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Press Release
Sept. 22, 2008
Reference: Joey Calugay, National Organizing Committee, BAYAN Canada,
email jcalugay@gmail.com
BAYAN Canada Launch a Resounding Success
Eighty-five people from across Canada representing 20 organizations from
Victoria to Montreal came together in Toronto on September 21 to witness
the successful launch of BAYAN Canada. Present during the event was
keynote speaker, Dr. Carol Pagaduan-Araullo, chairperson of BAYAN
Philippines, the multisectoral alliance of anti-imperialist and democratic
organizations of the Filipino people.
Dr. Araullo delivered a presentation on the intensifying crisis of
Philippine economic, social, political and cultural life. She also pointed
out that through its mining companies, terrorist listing, and intent for
the Visiting Forces Agreement negotiations with the Philippines, Canada is
experiencing an "erosion of its image of benevolence".
She underlined the need for Filipinos in Canada to raise the level of
their political struggle in order to expose and oppose the anti-national
and anti-people policies of the US-backed Macapagal-Arroyo regime, the
complicity of the Canadian state in such, and to advance the rights and
welfare of Filipinos in Canada. Dr. Araullo emphasized that BAYAN Canada
is this alliance for coordinating such struggles of Filipino
organizations, finding synergies in their activities, and being their
political campaign centre.
“Several years ago while at a conference in Vancouver, and having
witnessed the growing strength of the Filipino organizations here, I asked
about the possibility of building a BAYAN chapter in Canada... several
years later I am happy to see that some organizations had taken this on
and are now launching BAYAN Canada on this important day,” says Dr.
Araullo.
The launching of BAYAN Canada marks the 36th anniversary of the martial
law imposed by the Marcos dictatorship. The organizers of Bayan Canada
wanted to make the link between the US-Marcos fascist regime and the
current US backed Arroyo regime scheming to stay in power while
perpetrating some of the worst human rights violations in Philippine
history.
Also speaking at the launching was Bernadette Ellorin, Secretary-general
of BAYAN-USA. Ellorin shared some lessons and summarized the advances in
the struggles of Filipinos living in the US because of the formation of a
BAYAN chapter there. In a statement, the BAYAN chapter in the US expressed
their solidarity and commended the years of painstaking work to build the
organizations in Canada that have promoted the national democratic
movement in the Philippines for decades.
“As with the formation of the BAYAN USA in 2005, we understand that the
formation of BAYAN Canada had its share of struggles before breaking
through and moving forward... the formation of BAYAN Canada by far
signifies a higher level of commitment to advance the national democratic
line in the Philippines on a widespread level,” the statement read.
Sending a solidarity message for the International League of People’s
struggle was ILPS chairperson, Prof. Jose Maria Sison. In the recorded
message played for the assembly, Prof. Sison highlighted the worsening
world economic crisis that will see imperialist and reactionary forces
gearing to use the state as a system of organized violence to intimidate
and attack the people in anticipation of growing mass protests and
resistance.
“It is therefore necessary for BAYAN-Canada and its component
organizations to intensify their efforts to arouse, organize and mobilize
the Filipinos in Canada and thus to assert, defend and promote their
rights and interests,” states Prof. Sison.
The presentations were followed by an introduction of the BAYAN Canada
national organizing committee, and a lively question and answer period.
Dr. Constancio “Chandu” Claver, formerly the chairperson of Bayan Muna in
Kalinga and now based in Victoria BC, summarized the discussions and
outlined the important tasks for BAYAN Canada.
The assembly affirmed the BAYAN Canada national organizing committee and
its chairperson Dr. “Chandu” Claver and its work leading to the first
congress of BAYAN Canada. BAYAN Canada is calling on all patriotic
Filipino organizations in Canada to join in advancing the Filipino
people’s movement for national liberation and democracy.
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Address to Bayan-Canada
On the Occasion of its Founding
By Dr. Carol Pagaduan-Araullo
Chairperson, Bayan-Philippines
21 September 2008
Bayan-Philippines greets and congratulates all the allied organizations
and the National Organizing Committee of Bayan-Canada on its launching
today, in Toronto, Canada.
This is indeed a joyous occasion because it marks a level of expansion and
consolidation of the national democratic forces among Filipinos in Canada
that augers well for advancing the anti-imperialist and democratic
movement of Filipinos in this country to a new and higher level.
It comes at a time when the chronic crisis of the rotten and dying
semicolonial and semifeudal Philippine society is ever worsening bringing
with it intolerable hardship and the brutal suppression of our people.
It also takes place at a time when the crisis of monopoly capitalism is
fast unraveling in its heartland, the United States of America, with a
financial meltdown that is the worst since the Depression generating still
untold grievous repercussions for the American people and the rest of the
world.
