Author: Joe Lampasa

OFWs in Europe raise fear of more human rights abuses under Martial Law

PRESS STATEMENT

Reference: Father Herbert Fadriquela, Jr. email: [email protected]

28 May 2017

Migrants in Rome with Ma Jai, Global Council member ICHRP.

Migrante Europe today expressed alarm on the declaration of President Rodrigo Duterte of a 60-day Martial Law and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in the whole island of Mindanao, after deadly armed clashes erupted between the troops of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the terrorist Maute group on Tuesday, 23 May 2017.

“Under military rule, the just and lasting peace we aspire for shall recede farther away,- more human rights abuses and violence would reign in our land!” decried Migrante Europe Chairperson Father Herbert Fadriquela, Jr.

Filipinos will never forget the dark ages of Marcos’ Martial Law. Church leaders, lay persons, student activists, human rights advocates and innocent civilians were subjected to numerous human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, illegal arrests, imprisonment, forced disappearances and torture. The violations were rampant, carried out with impunity, with the perpetrators remaining unpunished to this day.

Military abuses in Southern Mindanao

According to a research by Protection Cluster, a United Nations-supported initiative of government and non-governmental groups, military offensives under the guise of anti-insurgency operations] have resulted in numerous alleged serious human rights abuses, and that military operations in the Mindanao areas are “one of the main driving factors of displacement amidst armed conflict.”

In 2016, tens of thousands of families have been displaced in Mindanao because of high levels of militarization in the area in pursuit of the AFP´s counter-insurgency operations. Women, children, and the elderly who have fled their homes and communities have been enduring very poor living conditions in makeshift evacuation camps with inadequate food, medical care, and sporadic electricity supply. Many have been sick, one child has died from dehydration.

Hence, the imposition of Martial Law in the midst of the government counter-insurgency program “Oplan Kapayapaan,” shall only aggravate the already critical condition of human rights in Mindanao.

Since President Duterte came into power in July 2016, KARAPATAN has already documented 55 victims of political killings, and numerous illegal arrests and detention of human rights defenders and peace advocates, with the most recent arrest and detention on 11 May 2017 of Iglesia Filipina Independiente (Philippine Independent Church) Bishop Carlos Morales along with his wife Maria Teofifina Morales, driver Sadome Dalid, and NDFP Peace Consultant Rommel Salinas at a military checkpoint in the village of Gango in Ozamis City.

Salinas was later identified as a rebel leader and consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) in the ongoing peace negotiations with the Duterte government. He was arrested on trumped up charges of destructive arson, murder, frustrated murder, attempted murder and robbery. Meanwhile, Bishop Morales has been charged with “illegal possession of firearms and ammunition.”

Migrante Europe, church organizations and global peace advocates groups condemned the unjustifiable arrest and detention of Bishop Morales and called for the unconditional release of Morales and all political prisoners.

May 28 call to “Global day of action against Martial Law in Mindanao”

The recent attack of the terrorist Maute group in Marawi City that killed and injured security forces, and held a priest and several people hostage is condemnable.

But placing Mindanao under military rule cannot be seen as a justifiable nor a proportionate action in relation to the circumstances. Putting the entire island under the authority of known human rights violators Gen. Eduardo Año and the Armed Forces of the Philippines, will only escalate more the violations and abuses against women, children, political activists, indigenous leaders, and human rights defenders.

“Migrante Europe is one with the people of Marawi and Mindanao in condemning terrorists like the Maute group and in aspiring for just and lasting peace in the entire country. We call on peace loving Filipinos, migrant organisations, friends and allies to join us in our appeal to President Duterte to withdraw his suspension of habeas corpus and lift his declaration of Martial Law in Mindanao,” concluded Father Herbert.###

28 May 2017
INTERNATIONAL MIGRANTS ALLIANCE-USA (IMA-USA) STATEMENT FOR MAY DAY 2017

Migrant Workers and Refugees Rise Up!

Build solidarity with workers and oppressed and exploited peoples of the world!

The International Migrants Alliance-USA Chapter (IMA-USA) stands with all the workers of the world on May 1st, International Workers’ Day.

Ironically, it was in the United States where International Workers’ Day was initiated. Workers in Chicago started a general strike on May 1, 1886 to demand an 8-hour work day. A few days later, some workers were killed by state forces, prompting the bombing at the Haymarket Square, also known as the Haymarket Massacre. Around the world, International Workers’ Day has been commemorated on May 1, except for North America — the United States and Canada.

In recent years, the workers and migrants rights movement in the United States has reclaimed May 1 as International Workers’ Day. In December 2005, the Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act, also known as H.R. 4437 or Sensenbrenner Bill, was proposed in the 109th United States Congress criminalizing working-class undocumented migrants and those who would be found helping them. This prompted the mobilization of millions of migrant workers into the streets in different parts of the country on May 1, 2006.

