National Statement of Overseas Filipinos in Canada

Arroyo kills impeachment: Filipinos in Canada demand her immediate ouster!

September 2, 2005

We stand here today, as overseas Filipinos in Canada together with peace-loving Canadians, to denounce in the firmest sense, the prolongation of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s illegitimate administration.

This week, the House Committee on Justice killed all three impeachment complaints filed against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The complaints included charges of human rights violations, bribery, graft, corruption, and betrayal of public trust.

This one-sided slaughter of the impeachment process serves as further evidence of Arroyo’s attempts to hide the truth and avoid justice through legislative means. By protesting at the steps of the Philippine Consulate here today, we recognize that the Arroyo administration spinelessly chooses to trample on justice through legal proceedings while we strengthen our resolve to rely on our own people’s power to remove Arroyo from Malacanang.

We witness Arroyo’s desperate attempts to cling to her ill-gotten presidency despite the people’s clamor for her ouster. She has cheated a nation, broken her promises to the Filipino people and has plunged the country into deeper crisis..

Since cheating its way into power, the Arroyo regime has done nothing to relieve the chronic rate of mass unemployment in the Philippines as wages drop in the face of increasing prices of basic commodities and services. Yesterday, the Arroyo-dominated Supreme Court ruled the controversial expanded value-added tax (e-VAT) constitutional. This will make life even harder for Filipinos by raising the tax on electricity, fuel and transport to 12% from 10%.

Instead of working to ensure a decent livelihood for its citizens, Arroyo increasingly sells its own people to foreign countries in exchange for the remittances of Filipino overseas contract workers. Scattered all over the world, we now constitute 10 per cent of the nation’s population. Together, our annual remittances have grown to USD 8.5 billion in 2004.

Arroyo will be travelling to the U.S. later this month for a UN meeting. She and her husband spend money gallivanting around the globe in the middle of an intense political and economic crisis. This shows how Arroyo, along with her mouthpiece in the Philippine Consulate are ignorant of the needs of overseas Filipinos.

Our people’s cries for justice have been met with an unbridled rule of open terror. In the recently concluded International Solidarity Mission to the Philippines, over 85 delegates from over 20 countries investigated the worsening human rights situation in the Philippines. The comprehensive investigation concluded with the unanimous condemnation of the Arroyo government and finding her "guilty" of crimes against her own people. The international delegation also called on their respective governments to withdraw support to Arroyo’s administration.

With the recent breakdown of the impeachment process, the people of the Philippines rely even more on the parliament of the streets to decide the fate of the nation. We support the call of progressive people’s organizations for a democratic transitional council made up of a cross-section of Philippine society. This council would implement urgent reforms and pave the way for legitimate elections wherein the people themselves can democratically choose their leaders.

We also support the 10-point Concise Agreement for Immediate Just Peace proposed by the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, which represents the urgent patriotic and progressive demands of the Filipino people. This agreement was created under the framework that addressing the root causes of the civil war through economic, social and political reforms lay the basis for a just and lasting peace.

More and more Filipinos from all walks of life, including Filipinos across Canada alongside peace-loving Canadians, demand for the immediate ouster of Arroyo, not only for her recent election scandal, but for her track record of being an anti-people and anti-national president who has driven the Philippines further into an unbearable state of political and economic crisis. We gain resolve to be vigilant in our mission to end Arroyo’s presidency and to educate and mobilize even more compatriots and supporters to work towards a genuinely democratic Philippines.

With the recent derailment of a just impeachment process, we therefore join the Filipino people in exerting all-out effort to directly oust Arroyo from presidency as the only viable option left.

Oust Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo!

Long live the Filipino people’s struggle for national freedom and democracy!

Statement of:

Vancouver --
SIKLAB (Advance the Rights and Welfare of Overseas Filipino Workers)
Filipino Nurses Support Group
Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance
Philippine Women Centre of BC

Toronto --
Philippine Network for Justice and Peace
Philippine Women Centre of Ontario
Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance (UKPC)-Toronto
Filipino Workers' Support Committee

Ottawa --
Pilipinong Migrante sa Canada (PMSC)

Montreal --
PINAY Montreal
Kabataang Montreal

National –National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada