Winnipeg Filipino youth protest PH election results

Winnipeg Filipino youth protest PH election results

Protest attendees hold up their placards decrying state violence during Marcos’s and Duterte’s war on drugs, and Philippine historical revisionism.

By Ana Ilagan

On Sunday, May 22, community organizations Anakbayan Manitoba and Migrante Manitoba organized an indignation rally against the installation of presumptive president Ferdinand “BongBong” Marcos and presumptive vice president Sara Duterte to government. Some twenty attendees raised their placards and shouted chants decrying state-supported violence against students and activists of the Martial Law times and the recent war on drugs that has affected many urban poor in the Philippines.

Protest attendees hold up their placards decrying state violence during Marcos’s and Duterte’s war on drugs, and Philippine historical revisionism.

The partial and unofficial results of the presidential and vice-presidential races have left many people questioning the credibility of the elections. Bongbong and Sara have a wide lead against their opponents in the presidential and vice-presidential tallies with 31.1 million votes and 31.5 million votes, respectively.

The International Observer Mission (IOM) Interim Report of the Philippine Elections 2022 found that the May 9 elections were “marred by a higher level of failure of the electronic voting system than ever before, along with a higher level of blatant vote-buying, disturbing level of red-tagging and a number of incidents of deadly violence. A large number of voters did not get to cast their vote, many found their name was no longer on the voter roll, and many had to trust the election officials would later put their marked ballot paper through a Vote Counting Machine (VCM).”

Reyna de Mesa, one of the participants in the protest, shared her dismay about the results of the elections:

“I don’t believe the numbers that came out. I don’t believe that there are 31 or 32 million Filipinos who are okay with voting someone who doesn’t pay 203 billion pesos in estate taxes, who lies about educational background, and most importantly, whose family put the Philippines in great debt and murdered Filipinos under Martial Law to go back in power!”

The involvement of the Filipino diaspora in discussions on Philippine elections have been met with negative criticisms online from people back home and abroad. But Kimi Saddul, member of Anakbayan Manitoba, expressed the need to amplify voices and struggles here and back home in light of the implications of the recent election results.

Saddul said that “Filipinos should pay attention [to the Philippine elections] because people are still affected and still struggling back home. Even if you’re away, it is still your motherland and you should have a say on what needs to happen.”

He also points out his fear of media censorship and silencing voices of dissent once Marcos and Duterte take power.
The protesters gathered in front of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, Manitoba or Treaty 1, which, as Stef Martin, one of the rally organizers says, was “strategically chosen for the protest action to highlight how under the Marcos and Duterte administrations, there have been hundreds of human rights violations that are not even featured at the museum. It is also to signify the Canadian government’s role in supporting and cooperating with the Philippine military and police including financial assistance for anti-terrorism and training by the Philippine government. This is also to call on the Canadian government to support the investigation of the International Criminal Court into Rodrigo Duterte’s crimes against humanity in his bloody ‘war on drugs.’”

The protest program consisted of speeches from Anakbayan Manitoba and Migrante Manitoba, cultural performances from Jovelle Balani, who sang “Tatsulok” by Bamboo, and Ana Ilagan, who read a poem called “An open letter to Filipino Artists” by Emmanuel Lacaba.

Martin closed the program by reminding attendees to not lose hope and continue to organize.

“Nagpatalsik na tayo ng diktador noon dahil tayo ay nagsama sama. Sa ating hinaharap ngayon sa tambalang Marcos-Duterte, huwag tayong mawalan ng pag-asa. Palakasin pa natin ang ating hanay at patuloy ilantad ang kanilang mga kapalpakan, abuso ng kapangyarihan at kapabayaan. Labanan natin ang mga kasinungalingan, fake news, at disinformation. Patuloy tayong mag-organisa, magpakilos at magmulat pa ng iba!”

“We have already ousted a dictator before, because we all worked together. In what we are facing now with the Marcos-Duterte tandem, we should not lose hope. We must strengthen our sector and continue to expose their failures, abuse of power, and neglect. Let us fight the lies, fake news, and disinformation. Let us continue to organize, mobilize, and raise others’ consciousness,” Martin said.