FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact Person: Kuusela Hilo, Deputy Secretary General, BAYAN-USA
Email: kuusela@anakbayanla.org

November 22, 2008

Protest blocks GMA from attending her own reception - BAYAN-USA Declares
 

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's no-show one more victory in the growing movement to Oust Gloria

Los Angeles, -- BAYAN-USA and International League of Peoples' Struggle (ILPS) declared Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's no-show at her own Consulate-organized reception a victory for the growing movement to OUST Gloria. BAYAN-USA, ILPS, Anakbayan Los Angeles, Anakbayan San Diego,

Habi Arts, the International Action Center, Al-Awda, Confederation of Iranians, Puerto Rican Alliance, FMLN and other community-based organizations shared their message of disgust with the U.S.-GMA regime with thousands of commuters going to and from Los Angeles International Airport. Protesters displayed pictures of human rights violation victims, projected a digital visual "OUST GMA" montage, a GMA effigy and placards as part of their protest. The protesters' vowed to continue organizing and

mobilizing to oust the much detested-Arroyo regime that is the worst Philippine administration since the U.S.-Marcos regime.

"This presidential pretender Arroyo, has the gall of junketing whenever and wherever she wants while the Filipino people are in dire straits," says Kuusela Hilo, BAYAN-USA deputy secretary general. "However, just like mass protests and swelling disapproval ratings blocked President George Bush from attending the Republican National Convention last September, planned demonstrations and opposition to Charter Change, not a stomach flu, pressured GMA and her Cabinet into re-thinking and canceling her eagerly awaited visit to Los Angeles."

"We rolled out the red unwelcome carpet for GMA, red because of the ruthless blood-spilling for which her Bush-backed regime is responsible," said Hilo. Since 2001, 933 civilians have been killed and 199 disappeared. Alex Montances, member of Anakbayan Los Angeles, stated "We dedicate this protest action to Rachelle Mae Palang and our sisters and brothers, young and old, who have lost their lives while valiantly fighting for the people."

"As we celebrate Anakbayan's 10 year anniversary of serving the people across the Philippines and in the U.S., we say it's high time for change!"proclaimed Montances. "We the youth and students vow to continue the struggle to free our people and fight for justice," ended Montances.

Today, the Philippines is experiencing the worst of times since World War II. There is an unbridled corruption instigated by Macapagal-Arroyo and her husband.

Complementing to this rampant corruption are the economic mismanagement and subservience to the policies imposed by the foreign big multinational corporations. These further sink the Philippines into its situation right now where there is widespread poverty and unemployment. "For us here in the U.S., we need money for health care, education and good jobs, not Philippine death squads," said Eric Tandoc, member of Habi Arts. "She is using our tax dollars to murder and abduct community organizers like Cris Hugo and Karen Empeno. But Gloria will never be able to stop the Filipino peoples' struggle for genuine democracy," stated Tandoc. "The American people stopped the Bush regime this year, and we'll be able to stop the GMA regime in the Philippines before 2010," asserted Tandoc.

"BAYAN-USA and ILPS, and their allied organizations, are calling all concerned U.S. taxpayers to demand the US government--especially to the president-elect Barack Obama--to stop our tax dollars from funding the Arroyo government for it only supports the death squads in the Philippines. It is also high time to bring the U.S. troops home from the Philippines," concluded Hilo.
 

News Release
November 21, 2008
Reference: Berna Ellorin, Secretary General, BAYAN USA, email: secgen@bayanusa.org

PHILIPPINE LABOR LEADER'S HISTORIC U.S. SPEAKING TOUR MAKES WAVES

On the cusp of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's third lavish visit to the United States, another prominent Philippine leader is currently in the US speaking to audiences about the dire economic and political situation in the Philippines. Elmer "Ka Bong" Labog is the esteemed chairman of the national, and internationally-renowned, Philippine labor federation known as the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU). Labog's visit and speaking tour down the West Coast of the United States-- at various universities, colleges, and labor unions-- was organized by the US Chapter of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, or BAYAN USA, an alliance of 12 Filipino social justice organizations in the United States, in conjunction with the Institute of East Asian Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. Labog is the first member of the KMU to enter the US since the country was under martial law, a feat not even shared by the late KMU Chairman Emeritus Crispin "Ka Bel" Beltran.

Labog's speaking tour comes at a time when multiple international human rights monitoring bodies have confirmed a disturbing epidemic of politically-motivated killings and abductions in the Philippines, including widescale trade union repression, rivaling patterns similar to the repression of trade unionists in Colombia acknowledged by President-elect Barack Obama. BAYAN USA and other groups in the US are urging the President-elect to withdraw aid to and relations with the Arroyo camp in the Philippines, as US support is viewed as largely responsible for the human rights crisis in the country.

Already Labog's tour is making waves with a mix of people, both Filipino-American and not. Since his entry to California on November 15th, Labog has participated in workers pickets, including a demonstration demanding backwages for workers at the Woodfin Suites Hotel in Emeryville, to the wide appreciation of unions in the US. Labog has also spoken to standing-room only audiences at churches and universities, such as Stanford, San Francisco State University, and UC Berkeley. Labog will conclude his trip with a speaking engagement at the Cuba/Venezuela/Mexico/North America Labor Conference-V in Tijuana, Mexico on December 5-7.
 

The KMU itself has been under consistent attack by the Arroyo administration since 2001. A total of 22 KMU members have been killed and 3 are still missing. Labor attorney Remigio Saladero Jr., chief legal counsel of the KMU, is currently in detention under false charges. The KMU was a significant contributor to the downfall of the tyrannical Marcos dictatorship in 1986 as well as the corrupt Estrada regime in 2001, and has remained an ardent critic of the policies of the Arroyo administration.
 

Ka Bong speaks at a time of great political and economic repression in the Philippines," states BAYAN USA Chair and Los Angeles-based trade unionist Chito Quijano. "With the dawn of the Obama administration, it is even more imperative to educate Filipino-Americans and others in the US about the link between the US tax dollars and the human rights crisis in the Philippines. We must build a strong movement from the United States that will pressure the new administration to wash its hands of the bloody counter-insurgency operations of the Arroyo government in the Philippines by cutting all forms of aid."

Earlier this week, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed reports that President-elect Barack Obama, in a return phone call to Arroyo herself, ensured an upkeep of "good relations" between the US and Philippine governments. Arroyo spent millions of Philippine government funds last week to try to catch a physical meeting with Obama, but was not able to meet with him. The unpopular administration of Arroyo remained a strong loyalist to the Bush camp's "Global War on Terror" campaign, and even mimicked the US Patriot Act with the Philippines' Human Security Act last year.

"If US voters can ultimately reject more of the same with McCain-Palin-Bush, then US taxpayers should also reject more of the same with Arroyo," Quijano added. "The only good type of relations between the Obama and Arroyo administrations is no relations at all." ###