continue to play a role in clarifying that genuine Filipino women’s emancipation can only be possible upon the Filipino people’s liberation from imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism.

On the centennial anniversary of International Women’s Day, BAYAN USA stands shoulder to shoulder with our sisters of Gabriela USA in advancing the iVOW to end Violence Against Women (VAW) Campaign. This on-going campaign led by Gabriela is an awareness and advocacy campaign to combat the seven forms of violence women around the world face: sex trafficking and prostitution; domestic violence; rape, incest, and sexual abuse; sexual harassment; violence as a result of political repression; sexual discrimination and exploitation; and limited access to reproductive health care.

As an overseas chapter of BAYAN Philippines, BAYAN USA recognizes the irrefutable role of women in all struggles for social emancipation. BAYAN USA also recognizes that the Filipino women’s movement is part of, not parallel to, the overall Filipino people’s movement for national liberation.

Long Live the Filipino Women’s Movement!
Long Live Working Women Engaged in People’s Struggle!
Resist Imperialism and All Forms of Reaction!
Strive for Women’s Liberation Through People’s Liberation!

News Statement
February 25, 2011
Reference: Bernadette Ellorin, Chairperson, BAYAN USA
email: chair@bayanusa.org

25 Years After People Power, Filipinos Still Seeking Change– BAYAN USA

On the 25th anniversary of the popular uprising “People Power 1″ in the Philippines– also known as the first EDSA uprising– which ended the 20+ year dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, Filipino-Americans under the banner of BAYAN-USA are inspired by the spirit of People Power sweeping through North Africa, the Middle East, and now even through the midwestern US in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Filipinos know from firsthand experience that social unrest will not stop as long as governments across the globe neglect the people’s basic needs and subordinate them to US and multinational corporate dictates.

Much like the upsurge that swept across Tunisia and Egypt this past month, the 1986 EDSA uprising proved the power of unity in struggle could oust a reviled US-backed dictator, as millions of Filipinos took to the streets armed only with the yearning for a genuinely democratic system. At the same time, Filipinos today recognize that the struggle is incomplete, as comprehensive systemic change has yet to be attained.

Over 200 days into its presidency, the Benigno Simeon “Noy-Noy” Aquino III administration has yet to pay due respect to the legacy of the 1986 EDSA uprising. Despite the cosmetic attempt of the Aquino administration to prettify the situation in the Philippines through shallow rhetoric and superficial reforms, the majority of Filipinos still bear the brunt of poverty, landlessness, hunger, joblessness, forced migration, human rights violations, and political repression. The US government’s militarist agenda in the country remains protected and upheld by the Aquino government over the public interest of the Filipino people.

Much has to be said about the aggressive hand of the US government in engineering a back-up plan post-Marcos to ensure the Philippines would remain a loyal US puppet state. Inclusive of this is the US government campaign to divide and co-opt the broad national pro-democracy united front that unseated Marcos and tighten its military grip on the country with a series of unequal agreements dismissive of Philippine national sovereignty. At the same time, the likes of ruling oligarch families such as the landowning Cojuangcos having control of the country’s governing system continues to spit out empty promises to a suffering and burdened nation. The fact that nearly 4,000 Filipinos leave the country every day just to survive is a main indicator of this.

The 21st century People Power uprisings have learned from the lessons of history, as the people of Egypt and Tunisia refuse to be content with the ouster of Hosni Mubarak and Ben Ali, and they continue to press for true democracy and systemic change. In Wisconsin, a growing united front of public and private sector workers, along with youth and students are nearly two weeks straight with protests against the anti-people Walker Bill, including an ongoing heroic occupation of the Wisconsin State Capitol Building. More and more Filipino-Americans are awakening to continuing pro-democracy movement in their homeland.

Repression continues to breed resistance. In this vein, BAYAN-USA draws agitation and hope that continuous struggle for genuine national sovereignty and democracy in the Philippines, in solidarity with more people powers in other nations and even in the US itself, can succeed in weakening and toppling the global structures of inequity powered by the banks, corporations, and hoarders of the world’s concentrated wealth. ###