YOUTH AND STUDENT MOVEMENT IN THE PHILIPPINES

This video was filmed during an exposure trip of July 2011 in the Philippines and featured at the Anakbayan Seattle report back multi-media show “Halong” in November 2011. 

An exposure trip is a program designed to expose people to the harsh realities and true living conditions experienced by the people of the Philippines through educational discussions, integrations, mass actions and community organizing.

Anakbayan members from the Los Angeles, Seattle, New York, and New Jersey chapters had the opportunity to learn about the youth and student conditions in the Philippines and the movement of young people demanding basic human rights for their future.

We were able to integrate with various youth and student organizations including Anakbayan chapters at the University of the Philippines Diliman and the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, as well as other youth groups, alliances and fraternities, including out-of-school youth, working youth, and youth organizing in the women’s movement, workers movement, cultural movement, and other sectors of Philippine society.

Filmed by: Nicole Ramirez
Edited by: Janelle Quibuyen
Music: From Monument To Masses - Comrades and Friends

To learn more about the National Democratic Movement in the Philippines and get involved in Anakbayan Los Angeles, visit anakbayanla.org or email anakbayanla@gmail.com

05.01.12
20

ILPS CONDEMNS LAW AUTHORIZING US MILITARY TO ARREST AND DETAIN CIVILIANS WITHOUT DUE PROCESS

By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson
International League of Peoples’ Struggle
3 January 2011 

We, the International League of Peoples’ Struggle, condemn US President Barack Obama for signing into law last December 31 the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with its so-called Homeland Battlefield provisions, which allow the US military to arrest and detain indefinitely US citizens without due process.

This reprehensible anti-democratic law is a further step in the fascisation of the US ruling system.  It further develops the legal infrastructure for fascism, as earlier laid down by the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 in apparent reaction to 9/11.  The US monopoly bourgeoisie and its chief political agents, from Bush to Obama, have generated the anti-terrorist hysteria to justify imperialist plunder and war and  the suppression of civil liberties in the US and abroad.

Once more the dictum is proven that no country is free that oppresses other countries and peoples.  The US monopoly bourgeoisie is driven to stifle the basic rights and freedoms of the American people in order to suppress their growing protests and demands against the escalating rapacity and cruelty of the capitalist system in crisis and to allow imperialist plunder and wars of aggression to run rampant with impunity.

The US has maliciously used the nearly 3000 killed in the 9-11 attacks as pretext   for the imperialist wars of aggression since 2001 and in the process caused the violent death of thousands of its own troops and hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in Afghanistan, at least 1.5 million in Iraq and more than 100,000 in Libya.  Thus, 9-11 has been compared to the Reichstag fire, especially because of the long-time links of the CIA and the Al Qaeda masterminds.

The NDAA signed into law by Obama provides the hefty amount of USD 662 billion for the US military.  It also pushes strong sanctions against Iran and its Central Bank, particularly for impeding oil exports and payments, under the pretext of hampering the nuclear research program of Iran.  In fact, the sanctions aim to make war provocations as part of a US-Israel scheme to overthrow regimes, like Syria and Iran, which are staunch supporters of the just cause of the Palestinian people.

In view of the relentless worsening crisis of the US and world capitalist system and the fascisation of the US ruling system, we the ILPS anticipate greater troubles ahead in terms of imperialist plunder and war and the further rise of state terrorism on a global scale.  We therefore urge the peoples of the world to raise the level of their fighting unity and militancy along the anti-imperialist and democratic line and struggle ever more vigorously for greater freedom, democracy, development, social justice and world peace.###

_______________________________________

For more information, visit www.ilps.info

03.01.12
4

NDAA WILL NOT QUELL THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF DISSENT AS GLOBAL CRISIS ENSUES — BAYAN USA

News Statement
January 2, 2012

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

Filipino-Americans across the US, under the banner of BAYAN USA, and their supporters condemn the last minute moves by President Barack Obama to railroad the signing of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on New Year’s Eve 2011. In one fell swoop, the White House has not only played a key role in the intensification of political repression in the United States and worldwide, it has ruthlessly exposed its true character of being first and foremost a loyal representative of the ruling 1%.

