Philippines: Revolutionary Option

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Philippines: Revolutionary option

“Whether one sympathizes with it or not, the fact is that this revolutionary movement is present and exerts significant political influence. It continues to challenge the ruling system and regime in power at every turn and raises the possibility of overturning the crisis-ridden system one day and introducing a radically different alternative…”

June 26, 2009 | MANILA, PHILIPPINES
BusinessWorld Online – Quezon City,Philippines

By Carol Pagaduan-Araullo

AFP Chief Gen. Victor Ibrado recently admitted that the military is having difficulty meeting the deadline imposed by de facto Commander-in-chief Gloria Arroyo three years ago, to end the decades-old communist insurgency in 2010. (Philippine Star, June 22, 2009). This was after he and his predecessors had repeatedly boasted that the military was on track in achieving the defeat of the New People’s Army (NPA).

The lame excuse is that the armed guerrillas “are just crisscrossing borders and transferring to another guerrilla front” even when the AFP had already allegedly “dismantled” the political and military infrastructure of numerous rebel fronts.

One need not be an expert on military strategy and tactics to know that guerrillas by nature employ flexibility and shifting tactics. This is a guerrilla movement’s way of dealing with the overwhelming superiority, in terms of numbers and weapons, of the state’s armed forces. Instead, it uses the favorable physical and social terrain in the countryside — i.e., the rugged mountains and remaining forested areas as well as the support of the rural populace — to conduct its revolutionary warfare.

Time and again ruling regimes announce the impending demise of armed revolutionary movements in much the same vein and for the same reasons that they belittle the democratic protest movement. The aim is to conjure strength and stability, to foist the illusion of popular acceptance if not support, because government is supposedly undertaking reforms that address the causes of armed conflict and mass protest actions.

Deceptive propaganda works up to a certain point, given government resources and numerous levers to manipulate, if not control, the mass media. But reality always catches up and the truth becomes so glaring that the regime’s minions are compelled to eat their words and offer the lamest of excuses or persist in the most egregious of lies.

On Tax Day: Cancel the $400 Million Payment of U.S. Tax Dollars for Human Rights Violations

**Please forward widely**

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 15, 2009

Reference: Rhonda Ramiro, Secretary General, secgen@bayanusa.org

On Tax Day: Cancel the $400 Million Payment of U.S. Tax Dollars for Human Rights Violations

Filipino Alliance in the U.S. Calls for End to Costly Balikatan War Exercises in the Philippines

Today, 138 million people in the U.S. will file their income taxes and pay a third or more of their income to the U.S. government. Today, 8,000 miles away in the Philippines, the U.S. will launch military exercises and begin its spending spree of $400 million taxpayer dollars over the next 10 years to pay for military war games, training, and materiel that fuel violence, rape, killings, abductions, and other human rights violations against innocent civilians.

BAYAN-USA condemns the continuation of the joint military exercises between Philippine and U.S. troops in the Bicol region of the Philippines, which begins today and runs through April 28. The resumption of the so-called Balikatan (Shoulder-to-Shoulder) exercises clearly indicates that President Barack Obama has not fundamentally revised the foreign policy of his predecessor. The Balikatan exercises show that the U.S. continues to use its military power to enhance its geopolitical interests in the world, at the cost of innocent lives in countries like the Philippines and hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars that are desperately needed for education, health care, affordable housing, and other domestic services.

FILIPINOS CALL FOR LGBTIQ RIGHTS IN IMMIGRATION REFORM

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 3, 2009

Reference: Luzviminda U. Carpenter

BAYAN-USA & GABRIELA-USA Queer Caucus Representative

(206) 859-7525

BAYANqueerUSA@gmail.com

gabrielawomen@gmail.com

FILIPINOS CALL FOR LGBTIQ RIGHTS IN IMMIGRATION REFORM

No Deportation for Shirley Tan, No Separation of Families

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA – On Friday, April 3, 2009, Shirley Tan was threatened with deportation and separation from family which included her life partner, Jaylynn “Jay” Mercado, her 12 year old twin sons, and Jay’s 76 year old mother, of whom she was the primary care giver.  Tan was unable to be petitioned for U.S. citizenship by her life partner of 23 years, Mercado, because the U.S. federal law does not recognize their union as a family based on their identification as women and their partnership as lesbians. Congresswoman Jackie Speier (CA-D) was able to postpone her deportation until April 22, 2009.  BAYAN-USA & the newly founded GABRIELA-USA as anti-imperialist alliances of Filipino migrants and Fil-Ams with over 14 organizations representing youth, students, artists, workers, professionals, women, and more, stand against this unjust act on the grounds that their union should be recognized as a marriage and family unit with all the rights that citizenship holds and that if deported the Tan-Mercado family will be yet another casualty to the broken bureaucracy toted as the U.S. immigration system. We recognize that this is not a unique story, but represents a staggering 37,000 others who face such heart-wrenching and unjust circumstances.

The revitalization of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Intersex, and Queer (LGBTIQ) Caucus during the 3^rd BAYAN-USA National Congress and Founding Assembly of GABRIELA-USA brought to light the unique struggles of Filipinos and Filipinas living within the U.S. and abroad that identify as LGBTIQ.  Both organizations have taken a stand to understand these struggles to become stronger for all Filipinos fighting and defending their rights here and in their homeland.  On the heels of the highly controversial passage of California’s Proposition 8, the situation of the Tan-Mercado family humanizes an issue whose core is often lost in political trickery around “family values” and religious rhetoric around “unholy unions.”  At the same time, communities of color like the Tan-Mercado family suffered from the LGBTIQ movement that did not tell stories of immigration and families being separated across borders and seas and often blamed communities of color for Prop 8 not being passed.  The civil rights of all families are being lost in the shuffle of power and blame.   With Tan’s potential deportation, there is the threat of violence from which she escaped in the past.