Joint Statement of the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns-Midwest and AnakBayan Chicago

The President of the Philippines Benigno S. Aquino III is in Chicago today to meet with Mayor Rahm Emanuel and several investors prior to his trip to Canada tomorrow. He was expected to be in Canada from May 4th to the 12th for a State visit but we had just learned that he is stopping by Chicago today.

The world is watching President Aquino’s visit in Chicago. Filipinos around the world will be watching this visit. We want the world to know that we are tired of his presidency. We have had enough of his “atrocious human rights record, dismally inept leadership and the unbridled corruption of his administration”.

The Aquino government’s incompetence and neglect were seen in the wake of the devastating super typhoon Haiyan that hit the Philippines in November of 2013, as 48 million US dollars of disaster relief money was found sitting in banks while victims were crying for help. It is enmeshed in a serious corruption scandal that led to the Philippine Supreme Court questioning the constitutionality of Aquino’s Presidential Discretionary Assistance Funds, more commonly known as the biggest “pork barrel” in the country.

Displaying the same lack of compassion and leadership expected of a President, Mr. Aquino told the mother of Mary Jane Veloso, who was saved at the last minute from execution by firing squad on April 28 in Indonesia, that her problem was not the making of his government. Mary Jane Veloso was a victim of human traffickers, but more tragically she is a victim of the Aquino government’s neglect. According to Migrante International, the Aquino government failed for five years to provide her with proper and sufficient legal assistance, but his government is now shamelessly claiming credit for the suspension of her execution. The role of the collective people’s action in the Philippines and around the world in saving Mary Jane was affirmed by her family.

Behind the Mary Jane crisis lies a labour export policy that leads to the exodus of millions of desperate Filipinos, with over 5,000 leaving the Philippines to work overseas every day. It appears that neither Mary Jane’s death sentence, nor the large numbers of Filipino temporary workers will stop President Aquino from promoting further the export of Filipino workers during his visit.

Here in the US, around 300 Filipino teachers were trafficked in Baton Rouge, Louisiana by fraudulent labor recruitment agency. These teachers were all the time thinking that aside from seeking greener pasture in the US, they were at the same time helping rebuild the economy of Louisiana after it was hit by hurricane Katrina. In November of 2012, an oil rig explosion off the Gulf of Mexico made the US government investigate on the unsafe conditions suffered by oil rig workers. In that explosion 3 Filipinos were killed, 3 Filipinos were badly injured and several Filipinos and Americans were also injured. The Grand Isle Shipyard in Louisiana who was the employer of these Filipino oil rig workers was later on found to be involved in trafficking these Filipinos. Nurses were also trafficked in New York and New Jersey as in the case of Sentosa, 27. In Florida, hundreds of hotel and restaurant workers were also trafficked as in the case of the Florida 15. Lately, hundreds of teachers were found out to be human trafficking victims in Washington, DC.

The Philippines ranks 3rd among the most dangerous countries in the world for citizens who advocate for the protection of the environment. In 2014 alone, 15 Filipinos were killed by state agents because the Aquino government considered their opposition to large scale mining and other destructive resource extraction as a threat to the state.

The counter-insurgency war stubbornly pursued by President Aquino which is designed to target not only the armed rebel groups but also ordinary Filipinos critical of his administration and policies, has resulted in 238 assassinations of civilians, 491 political prisoners, 26 people abducted and missing until now, and hundreds of thousands of Filipinos displaced and uprooted from their communities.

The President must be held accountable for what happened in Mamasapano, Maguindanao in southern Philippines. On January 25 this year, at least 66 Filipinos among them members of the Philippine National Police, members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and several civilians including children were killed in a botched police operation called Operation Exodus that aimed to neutralize a suspected Indonesian terrorist named Marwan, one of the most-wanted in the FBI’s list.

Official reports by the Philippine Senate, the Board of Inquiry of the Philippine National Police, and independent fact-finding missions by grassroots organizations confirm the involvement of Americans in this operation. In addition to sightings of American drones flying in the area for a week leading up to the operation and PNP personnel turning over Marwan’s finger (for cross identification) directly to the FBI following that operation, the BOI report in particular cites the presence of six US government personnel at the operation’s Tactical Command Post. However, the official statement by the US Embassy denied any US involvement in the botched operation except for “retrieval” of the dead.

Furthermore, during President Aquino’s presidency the Visiting Forces Agreement-VFA and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement-EDCA were strengthened and almost a thousand US troops are continually moving around the Philippines all year round. The presence of US troops aside from challenging the sovereignty of the Philippines created problems and abuses committed by US personnel such as the brutal slaughter of transgender Jennifer Laude.

We want a President who leads decisively and who will protect the interest of the Filipino people and not a President that export and market Filipino labor abroad while welcoming the US troops to move around the Philippines and commit crimes. We are tired of his presidency.

In the Philippines, millions are calling for the President to resign.

HE IS ACCOUNTABLE TO THE PEOPLE, HE SHOULD RESIGN!

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PUBLIC INFORMATION DESK
publicinfo@karapatan.org
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Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights
2nd Flr. Erythrina Building
#1 Maaralin corner Matatag Streets
Central District, Diliman
Quezon City, PHILIPPINES 1101
Telefax: (+63 2) 4354146
Web: http://www.karapatan.org

KARAPATAN is an alliance of human rights organizations and programs, human rights desks and committees of people’s organizations, and individual advocates committed to the defense and promotion of people’s rights and civil liberties.  It monitors and documents cases of human rights violations, assists and defends victims and conducts education, training and campaign.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is applying a double standard by inviting President Benigno Aquino III. Last year, Harper cancelled his visit to Sri Lanka and closed the Tehran embassy because of human rights concerns. He refused to participate in a United Nations conference on disarmament because North Korea was the chair.

