8-30-10 Action to Commemorate the International Day of the Disappeared

To the mark the International Day of the Disappeared on Monday, August 30th the BAYAN-USA-NORCAL region’s member organizations, led by the San Francisco Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines (SF-CHRP) engaged in a procession from Market and Powell which ended with a demonstration in front of the Philippine Consulate.

BAYAN-USA-NORCAL organizations in attendance included Anakbayan-East Bay, babae-SF of the Filipina women’s alliance, GABRIELA-USA, The League of Filipino Students- SFSU, and of course SF-CHRP. Also, joining in solidarity with the BAYAN-USA NORCAL region were representatives of VietUnity and the Xican@ Moratorium Coalition (which you can read more about here, and here)

The BAYAN-USA NORCAL staff and its member organizations would like to offer our allies a HUGE round of applause for marching with us and pass along big time props to Sagnichte Salazar and Phuong Vuong, of XMC and VietUnity respectively, for providing face time for the TV coverage from ABS-CBN. Long Live International Solidarity!!!

Click here to read more news coverage of the action from Henni Espinosa of the ABS-CBN North America Bureau!

BAYAN-USA Gets Down in SF in Response to Philippine SONA

This past Monday, BAYAN-USA-NORCAL member organizations and allies from AYPAL and ALAY made some noise near the San Francisco Federal Building.

This latest action was to coincide with the Philippine president’s annual State of the Nation Address (SONA) during which the executive in office espouses upon his or her “achievements” whether they be social, economic, or political.  Regardless of who the president is the SONA usually turns out to be a sustained gust of hot air which reeks of the stench of deception and empty promises.  Gloria’s ninth SONA’s did not fail to underwhelm Filipinos who are already weary of posturing and lies.  Furthermore the SONA obviously did not focus upon the REAL state of the Philippine nation experienced by millions of Filipinos which is that of poverty, misery, and hopelessness.  So, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo continues to dance around the issues of her egregious corruption (ZTE Scandal), her blatantly obvious election fraud (Hello Garci Scandal), and her possible connection to the torture, abduction, and murder of over a thousand individuals critical of her anti-people policies.  In response folks in the NORCAL region decided to do some dancing of our own.

In addition to criticizing SONA, the action was meant to draw attention to the President GMA’s brilliant waste of Philippine tax money as she travels to the United States with a junket of Philippine legislators to meet with President Obama.  We’re not sure which is more ridiculous.  GMA’s squandering of money which should be used to help the Philippine people receive jobs, education, and food or the fact that President Obama would actually agree to meeting GMA after he tried so hard to distance himself from the foreign policy of “President” Bush.

Filipinos all over the world are SCREAMING for a heaping serving of “Change You Can Believe in”.  President Obama, please don’t make the same mistake that Reagan made when he partied with Ferdinand Marcos.  And please, definitely don’t be as much of an idiot as George W. Bush and continue to send military and economic aid to a corrupt, illegitimate, and fascist regime.