As the crisis back home and internationally – exemplified by the puppet,
fascist, corrupt and mendacious US-backed Arroyo regime -- intensifies and
generates even more widespread and worse sufferings for the people, the
people are compelled to struggle, to break free from exploitation and
oppression and to end this particular puppet fascist regime.
We will need to raise the nationalist and democratic mass forces, that is
to arouse, organize and mobilize the Filipino people (ten percent of whom
are abroad), in order to keep this historic struggle going for as long as
necessary and to bring it to eventual victory.
Thus the importance of our organizing work among Filipino compatriots in
each and every country where they are found, working temporarily or having
migrated, and the necessity of working in solidarity with the people of
host countries to generate political, moral and material support for the
struggle back home and to contribute to the weakening of imperialism and
the forces of reaction everywhere.
Canadian imperialism is one more link in the global chain of imperialist
exploitation and oppression, of plunder and wars of aggression that must
be exposed and opposed in the Philippines as well as in Canada.
Bayan-Canada must play the significant role this regard.
Compared to US imperialism, Canadian imperialism has a relatively benign
and obscure face. But more and more, its rapacious intentions are revealed
by the activities of Canada’s multinational mining corporations in the
hinterlands of the Philippines. Its propensity for backstopping US
military intervention is manifested in current negotiations to ink a
Philippines-Canada status-of-forces agreement akin to the Philippines-US
Visiting Forces Agreement. Its eagerness to be a part of the imperialist
drive to destroy national liberation movements worldwide is laid bare by
its joining the governments of the US and the European Union in demonizing
the communist New People’s Army and National Democratic Front Chief
Political Consultant Jose Maria Sison as “terrorist”.
Contradictions
The US-Arroyo regime lurches from one crisis to another, clinging to power
by acting as the most rabidly reactionary faction of the Philippine ruling
elite and one of the most devious, malevolent and shameless of the lot.
Mrs. Arroyo maintains her illegitimate rule by her utter puppetry to US
imperialism and other imperialist powers; feeding the corruption and
militarism of her generals; catering to the vested interests of the big,
comprador firms especially those supporting it; sucking the lifeblood of
the people by means of onerous taxes and other anti-people economic
measures; squandering government resources on debt service,
counter-insurgency campaigns, presidential largesse for favored
politicians and for lining the pockets of her plundering family members
and business cronies. Expectedly, Arroyo was quick to ride on the Catholic
Church stand against the Reproductive Health Bill, acquiescing to the
backward and even reactionary views of the bishops while courting their
favor with generous contributions.
Mrs. Arroyo has resorted to escalating military offensives alongside
scuttling the peace process with the MILF to cover up its responsibility
for the current mess in Mindanao in the wake of its junking of the
Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD). In the process,
Malacañang is whipping up the worst pseudo-nationalist, chauvinistic and
warmongering rhetoric and sentiments against the MILF and the Moro people
and has caused the displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians,
Muslims and Christians alike.
Amid all these, Arroyo’s agenda to stay in power beyond 2010 has not
waned. The MOA-AD, which signing the Supreme Court suspended, was used by
Malacañang to revive Charter change (Chacha), riding on a Senate
resolution to change the form of government to a “federalist” one, as a
supposedly long-term solution to the armed conflict with the MILF.
The escalation of hostilities between the government and the MILF has
revived questions on the continuing presence of US troops in Mindanao
under the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA). This underscores just how the
US and the Arroyo regime have been complicit in perpetrating the conflict
in Mindanao.
Indeed, Charter change or Chacha goes beyond the narrow political agenda
of Mrs. Arroyo and her cabal. The closer alignment of the Constitution
with US economic and geopolitical interests in the country and the
Asia-Pacific has always been on the US imperialist agenda. Charter
revision will allow the US to openly establish permanent military bases,
bring in nuclear weapons, own land, wantonly exploit the country’s natural
resources, and penetrate heretofore protected areas of the economy.
Much earlier, the regime already torpedoed peace talks with the National
Democratic Front and boasted of neutralizing or defeating the CPP-NPA by
end of its term, pouring billions of pesos in its all-out
counter-insurgency effort. Extensive violations of human rights and
international humanitarian law are continuing, spawned by military attacks
on civilian communities as well as the targeting of legal activists and
other progressives for assassination, abduction, illegal arrest on
trumped-up charges and torture.
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The regime’s callousness
regarding the intolerable plight of the people and its infinite capacity
to lie and manipulate appears to give it some political initiative and
room for maneuver but all these are short-term and illusory.
Mrs. Arroyo must contend with
the lowest of credibility and popularity ratings since the post-Marcos
Dictatorship era and serious political challenges from the democratic mass
movement and the Oust Arroyo united front. As a result, the worst of
corrupt schemes and anti-people policies and programs are being thwarted
or held in abeyance such as the NBN-ZTE deal, Cha-cha and the
implementation of the Anti-Terrorism Law.