As the United States of America enters a new period under the Trump administration in 2017 — a brazenly fascist, racist and anti-im/migrant president — within his first 100 days in office, we have seen his administration attack immigrants, migrant workers, and working-class people of color through his proposed Executive Orders.

Banning of Muslims, heightened raids in communities, profiling people of color in different parts of the country, continuous deportation of migrants and his plans of building the wall at the Mexican border are only the beginning of his open anti-im/migrant attacks. Trump has also made clear in his pronouncements that refugees are not welcome to the United States.

As migrant workers and refugees, we have long been forcibly displaced victims of the ravages of U.S. Imperialism. With its huge demand for cheap labor to sustain its capitalist needs, to the imperialist and proxy wars that the U.S. has been waging all over the world, displacing peoples from their home countries and resulting in forced migration and the current refugee crisis, Trump has only intensified the U.S. imperialist crises in different global regions. We can expect Trump to continue the horrendous legacy of past U.S. presidents, but we predict he will only worsen these problems, including the climate crisis as a professed climate change denier.

In this light, we call on all migrant workers and refugees to stand up against this new face of U.S. imperialism, still the most powerful among the world super-powers. Trump has pitted the U.S. working class against migrant workers and refugees, and so we must strive to create bridges, not bans or walls, to connect our struggles together.

We must build the broadest alliances and mass movements with the working-class peoples and the most oppressed and exploited communities around the world, forging strong international solidarity to resist the neoliberal policies advanced by U.S. imperialism and its representatives across the globe.

This May Day 2017, just like when it was called for in 1886, we support the calls for a general strike and to shut down businesses who do not support the struggles of the working-class, whether migrants, people of color and/or U.S.-born.

A tyrant can only be defeated by the people’s collective voices, efforts and power. Let us march together as IMA-USA and advance people’s movements and struggles to greater heights!

Migrant workers, refugees, and workers of the world unite!

No to deportations! No bans! No walls! No to U.S. imperialist wars!

###

http://tinyurl.com/imausa-mayday2017

5 May 2017
Migrant and Local Workers Unite: Fight back against Imperialist Offensives

The International Migrants Alliance (IMA) stands in solidarity with workers of the world in celebrating the International Labor Day. The International Labor Day is highly significant for it commemorates the unity of workers around the world as they fight for decent jobs, living income, human rights and justice. This year, as imperialism intensifies its attacks on migrant and local workers and peoples, all the more we need to strengthen our solidarity and fight back.

Yesterday, April 30, various Hong Kong-based Indonesian members of IMA went to submit their petition to Indonesian president Joko Widodo but were physically blocked, harassed and intimidated jointly by Hong Kong and Indonesian security forces. This high-handed response fortifies the notion of migrant workers as security concerns, instead of people with rights and entitled to social protection and dignity.

Migrants and refugees all over the world continue to be targets of attack as imperialist offensives heighten. Immigrants, migrant workers and refugees in the US, Europe and other developed countries are confronted with racism, chauvinism and hate crimes as right-wing governments take over, neofascism rises and oppressive policies are enacted. Anti-migrant hysteria is being fanned and migrant workers are targeted as scapegoats – practically endangering their lives. Government security through its police and military has been heightened as racial profiling becomes prevalent.

This smacks of the hypocrisy of governments mouthing safe, orderly and regular migration for all. Under the global neoliberal regime, both sending and receiving governments have already systematized the export of cheap and docile labor yet completely violating the rights of migrant workers through various anti-migrant legislation and practices. This they do as they continue to impose anti-worker policies like labor flexibility and contractualization, further assaulting the working people and contributing to increased global unemployment.

From the depression of wages to commodification of labor, from the outright denial of rights of workers to brutal dispersals of workers’ protests, from legislating repression to actual waging of wars, imperialism is putting migrant and local workers in the line of fire as it attempts to salvage itself from a worsening crisis that it itself has created.

While imperialist powers scuffle to have hegemonic control over and plunder oil and other resources of other nations, it worsens its own crises while intensifying the displacement and sufferings of the peoples of the world through militarism and war. The war-mongering Trump regime is now hell-bent in justifying a military onslaught on North Korea while continuing the war in Syria. Actions similar to this exacerbate the refugee crisis and the dislocation of peoples, including many children.

This environment of injustice builds in us the resolve to arouse, organize and mobilize our sector to collectively resist and struggle. We will mobilize in hundreds, in thousands, as we join our local working brothers and sisters in resisting the numerous neoliberal attacks on our jobs, wages, livelihood, and rights.

The formation of the International Migrants Alliance and the continuing growth and expansion of the global migrant movement are concrete expressions of the willingness and resolve of migrant workers, joined by refugees and displaced peoples, to continue and heighten the struggle for their rights, welfare and dignity.