The government of President Aquino is a serious violator of human rights. The International  Coalition on Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) joins the Philippine community in Canada to strongly protest his visit.

In a report of Global Witness, the Philippines ranks third among countries with the highest number of assassinations of environmentalists. Fifteen Filipinos were killed in 2014 by state agents because the Aquino government considered their opposition to large scale mining and other destructive resource extraction projects a threat to the state. Under the guise of fighting rebels, the Philippine military is conducting intense military operations in indigenous communities to break their resistance to these projects. In Mindanao, massive numbers of indigenous peoples are forced to evacuate.

As a result of Aquino’s counter-insurgency program, Operation Plan Bayanihan, 241 civilians have been assassinated since he came to power, 491 are in political detention, 26 have been abducted and missing and 59,612 have been displaced from their communities. A study by the Impunity and Justice Research Center of the Universidad de las Americas in Mexico showing that the  Philippines holds the worst record of bringing perpetrators of violations to justice attests to Aquino’s lack of commitment to human rights.

Mary Jane Veloso, who was saved at the last minute from execution in Indonesia on April 28, is a victim of human traffickers, but more tragically she is a victim of the Aquino government’s dismal disregard for the rights of migrant workers. According to Migrante International, the Aquino government deprived Mary Jane of proper and sufficient legal assistance. Its 2011 appeal for clemency was passive and perfunctory. Mary Jane was abandoned by President Aquino but his government is now shamelessly claiming that his phone call to the Indonesian Foreign Minister led to the suspension of the execution. It is clear that Mary Jane was saved by the collective action of the Filipino people and the international community. Philippine groups point that President Aquino did not act until he was forced to by a new people power movement.

The temporary worker’s program is reportedly on President Aquino’s agenda during his visit. Large numbers of Filipino temporary workers are presently being forced to leave Canada under Prime Minister Harper’s law limiting their time in Canada to four years. Along with Migrante Canada and other migrant workers’ groups, we believe that any deal Aquino will negotiate would once again put the rights and welfare of Filipino workers secondary to consideration of the revenues going to the Philippine government’s coffers from their exploitation. There has been a history of lack of concern for the rights of Filipino migrant workers, and we worry even more could fall victims to abuse, like Mary Jane.

Reliable sources say that the Philippine consulate in Toronto is directly involved in organizing a public rally for President Aquino. Community organizations have apparently been directed to ensure their members show up in record numbers. Aquino obviously hopes to use the Canada visit to salvage his waning popularity in the lead up to the 2016 election by showing Filipinos back home that he enjoys the support of overseas Filipinos. His popular support has plunged to record low since the botched police operation in Mamasapano on January 25, 2015 that led to the death of 44 police troops, 18 MILF fighters and 7 civilians and for which President Aquino continues to refuse accountability. Investigations reveal that  the operation was planned  and supervised by U.S. forces in complete disregard of Philippine sovereignty, ultimately leading to an unnecessary slaughter and setting back ongoing peace talks between the Philippine government and Muslim forces.

Media reports have revealed that Aquino’s visit is viewed as an opportunity for Prime Minister Harper to court the vote of Filipino-Canadians ahead of this fall’s federal election. Mr. Harper is sacrificing Canada’s values for electoral gains by inviting President Aquino, whose human rights record clearly shows he does not embody the values of Canada, especially respect for people’s lives.

ICHRP invites Filipino Canadians and other concerned citizens to join us in frustrating the political designs of Stephen Harper and Benigno Aquino III by exposing their basic disregard for human rights and the devastating impact of their anti-people policies on the people of Canada and the Philippines.

ICHRP, in cooperation with international human rights organizations, is convening an International Peoples’ Tribunal on Crimes of the Aquino Government Against the Filipino People (IPT 2015) which will be held in Washington DC from the 16th to 18th of July 2015.

For more information,
please contact Malcolm Guy
at mguy@pmm.qc.ca,
telephone #1- 514-574-9906

Auckland Philippines Solidarity (APS) warmly congratulates the advocacy group Migrante International, the National Union of People’s Lawyers and their global network of supporters for the inspiring campaign to save the life of human trafficking victim Mary Jane Veloso.

The case provides a good opportunity not only to highlight the abhorrent nature of the death penalty but also the economic injustices which force migrants in desperation to seek work abroad.

Mary Jane is the daughter of a former agricultural worker in the Hacienda Luisita.  New Zealanders were among the international trade union activists who joined fact finding missions in the Hacienda following the 2004 massacre of protesting farm workers.  They saw first-hand the impoverished and desperate situation of the workers in this land owned by the family of President Aquino.

The land at the Hacienda Luisita needs to be finally distributed to its workers.

We call on President Aquino make real efforts to tackle the long-standing issues of landlessness and economic inequality in the Philippines. We believe this will ensure there are fewer desperate people for drug trafficking gangs and other nefarious groups to take advantage of.

Cameron Walker
Auckland Philippines Solidarity (APS)
phsolidarity@gmail.com

*Photos of Filipinos supporting calls to free MJV while cheering for Pacman yesterday. https://www.facebook.com/PhilippinesSolidarity