Filipino workers have a stake in building a strong community

Filipino workers have a stake in building a strong community

(Speech delivered at the First Anniversary of Filipino Canadian Auto Workers Association, Oct. 10, 2004, Brampton, Ontario)

Congratulations on your first anniversary.

For a very young association, you have already done so much in helping others.
You have made the following cash donations:

• $1000 to a resettlement high school for children of Aetas in Tarlac displaced by by the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1992.

• $1000 donated for the schooling of 36 children of families displaced from their communities in Mindoro and given temporary shelter at Philippine Christian University in Dasmarinas campus for more than a year.

• $560 donated to the Jeffrey Reodica Memorial Trust Fund for the legal fund of the family.
These donations speak well of your sense of charity. (Your donations are not even tax deductible – meaning you do not benefit financially from your charity). But you have more than a sense of charity. You want to share your blessings with those you feel some kinship with. These are your kababayans, the less fortunate ones who have less opportunities in life.

Many of us Filipino Canadians in Toronto and in Canada feel the same way. We want to share the modest blessings we have, the little extra money that we donate to victims of disasters in the Philippines — the earthquakes of more than ten years ago, the volcano explosions and subsequent spread of lahar, and the worsening poverty and lack of economic opportunities, the mounting corruption in government, the political and economic crises — there seems to be no end to the list of problems plaguing our native country the Philippines.

But let me talk briefly about the latest cause you supported — the campaign for truth and justice in the Jeffrey Reodica case because it is closest to your home and maybe closest to your heart. The incident happened in our midst here in the mega city of Toronto. You are familiar with what happened — the 17 year old boy from a Filipino family in Scarborough was fatally shot, three times, two times in the back, one on the side of his body, by a police officer in plainclothes. This happened last May 21, three days later, on May 24, he died in a hospital from the gunshot wounds.

The day before the fatal shooting, a Flipino boy was mauled by a group of white Caucasian boys in a basketball court in Scarborough. This boy with his friend were told to “go back to the Philippines and eat rice.” These were the same white boys who vandalized a nearby school and wrote “white power” on its walls.

The next day a group of Filipino boys went looking for the white boys, wanting to exact revenge. Along the way, they bumped on Jeffrey and since they were his friends, he went along with them. Before they could make contact with the other group, two plainclothes police officers intervened and one of them shot Jeffrey three times.

Two investigations were conducted and had released their findings. The family of Jeffrey gathered a team of lawyers who interviewed ten eyewitnesses, seven of whom were the boys with Jeffrey when it happened, three were residents in the area who happened to be looking from their windows or their yards.

The Special Invetigations Unit, the government agency mandated to investigate incidents between civilians and police that involve injury, sexual abuse or death, released its report on the Jeffrey case more than a week ago. It interviewed, the report said, 36 people, apparently including the eyewitnesses interviewed by the independent team of investigators assembled by the family of
Jeffrey, and the police officers involved.

The two investigations’ findings were sharply conflicting.

The independent investigating team said the plainclothes policemen did not identify themselves, one of them had a gun drawn when he got down from his car. The Filipino boys said they thought the two white adult guys were relatives of the white boys since they came from the direction of the van where the white boys were. The subject police officer manhandled Jeffrey and shot him three times after he fell on the ground. The witnesses said Jeffrey didn’t resist and they didn’t see a knife.

The SIU, on the other hand, said Jeffrey had a knife. But this information apparently didn’t come from the eyewitnesses. The SIU said three witnesses said the police identified themselves while four said the police did not identify themselves. The SIU said Jeffrey resisted arrest and struggled with the subject officer (a six foot tall and about 250 pounds), says another source. It said Jeffrey (a little over five feet) was pinned down on the ground by two heavy police officers when he freed himself and attacked one of them with “what he believed to be a knife.” The police officer said he was hit on his right leg with the knife but he didn’t have any injury. That’s when he shot Jeffrey three times.

Now you be the judge. Which of the two reports is more credible? Which is more like fiction?

We may not know exactly what happened, but which version is riddled with loopholes and inconsistencies? But this we know, the SIU investigators and the SIU staff are mostly former police officers. So what we have is ex-policemen investigating the police. By all appearances, there is no fairness here. And this is clearly indicated by the SIU findings.

Now, how does this affect all of us? We all have young children or nephews and nieces who go to school or to work or to parties with their friends. They’er not always with us or at home. Are they safe when they’re not at home now that we know what happened to Jeffrey? Now that the SIU said that the shooting of Jeffrey was “legally justified”?