  The worsening of the protracted global economic malaise continues as monopoly capitalism’s crisis of overproduction has spawned the crisis of public debt through its scheme of neoliberalism. While neoliberalism, under the guise of “free market capitalism”, has long-forced semi-colonies such as the Philippines and other parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America into chronic debt and abject poverty, it has now erupted mercilessly against working people in advanced capitalist countries such as the US, Canada, and the members of the European Union. Neoliberalism’s financialization of capital has produced an acute debt crisis in the US that has ushered in record-breaking unemployment, under-employment, housing foreclosures, lack of access to food, health care, education, and other social services for working people in order to pay off a debt not of their own making.

 Threatened by the upswing of class rage and social unrest over intolerable structural economic and political inequities, as recently exemplified by the resilience of the Occupy Movement, the ruling 1% believes that the authorization of the US military to conduct warrantless arrests and indefinitely detain anyone—including US citizens—on US soil or anywhere in the world under the guise of national security will somehow quell growing dissent in the US and internationally by invoking fear. However, history has continuously proven that oppressed peoples readily shed their fear, even in the midst of the state’s repressive apparatus, to fight for the basic right to livelihood and dignity amidst a crisis created by monopoly capitalism, or the over-concentration of the world’s wealth in the hands of a minority elite determined to maintain its hegemonic control.

Amidst human suffering, the ruling financial oligarchy continues to tow the lie that it can recover from the crisis by siphoning trillions in public funds to bail out big banks and financial firms to stimulate economic growth, thereby justifying back-breaking budget cuts and austerity measures on working families. In order to seize control of overseas markets and cheap raw materials, the ruling 1% must act through its lackeys in Washington to beef up its military industrial complex by throwing in more public funds to wage endless overt wars of aggression, proxy wars, covert counter-insurgency operations, militarization, and other forms of intervention abroad. In fact, the NDAA was signed as part of a defense spending bill that would allocate over $600 billion more in US tax dollars towards the country’s war machine, now granting it unlimited powers to act domestically. This includes targeting US activists who express solidarity for national liberation struggles abroad against US intervention, as well as support for governments asserting national sovereignty.

The Filipino people got a taste of abusive expansion of military powers, warrantless arrests, and indefinite detentions during the period of martial law under the former dictatorship of US puppet Ferdinand Marcos. But not even martial law, including the illegal detention and torture of thousands of dissidents throughout the Philippines, could stop a growing and fearless peoples movement for democracy and human rights that was decisive in ousting the Marcos dictatorship, reviving civil liberties, and opening democratic space in the country. It was through the people’s fight against US-directed fascist dictatorship in the Philippines that BAYAN Philippines was born in 1985.

It is expected that the minority of monopoly capitalists, in order to survive the very crisis it created and prolong its inevitable demise, will consolidate itself to concoct schemes of political repression to subdue peoples resistance. But this tiny and fragmented front of monopoly capitalists is no match for the broadening united front of oppressed peoples around the world engaged in class struggle for a better alternative. The NDAA and all other forms of repressive legislation will not succeed in quelling the righteousness of dissent for as the long as the global crisis continues. BAYAN USA proudly links arms with working people in the US to build a movement through education, organization, and mobilization that will defeat the NDAA and all other assaults on democracy, human rights, and civil liberties. ###

____________________________________________________________________

BAYAN-USA is an alliance of 15 progressive Filipino organizations in the U.S. representing youth, students, women, workers, artists, and human rights advocates. As the oldest and largest overseas chapter of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN-Philippines), BAYAN-USA serves as an information bureau for the national democratic movement of the Philippines and as a campaign center for anti-imperialist Filipinos in the U.S.

For more information, visit www.bayanusa.org

03.01.12
17
Anakbayan LA supports the striking nurses at Long Beach Memorial in the struggle for fair wages, medical benefits, and working conditions!