We will continue to challenge this system that perpetuates the unequal and unjust treatment of marginalized peoples, especially migrant and local workers. We will not stop until we achieve a world without imperialist oppression, exploitation and war and where justice, peace and prosperity for all exist. #

Reference:
Eni Lestari, chairperson

5 May 2017
A First Rally Experience in Paris in the time of #OccupyBulacan

Manila Today

Days have passed since I marched the streets of Paris from Nation to Republique, yet I can still remember crystal clear how it felt. It is such a liberating feeling to be one of the 7,500, still a conservative count, who walked 3.0 kilometers in protest against police brutality, murder and state racism in France. And after four days, despite busy schedule due to work and school, I can still vividly recall what happened in the manifestation.

The French demonstrators said police brutality has claimed the life of at least one person in Paris every month in the last 40 years. These brutalities have taken many forms, from beatings, tasers to bullets. Most of those who participated were disillusioned with another round of election campaign promises when repression of police brutality victims, workers, hunting down of migrants and those who support them have continued and escalated since 2015.

About this March 19 rally, I always read that this concerns all of us. In the rally, it is what I hear. Mostly, it is what I felt in that community of people standing up against a war against poor, against migrants. It is a fight for human dignity, and yes it concerns all of us.

It is an amazing thing that a lot of people were actually noticing Filipinas in the midst of all different organizations present that day. All people of different colors from all parts of the world converged to voice out their demands. There were a number of people who generously smiled at us, some even engaged in small talk while others were bold to come near us, give a tap in the back and say ‘Bravo!’ The cherry on top was the interview by a French freelance journalist. And once again, an eye opening one. I am able to experience the French culture, one so open and welcoming in sympathizing with demonstrators like us fighting for our rights.

Who can imagine that OFWs tagged as sans papier (without paper) would be able to voice out their convictions and freely assert their rights and express their demands for a just community where they belong now? There was actually larger group of people present in the manifestation called Sans Papier. This may be a proof on how safe it is for even undocumented immigrants to join manifestations of the French people.

In the society that we live in today, hate sparks in one flick of a finger, judgments cast in a wink of an eye, hatred arises easily and fear is effortlessly used to silence people, divide them and retain the status quo. This is the very reason why it is important to be present in manifestations such as these to magnify love and oneness among the people. To send a strong message of solidarity to our various demands and to show strong resistance to anti-people policies.

People may have different views in organizing and taking part of such actions but as for me, it is one of those magical moments I will surely treasure. Having been able to go beyond the fear of how people may perceive me to be an outsider and arising beyond it for a just cause and in hope that a better society is possible for all for as long as we all take part in collective action to make it happen.

I cannot help having comparisons and think about our country, the Philippines. On how protesters experience endless black propaganda to detach the real issues from the people who suffer them, and the whole lot from the viewing public. When a strike or a protest happens, mainstream media tend to highlight only when peaceful assemblies were dispersed, that there were blood and a lot of action, rather than the root causes on why people are organizing themselves and protesting. It diverts the essence and context of such actions and down level the discussion to the protesters being traffic-causing nuisance. It even made us forget a lot of the things that the present and future generations have gained through centuries of the poor and oppressed fighting for their rights—higher than slave-like wages, 8-hour work, social benefits, among a few in a very long list.

Most recently, the action #OccupyBulacan by urban poor communities wanting to have housing of their own have been among the most vilified, with the media even using the sentiments of other poor people against those who occupied, mostly for having not gone through the application to be approved.

The poor, homeless working people led by Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap or KADAMAY occupied a total of 5,208 idle housing units in five relocation sites in Pandi, Bulacan. This resulted after experiencing years of tedious process of the government’s housing program, many only to be disapproved, and because they lack income build own homes or buy their own lots, incomes not even enough to provide food on the table. On a much wider scope, in some developed countries such as Dublin and London, activists and supporters occupy building and housing to provide accommodation for the homeless. This is also how the poor in the industrialized, first world countries asserted their rights.

And now after #OccupyBulacan erupted, various organizations are calling on investigtion of corruption and criminal negligence of the National Housing Authority in the time of then-president Noynoy Aquino in wasting billions of public funds in abandoned housing units in the midst of homelessness.

It gives a little relief to know that Malacañang reversed its decision to evict the urban poor occupying the idle houses. I am one of many that still firmly hopes the Duterte administration would be able to dig deeper on how to address the issue and hear their plea to free and mass housing, which is also the mandate of the government. As a close friend of mine once said, not all people have the same lot that is why it is the government’s duty to serve the people especially those in need and not only the business interests of a few ruling elites.

A fight for human dignity–this concerns us all.

27 March 2017