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Statement of BAYAN Canada
On Arroyo’s Philippine State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 27, 2009
BAYAN Canada, an alliance of Filipino progressive and nationalist
organizations in Canada, will conduct its opposition through various
protest actions and activities across Canada on the eve of the ninth (9th)
SONA of President Arroyo. Described as the “People’s SONA,” these protests
will be a vivid contrast to the traditional annual report to the nation by
the Philippine President on the current social, economic, and political
conditions of the country.
As in her past SONA, Arroyo is expected to paint a rosy picture of the
Philippines under her regime. She will make bogus claims of stabilizing
the region through economic growth, job creation and her
counter-insurgency.
The real state of the nation, however, is that the Philippine national
debt has soared higher than ever; there is a record 15.6 million Filipinos
unemployed, while a whopping one million Filipinos leave the country each
year to work abroad. With the vast majority of the people still engaged in
backward agricultural production, the problem of land monopoly continues
to persist with seven out of ten peasant farmers lacking ownership of
their own land, subject to usury and feudal land rent. The Arroyo regime’s
human rights record surpasses that of previous Presidents, including that
of Ferdinand Marcos, with more than 1,000 extra-judicial killings, over
200 abductions and disappearances and about 1,000 cases of torture
reported since Arroyo assumed power in 2001.
Further dogging Mrs. Arroyo are charges of corruption, power-mongering,
and subservience to U.S. imperialism, with pay-offs totaling over US $130
million which have gone to her and her family, proof once again that the
top political position in the country is still the most lucrative
business. While this is supposed to be Arroyo’s last SONA, because her
official term ends in 2010, Arroyo has managed to buy off her friends in
the Legislature to pass House Resolution 1109 that will pave the way for a
Constitutional Assemby (ConAss) which will make it easier to make
constitutional amendments (Charter Change or Cha-Cha) to ensure Arroyo’s
indefinite stay in power well beyond her term limits and also to shield
her from prosecution while she continues to amass wealth.
The option of a change to a Parliamentary form of government is a serious
possibility. So is the declaration of martial law, if everything fails.
What Arroyo fails to tell the nation that any charter change will more
than likely diminish whatever national sovereignty the nation has.
Arroyo’s Cha-Cha will remove all barriers to 100% foreign ownership of
land, utilities and industries. It is no wonder that representatives of
U.S. big business are one of the strongest proponents of charter change in
the Philippines since they stand to gain so much from the all-out sale of
Philippine resources and sovereignty.
Just days after her SONA, Arroyo plans to travel to Washington D.C. to
meet with U.S. President Barack Obama. This is the much anticipated photo
opportunity Arroyo hopes will boost her failing regime and help her stay
in power. The U.S. needs Arroyo, as the most reliable U.S. lap-dog in the
region, to ensure that American economic, political and military interests
in Southeast Asia are maintained. Arroyo’s puppetry-like dance has its
historical roots in the first colonization of the Philippines over 100
years ago by the U.S. To continue its control over Philippine resources,
its possession of markets and dumping grounds for its overproduction and
finance capital investment, the U.S. will employ all means — political
means through treaties and agreements as well as brutal force through
occupation and military aid and training for the puppet forces.
Canadian mining corporations and investors in the Philippines also wait
anxiously in the background for charter change as they too stand to profit
from this. We can predict more displacement by open-pit mining practices,
joblessness as more of the local economy is destroyed, and continuing
heavy militarization. Large scale exploitation will especially continue in
the ancestral lands of indigenous peoples in the Philippines as their
right to self-determination, along with that of the whole country, is
trampled upon to extract the rich natural resources for the profit of
imperialist nations. The thousands of Filipinos working and living in
Canada as immigrants, citizens and temporary workers have nothing to gain
from the continuation of the Arroyo regime. The lack of protection for
Filipino migrant workers in Canada by both the Ottawa and the Manila
governments are well documented. The Arroyo regime continues to peddle
Filipino workers as the most docile and hard working in the world with the
objective of exporting more “human resources” for the billions in
remittances they send back. Filipinos anxious about the future of their
families in the Philippines will find that there are no plans in Arroyo’s
SONA to build national industries that will provide real jobs for the
people and no political will to implement genuine land reform.
BAYAN Canada calls on all Filipinos and democratic and peace loving people
to come out and join the SONA activities on Sunday, July 26.
No to an Arroyo dictatorship in the Philippines!
Never again to Martial Law!
Onward with the struggle for national freedom and democracy!