Anakbayan LA supports the striking nurses at Long Beach Memorial in the struggle for fair wages, medical benefits, and working conditions!

(Source: etmm)

24.12.11
21

Anakbayan Los Angeles urges you to donate to the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON) Bayanihan Relief for victims of Typhoon Sendong.

NAFCON ensures that monetary donations will go directly to the communities that are severely affected by the typhoon.

You can donate via paypal at
http://tinyurl.com/bayanihanrelief

or at
http://nafconusa.org

21.12.11
24
TOMORROW! Please come to a rare speaking engagement with Marie Hilao Enriquez, Chairperson of KARAPATAN (National Alliance for the Advancement of Human Rights), who will be speaking about the current human rights situation in the Philippines. We will also be accepting financial relief donations for victims of Typhoon Sendong, which devastated Northern Mindanao this past weekend and took the lives of over 800 people with over 600 still missing. WHERE:  F Square Printing, 519 S. Spring St., Los Angeles, CA 90013 WHEN:  Tuesday, December 20, 2011, 6:30pm

TOMORROW! 

Please come to a rare speaking engagement with Marie Hilao Enriquez, Chairperson of KARAPATAN (National Alliance for the Advancement of Human Rights), who will be speaking about the current human rights situation in the Philippines. 

We will also be accepting financial relief donations for victims of Typhoon Sendong, which devastated Northern Mindanao this past weekend and took the lives of over 800 people with over 600 still missing. 

WHERE:  F Square Printing, 519 S. Spring St., Los Angeles, CA 90013 
WHEN:  Tuesday, December 20, 2011, 6:30pm

19.12.11
11
Anakbayan LA, SiGAw, BAYAN USA, and ILPS will be holding it down in Downtown Long Beach tomorrow morning for the West Coast Port Shutdown, in response to the coordinated attacks by the monopoly bourgeoisie (aka 1%) on the working class as well as the Occupy movement.
West Coast stand up and shut em down!
occupyonline:

 
West Coast Port Shutdown: List of Locations, Actions & Schedules

Anakbayan LA, SiGAw, BAYAN USA, and ILPS will be holding it down in Downtown Long Beach tomorrow morning for the West Coast Port Shutdown, in response to the coordinated attacks by the monopoly bourgeoisie (aka 1%) on the working class as well as the Occupy movement.

West Coast stand up and shut em down!

occupyonline:

West Coast Port Shutdown: List of Locations, Actions & Schedules

12.12.11
41

BUILD A BRIGHTER FUTURE! (part 1 of 3)
Philippine Exposure Trip Cultural Reportback
Echo Park United Methodist Church | Dec 9, 2011

A commemoration of International Human Rights Day, with stories shared by Anakbayan LA members that immersed in oppressed and exploited communities in the Philippines this past summer, FAHWA members that conducted a medical mission in an indigenous village, and BAYAN USA organizations that participated in international progressive conferences in Manila.

Conference reportbacks include:
International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) 4th Int’l Assembly
International Migrants Alliance (IMA) General Assembly
International Women’s Alliance (IWA) General Assembly
International Conference on Progressive Culture (ICPC)

Sponsoring organizations:
International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) ilps.info
BAYAN USA bayanusa.org
Anakbayan Los Angeles anakbayanla.org
Sisters of Gabriela Awaken! (SiGAw) sigawla.tumblr.com
Habi-Arts habi-arts.org
Filipino American Health Workers Association filamhwa.org
International Action Center iacenter.org
Union of Progressive Iranians
Union del Barrio

11.12.11
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BUILD A BRIGHTER FUTURE! (part 2 of 3)
Philippine Exposure Trip Cultural Reportback
Echo Park United Methodist Church | Dec 9, 2011  

11.12.11
2

BUILD A BRIGHTER FUTURE! (part 3 of 3)
Philippine Exposure Trip Cultural Reportback
Echo Park United Methodist Church | Dec 9, 2011  

11.12.11
2