This is not an isolated incident. The mainstream media are reporting on a regular basis stories of people, young and old, mostly from ethnic communities, people with color, who are victims of police brutality. You are not unfamiliar with these reports. Maybe a friend or an acquaintance, or people they know, have similar stories to tell. Not that I’m saying all the policemen are bad guys. I personally have met a few who are decent and upright. But what worries a lot of us is there seems to be a hostile attitude of the police toward people of color. The Toronto Star calls this racial profiling. We call it racism. Others call it racial hatred. We don’t know exactly where it’s coming from but it’s there.

You all know that the Filipino community, through its leaders and organizations, have expressed indignation over this fatal shooting of Jeffrey.(Incidentallly, Jeffrey was a student with excellent grades in school, he was well-loved by his school mates, teachers and friends as clearly shown by the more than a thousand people who attended his wake and funeral. He was an altar boy and a member of a religious group.) There were several mass actions, pickets and town hall meetings held to protest the injustice done against Jeffrey and his family which the community considers an injustice to itself.

The Justice for Jeffrey Coalition was formed immediately after the incident to seek truth and justice in this case. Thousands of signatures were gathered demanding a public inquiry. Thousands of dollars poured as donation to the Jeffrey Reodica Memorial Trust Fund. Filipino-Canadians from all over Canada issued statements in support of the campaign for truth and justice for Jeffrey.

About two months ago, community leaders started meeting weekly to discuss the significance of what happened and other related matters concerning the challenges facing the Filipino community in Canada. They decided that it’s time for the community to face these challenges as one united and strong community. They organized what is now called Community Alliance for Social Justice (CASJ). Its first public activity is a consultation conference on social justice issues to be held in Toronto on October 30. We are gathering hundreds of Filipinos and Filipino Canadians, mostly from Ontario, and partly from other major cities in Canada like Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver, Winnipeg, to ask ourselves what are our social justice challenges and what should we do as an community, to meet them.

Now you may ask, why am I bringing this up here in your anniversary celebration of your auto workers association? You and your families have a stake in this community undertaking. We don’t want our children to be in a similar situation as Jeffrey was when he was shot. With a united community and with a strong voice, we can campaign for reforms in police procedures or maybe we can demand that the police forces be more racially tolerant or maybe we can demand that the SIU be completely composed of civilians who are not ex-policemen. Whatever it is we have to do, we should do it now. Let us not wait for another Jeffrey incident to happen before we do something.

CASJ leaders conducted an informal focus group sesssion with some of your leaders a few weeks ago. One of you suggested you are “contented cows”. You enjoy wages far above the average income of Filipinos and other ethnic workers in Toronto. You have a union that basically fights for your economic interests. Even in your own industry, the auto industry, your pay and benefits are above average. But many of you work seven days a week and have little time left for your families. I asked some of you why they work seven days a week. They replied, because they didn’t know until when their jobs will be available and they have to work overtime while there’s work. Management had said the jobs maybe subcontracted somewhere else if workers like you refuse to work overtime. Isn’t this a veiled threat of job layoffs? Isn’t this an issue of job security? Can you really say you are “contented cows”? Can jobs really be that good when they start to compete for time with families that they are supposed to support in the first place?

Maybe these are labor issues already and your union maybe taking care of them. But these are some of the issues too that may be discussed in the conference of CASJ. Filipino workers from various parts of Ontario will be participating and sharing their experiences and ideas with you. They are Filipino workers just like you.

Incidentally, there are about 150,000 people in the Greater Toronto Area with Filipino background, according to the 2001 census of Statistics Canada. About 70,000 of them are blue and white collar workers, including those in the health and restaurant and hotel industries. That is about half of the total Filipinos in the GTA, maybe a lot more.

If other Filipino workers follow your example by organizing themselves into workers associations in their areas of residence and help worthy causes that you supported, we can start building not only a strong Filipino workers movement but also a strong Filipino community in this part of Canada and the world. With the other sectors of our community also organizing and raising their awareness of social justice issues, we are starting to build a strong community that is able to advance its interests and able to earn the respect of the mainstream Canadian society.

Your support for the worthy causes is very much appreciated, especially those you helped directly — the Mindoro refugees, the Aetas of Central Luzon and the family of Jeffrey. Let us, however, help strenghten our own community here in Canada so we can better help each other and give more support to these causes.

CASJ is inviting your organization to participate in this historical event. For those of you who cannot come to the Conference, we ask your support by sponsoring some youth, seniors, or other kababayans who cannot afford the $20 registration fee. Maybe your association can support a dozen or more participants in the Conference. By doing so, you will be contributing significantly to the goal of the Conference, which is to build a strong and united Filipino community.

Thank you for giving me this opportunity to convey this message. Our community can only be as strong as our organizations like yours. Our organizations can only be as strong as our families. Let us all build strong families, strong organizations and a strong community. Thank you.