Statement

Statement of Overseas Filipinos in Canada on International Human Rights Day

December 10, 2005

With the ever-worsening situation of the people of the world today, Filipinos across Canada join the rising clamor of struggling people everywhere to recognize, respect, uphold and defend human rights in its fullest sense for everyone to enjoy.  Today, on the 57th commemoration of international human rights day, we draw attention to the toiling masses of the Philippines, including migrant workers displaced from our homeland, ceaselessly asserting for the stop to human rights violations in all forms.
 
The most basic human rights to survive are not fully enjoyed nor protected in countries all over the world, hitting underdeveloped nations and poor people the hardest.  Gross violations of human rights and international humanitarian law are ruthlessly committed to further the onslaught of imperialist globalization.   This dilapidated system ruled by concentrating wealth and profit into a monopoly of greedy imperialist hands has only served to increase social inequities and intensify the impoverishment of the cultivators of the land and all the working people of the world.
 
All over the Philippines, there has been an escalation of human rights violations under the iron-hand government of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.  Targeting especially progressive people’s organizations, over 4,300 cases of human rights violations affecting 235,000 individuals, 24,500 families and 240 communities are attributed to her police and military forces.  These victims are mostly peasants and farm workers demanding genuine land reform, workers fighting for just wages and working conditions, human rights activists, journalists, lawyers, religious leaders, members of progressive organizations and party-list groups considered by Arroyo’s administration as “enemies of the state”.
 
The U.S. government has supported the current Philippine regime as a close ally in the so-called “war on terror” and has intervened in internal Philippine affairs because of its geopolitical interests in the region.  The U.S., Canada, and the European Union have unjustly and maliciously listed the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People’s Army, and Professor Jose Maria Sison as “terrorists” without any due process and in violation of fundamental democratic principles.
 
Even a United Nations Development Program report in October 2005 clears the Communist Party of the Philippines and New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) of the charge of terrorism stating: “In fairness to the CPP-NPA historical record of armed struggle, it has not, as a policy and generally in practice, engaged in terrorism or acts of terrorism by deliberately targeting civilians.”

Such “terrorist” listings have wrongly demonized a legitimate liberation movement and have contributed to the current impasse in the peace negotiations between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).  These acts also directly violate the right for national liberation, which is a principle of international law.
 
A recent Asian survey showed that 75% of Filipinos consider themselves poorer this year compared to previous years, while a startling 87% express negative sentiments on the plight of the country as a whole.  The conditions of mass unemployment, low incomes, poverty and lack of socio-economic development have forced more than 8 million or nearly 10 per cent of our compatriots to leave the Philippines, their families and friends, in order to earn a living abroad.

Just 2 days ago, Arroyo told officials of state universities and colleges (SUCs) to "tweak the school curriculum" to prepare the students to be better overseas workers.  From all corners of the globe, the foreign exchange remittances of Filipino migrant workers amount to more than USD 8 billion every year, which should be used towards the socio-economic development of the Philippines instead of propping up an ailing economy and into the pockets of the state and exploiting classes.  We are sold to the lowest bidder, separated from our families, stripped of our dignity and skills, and exploited as sources of cheap labour on the global market.  We suffer all kinds of racism and discrimination.  Our own Philippine government shows no commitment to address the growing problems and ensure the rights and welfare of us as migrant Filipino workers.

Our Filipino community’s growing presence in Canada is due to the country’s need for cheap, but highly-skilled and docile labour.  This economic and social segregation occurs mainly through the racist and anti-women Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP).  A form of modern-day slavery, the LCP legislates live-in caregivers into poverty, 95.1% of whom are Filipino women.  Worse, Canada continues to refuse to sign the United Nations Convention on the Protection of the Rights and Welfare of all Migrant Workers and their Families which shows the country’s insincerity of ending the rampant cases of abuse and human rights violations committed under Canada’s LCP.
 
As patriotic Filipinos in Canada, we therefore hold high our people’s struggle for human rights in the most comprehensive sense.  We will continue to work towards our genuine equality in Canada and a just and lasting peace in the Philippines.  By doing this, we declare our solidarity with all anti-imperialist and democratic struggles throughout the world.

Uphold human rights all over the world!
Stop U.S. intervention in the Philippines!
Long live the Filipino people’s struggle for human rights!

Signed by:  

Vancouver --
SIKLAB - B.C. - Sulong, Itaguyod ang Karapatan ng mga Manggagawa sa Labas ng Bansa (Advance and Uphold the Rights and Welfare of Overseas Filipino Workers)
Filipino Nurses Support Group
Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance - B.C.
Philippine Women Centre of BC

National --
SIKLAB national