5-23-05, 11:13am
Statement of the Critical Filipina and Filipino Studies Collective Contact:
Northampton, MA - The Critical Filipina and Filipino Studies Collective (CFFSC) condemns the growing spate of killings and human rights violations of political activists, peasant rights advocates and sympathizers, lawyers and priests in the Philippines. The Philippine military is targeting and murdering leftist activists and civilians under the pretense of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo regime’s “War on Terror.” The U.S.-backed Arroyo regime’s campaign of surveillance, abduction, torture, and execution is a campaign of terror against the Filipino people.
International and Filipino human rights groups have documented that since 2001, forty-nine activists have been killed or otherwise brutalized by the Philippine military or paramilitary. On March 7, 2005, unidentified gunmen attempted to assassinate Romeo T. Capulong, UN Ad Litem Judge and a human rights lawyer who served as counsel to striking farm workers at Hacienda Luisita, a large sugar estate owned by the family of former President Corazon Aquino in the province of Tarlac. The attempt on Judge Capulong’s life follows the infamous massacre at Hacienda Luisita. Last November 16, 2004, the Philippine military and police attacked striking peasant workers, killing seven and wounding many. Since then, death squads have killed supporters of the peasant farmers: Abelardo Ladera, a city councilor; William Tadena, a priest; and Marcelino Beltran, a peasant leader and key witness to the November massacre. Five more have been abducted and believed dead.
In deep sympathy and solidarity with the progressive individuals and organizations, such as Bayan Muna, BAYAN, ANAKPAWIS, and GABRIELA, who continue to be targeted by such militarist brutality, the CFFSC strongly deplore the unbridled state tyranny exercised by the Philippine government to silence any and all manner of dissent and resistance against its political and economic policies, which have reduced Filipinos to unprecedented levels of poverty and suffering. We denounce the support of the Arroyo regime by the imperialist George Bush administration, which continues to deploy U.S. troops in the Philippines to train Philippine paramilitary forces to infiltrate and destroy progressive Filipino organizations and ordinary civilian activism. We censure the Bush/GMA administration’s false accusations against anti-imperialist activism as “terrorism” and progressive insurgent activists as “terrorists.” This strategy masks a deceptive and wholly undemocratic campaign to coerce the Philippine people and the peoples of the world into justifying and condoning the brutal military suppression of the legal and collective right to organize against injustice and exploitation.
We also decry global-U.S. “War on Terrorism” which provides both legitimation and financial and military support for the Arroyo regime’s domestic war against its own citizens. The global “War on Terrorism” is itself globalization by other means, a globalization of crony capitalism and the military-industrial complex. It is a global project seeking to destroy entire communities for the purposes of creating new sites of investment and profit and new opportunities for the aggrandizement of unlimited power and wealth for the few.
It is vitally important for the progressive international community, which finds cause to protest the U.S.-led war against and occupation of Iraq as the hallmark of a new imperialism, to also show solidarity with Filipino human rights activists and mass leaders, whose terrible fates under the Philippine Republic show the disastrous consequences of a “democracy” under the sponsorship of a globalizing U.S. military-corporate state acting at the behalf of transnational capital and national elite interests. We must view the flagrant atrocities committed by the Philippine state against its citizens; the civil tyranny and repression insidiously exercised against vocal critics of Empire in U.S. universities (such as Ward Churchill at the University of Colorado and many Middle Eastern studies professors at Columbia University such as Hamid Dabashi, Joseph Massad, Lila Abu-Lughod and others); and the undeclared suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and the flouting of the Geneva Conventions in the case of suspected enemies of the U.S. State detained in Guantánamo Bay and other sites of “extraordinary rendition”(subcontracted torture in foreign territories), as all instances of a world-wide escalation in the use of coercion and unmitigated violence, including political assassinations and torture. If we do not connect these disparate instances of repression and violence as parts of a trend in global tyranny, our hopes for a better and more just world will remain divided and unrealizable. And the alliances forged between state, military and corporate powers under the auspices of the imperial project of global security will continue to go unchallenged.