Member organizations:
BAYAN Organizing Committee Quebec, PINAY – Filipino Women’s Organization
of Quebec, Filipino Workers Support Group – Montreal (FWSG)
BAYAN Organizing Committee Ontario, Migrante Ontario, Filipino Migrant
Worker’s Movement (FMWM), Philippine Advocacy Through the Arts and Culture
(PATAC), Pilipinong Migrante sa Barrie (PMB), Philippine Migrant Society
of Canada – Ottawa (PMSC), Damayan Migrant Education and Resource Centre,
Migrante Youth, AWARE, Migrant Family and Resource Centre
BAYAN Organizing Committe Manitoba, Damayan Manitoba
BAYAN Organizing Committee Alberta
BAYAN Organizing Committee British Columbia, Migrante British Columbia
Supporting organizations:
Centre d’appui aux Philippines – Centre for Philippine Concerns – Montreal
(CAP-CPC), Ontario Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines – Ottawa
(OCHRP), Philippine Network for Justice and Peace – Toronto (PNJP),
Canada-Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights – Vancouver (CPSHR),
Victoria Philippine Solidarity Group (VPSG)
bayan.canada.noc@gmail.com
http://byncan.wordpress.com/
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GLORIA ARROYO'S INSATIABLE
GREED FOR POWER
JOINT STATEMENT OF MIGRANTE
B.C. &
THE CANADA-PHILIPPINES SOLIDARITY FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
The Canada-Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights and MIGRANTE B.C.
combine its collective voices in opposition to the State of the Nation (SONA)
address of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and her devilish scheme to
perpetuate herself in power well beyond 2010.
As overseas organizations of
Filipino migrants and immigrants and human rights advocates in Canada, we
closely follow the developments in the Philippines. We are well aware that
the Arroyo regime has kept the Philippines in an ever worsening political
and economic crisis; that it continues to wage a counter-insurgency
campaign against its own people and that it does not care that it has a
notorious human rights record that has claimed more victims and spawned
more intensive militarization than any of her predecessors; and that it
has made a name for itself in corruption schemes that benefit the her
First Family, her cronies and her loyal allies in the Legislature.
President Arroyo's evil plan
to stay in power is strongly reminiscent of the maneuvers of the late
dictator Marcos to stay in Malacanang well beyond the two-Presidential
term limits and his eventual declaration of Martial Law. Arroyo's plan in
her desperate fight for political survival is already in place with the
swift passage of House Resolution 1109 that would call for a Constituent
Assembly (Con-Ass), which in turn will move for changes in the Philippine
Constitution, also known as Charter Change (Cha-Cha). As early as her SONA
in 2005, Arroyo already made public her preference for Charter Change and
for a parliamentary form of government.
The grand scenario would then
involve the transition to a parliamentary form of government making it
possible for Mrs. Gloria Arroyo, who will most likely run for and win as
Representative of her district in Pampanga in the 2010 elections, to run
for Prime Minister. Under a parliamentary system, the Prime Minister is
not directly elected by the people but is chosen by the majority party in
the legislature. There are no term limits for Prime Minister so Gloria
Arroyo can stay strapped to the seat of power and run the Philippines
until she is bald and toothless.
Arroyo's survival plan also
ensures that she enjoys immunity, and thus protected from any lawsuit that
will certainly come from the families and relatives of those who have been
killed, disappeared, detained, tortured, and displaced by her forces of
terror.
And if her political schemes
do not work, there is nothing to prevent Arroyo from declaring the country
under martial rule or emergency rule which also gives her insurance to
stay in power, surrounded by her army and her principal supporter, the
United States government.
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Let this be her last SONA, her
farewell to a people who would oust and replace her if she does not step
down willingly. Arroyo believes the myths that she peddles to the public
and refuses to see that in the last nine years, the people have seen
record joblessness, falling household incomes, increasing poverty, fiscal
crisis, unprecedented debt and debt service, social service cutbacks,
increasing landlessness, and deeper Philippine underdevelopment. She
continues to peddle Filipino men and women to work abroad with no regard
for their protection but only mindful of their remittances that prop up
her shaky economy. She has wantonly sold the country's national patrimony
and national sovereignty to foreign and imperialist ownership, interests
and profits.
Arroyo has not learned the lessons of history. The people's protests that
are fueled by poverty, resistance, desire for human dignity, nationalism
and a genuine desire for comprehensive change in society grow bigger and
bigger each time. These will be the most decisive factors that will
dictate the course of events in the coming months.
It is the march of the people
in the streets and in the countrysides which will prevail, not the
nefarious dance of the Cha-Cha or the evil spectre of Martial Rule.###
Vancouver, Canada
July 27, 2009
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