The US-Arroyo regime is also up against unflagging armed challenges
nationwide led by the CPP-NPA-NDF and, in Muslim Mindanao, spearheaded by
the MILF. The smoldering restiveness within the Armed Forces of the
Philippines still has the potential to break out into open rebellion at
some critical juncture.
The rapidly deteriorating economic situation, reflected in the widening
poverty, misery and further decline in the people’s overall quality of
life, constitutes the greatest destabilizing factor for the regime. The
steep rise in prices of basic goods and services comes on the heels of
record levels of joblessness, depressed wages and very little alternative
means of livelihood for tens of millions of Filipinos except to attempt to
work overseas. Everyday, three thousand leave the country for every
possible destination abroad; the annual remittance of Filipino migrants
for 2008 is expected to approach if not exceed UA$15 billion, according to
the Labor Department. Thus labor export has really become the effective
safety valve for all the socio-economic instability record high rates of
unemployment and underemployment.
Enveloping the crisis situation inside the country is the deepest and most
widespread crisis that has hit the world capitalist system, particularly
its core, the US economy, since the Great Depression in the ‘30s. This
implies that the domestic crisis will be longer, more acutely felt and
harder to overcome so long as the global economic and financial turmoil
persists.
The implication vis a vis the Arroyo regime is that US imperialism is
under severe constraints to bail out its puppet given its own economic
imbroglio involving trillions of dollars for the wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq, the huge bail-outs of financial corporations hit by the housing
fiasco and credit crunch, and billions needed to stimulate the
recessionary economy. The campaign for the US presidential elections this
year is also preoccupying the US ruling elite.
The US-Arroyo regime’s claims and promises -- that it is bringing the
country closer to First World Status; that it will bequeath a Strong
Republic through electoral reforms, a balanced budget, and unrelenting war
against “terrorists”; that it will decisively defeat, if not render
inconsequential, the CPP-NPA and reduce the MILF to the same fate; and
that it will voluntarily relinquish power in 2010 – are all exposed as
nothing but lies, lies and more lies.
What the regime is in fact
achieving, quite ironically, is to repeat the feat of the unlamented
Dictator Marcos in being the best recruiter, not just for the Oust GMA
Movement, but for the revolutionary forces of the NPA and MILF.
Even if the democratic mass movement in the cities in alliance with the
various anti-GMA forces is not able to oust GMA before her term ends in
2010, it could be strong enough to trounce Mrs. Arroyo’s anointed
presidential candidate and to call for an accounting of the horrendous
crimes against the people and against humanity that she perpetrated during
her illegal and illegitimate rule.
What is important is that the national democratic forces are able to chalk
up solid gains in terms of expansion and consolidation with every ouster
or passing of a particular puppet fascist regime.
Should Mrs. Arroyo and her cabal of evildoers resort to ramming charter
change down the people’s throats or making another declaration of a state
of emergency for the purpose of remaining in power beyond 2010, they will
certainly be courting political disaster. They will be providing the
shortest fuse possible for Mrs. Arroyo’s own precipitous downfall.
Why Bayan-Canada
It is not only correct to launch and build Bayan-Canada on the basis of
the level of advance of the national democratic movement among Filipinos
in Canada, it is actually long overdue.
There are a sufficient number
of migrant Filipinos in Canada including the second generation of
Filipino- Canadian youth and students. They are exploited, oppressed and
discriminated against. Apart from their issues and concerns as migrants,
they also want to see an end to the poverty, backwardness, inequality and
injustice in their homeland. The young people seek their roots, their
identities as Filipinos, and are inspired and energized by the people’s
movement. They are susceptible to your reinvigorated education, mass
mobilization and organizing work.
Solidarity with progressive Canadians in the churches, trade unions,
non-government organizations, solidarity movements with other Third World
countries, and even among members of Parliament is a historical as well as
a current strength of the nationalist and democratic movement in the
Philippines.
The setting up and strengthening of Bayan-Canada as a political center for
progressive Filipinos in Canada will go a long way in facilitating the
coordination and strengthening of political education and mass campaigns
among the various sectors, special advocacy groups like the ones on peace
and human rights, and among the groups scattered in the different
provinces of Canada, in conjunction with the political calls and thrusts
of Bayan-Philippines. It will also spur the growth of the
Philippine-Canadian solidarity movement beyond tactical issues, on
strategic direction and goals, along the anti-imperialist and democratic
line.
Once more, our warmest congratulations on your successful launching of
Bayan-Canada.
Mabuhay kayo!
Mabuhay ang sambayanang Filipino!
Isulong ang pagkakaisa ng mamamayan ng Canada at ng Pilipinas!
-eof-
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