We therefore appeal to concerned Filipinos everywhere and progressive citizens of the world community to:
Signed, THE CRITICAL FILIPINA AND FILIPINO STUDIES COLLECTIVE
1. Nerissa S. Balce Assistant Professor Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures University of Massachusetts, Amherst
2. Lucy Mae San Pablo Burns UC President's Postdoctoral Fellow Department of History of Consciousness University of California, Santa Cruz
3. Richard T. Chu Assistant Professor Department of History University of Massachusetts, Amherst
4. Peter Chua Assistant Professor Department of Sociology San Jose State University, CA
5. Vernadette V. Gonzalez Assistant Professor Department of Global Studies Saint Lawrence University, NY
6. Gladys Nubla Doctoral student Department of English University of California, Berkeley
7. Robyn M. Rodriguez Assistant Professor Department of Sociology Rutgers University, NJ
8. Joanne Rondilla Doctoral student Department of Comparative Ethnic Studies University of California, Berkeley
9. Jeff Santa Ana Assistant Professor English Department Dartmouth College, NH (Commencing fall semester 2005)
10. Rowena Tomaneng Associate Professor English Department De Anza Community College, CA
11. Luis Francia Journalist, Village Voice and Philippine Inquirer Author and Lecturer, Asian Pacific American Studies Program New York University, NY
12. Dylan Rodriguez Assistant Professor Department of Ethnic Studies University of California, Riverside
13. Ronald R. Sundstrom Assistant Professor of Philosophy University of San Francisco, CA
14. Neferti X. Tadiar Associate Professor History of Consciousness Department University of California, Santa Cruz
15. Benito Vergara Jr. Assistant Professor Asian American Studies Department San Francisco State University, CA
For additional information on human rights abuses by the Philippine state: http://www.geocities.com/arkibo21/mass/lentenmass4jph.htm
http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.phpURL_ID=26425&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=2 01.html
Amnesty International: http://asiapacific.amnesty.org/apro/aproweb.nsf/pages/index
http://asiapacific.amnesty.org/apro/aproweb.nsf/pages/appeals_philippines_ASA350012005
Asian Pacific Mission for Migrants: http://www.apimigrants.org
To find more on information on collaborating with or joining local and national efforts to support progressive and anti-imperialist movements in the Philippines and the U.S:
In the Philippines: Bayan Muna: http://www.bayanmuna.net/
GABRIELA: http://www.gabrielaphilippines.net/index1.htm
In the U.S.: BAYAN USA: statement: http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/03/1728977.php
Critical Filipino and Filipina Studies Collective: http://www.cffsc.focusnow.org
To send letters of protest and contact Philippine government officials: Ms. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo President Republic of the Philippines Malacañang Palace J.P. Laurel St., San Miguel Manila, NCR 1005 PHILIPPINES Fax: +63 2929 3968
Ms. Purificacion Quisumbing Commissioner Commission on Human Rights SAAC Bldg., Commonwealth Avenue U.P. Complex, Diliman, Quezon City PHILIPPINES Tel. No. +63 2 928-5655/926-6188 Fax: +63 2 929-0102 Email:
Sec. Teresita Quintos-Deles OPAPP (office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process) Government Peace Negotiating Panel for Talks with the CPP-NPA-NDF 4th Flr. Agustin 1 Bldg. Emerald Ave. Ortigas Center Pasig City, Philippines Telefax: +63 2 6377259 Email:
Mr. Avelino J. Cruz Jr. Secretary, Department of National Defense Room 301 DND Bldg., Camp Emilio Aguinaldo E. de los Santos Avenue, Quezon City PHILIPPINES Fax: +63 2911 6213 Email:
Atty. Jasmin N. Regino Regional Director Commission on Human Rights (CHR III) 3/F, Kehyeng Bldg., Mc Arthur Highway, Dolores San Fernando, Pampanga Philippines Tel: +63 45 961 4830/ 963 5311 Telefax: +63 45 961 4475
