Address to BAYAN-Canada on the Occasion of Its Founding

Address to BAYAN-Canada on the Occasion of Its Founding

By Dr. Carol Pagaduan-Araullo
Chairperson, Bayan-Philippines
21 September 2008

Bayan-Philippines greets and congratulates all the allied organizations and the National Organizing Committee of Bayan-Canada on its launching today, in Toronto, Canada.

This is indeed a joyous occasion because it marks a level of expansion and consolidation of the national democratic forces among Filipinos in Canada that augers well for advancing the anti-imperialist and democratic movement of Filipinos in this country to a new and higher level.

It comes at a time when the chronic crisis of the rotten and dying semicolonial and semifeudal Philippine society is ever worsening bringing with it intolerable hardship and the brutal suppression of our people.

It also takes place at a time when the crisis of monopoly capitalism is fast unraveling in its heartland, the United States of America, with a financial meltdown that is the worst since the Depression generating still untold grievous repercussions for the American people and the rest of the world.

As the crisis back home and internationally – exemplified by the puppet, fascist, corrupt and mendacious US-backed Arroyo regime — intensifies and generates even more widespread and worse sufferings for the people, the people are compelled to struggle, to break free from exploitation and oppression and to end this particular puppet fascist regime.

We will need to raise the nationalist and democratic mass forces, that is to arouse, organize and mobilize the Filipino people (ten percent of whom are abroad), in order to keep this historic struggle going for as long as necessary and to bring it to eventual victory.

Thus the importance of our organizing work among Filipino compatriots in each and every country where they are found, working temporarily or having migrated, and the necessity of working in solidarity with the people of host countries to generate political, moral and material support for the struggle back home and to contribute to the weakening of imperialism and the forces of reaction everywhere.

Canadian imperialism is one more link in the global chain of imperialist exploitation and oppression, of plunder and wars of aggression that must be exposed and opposed in the Philippines as well as in Canada.  Bayan-Canada must play the significant role this regard.

Compared to US imperialism, Canadian imperialism has a relatively benign and obscure face.  But more and more, its rapacious intentions are revealed by the activities of Canada’s multinational mining corporations in the hinterlands of the Philippines. Its propensity for backstopping US military intervention is manifested in current negotiations to ink a Philippines-Canada status-of-forces agreement akin to the Philippines-US Visiting Forces Agreement. Its eagerness to be a part of the imperialist drive to destroy national liberation movements worldwide is laid bare by its joining the governments of the US and the European Union in demonizing the communist New People’s Army and National Democratic Front Chief Political Consultant Jose Maria Sison as “terrorist”.

Contradictions

The US-Arroyo regime lurches from one crisis to another, clinging to power by acting as the most rabidly reactionary faction of the Philippine ruling elite and one of the most devious,  malevolent and shameless of the lot.

Mrs. Arroyo maintains her illegitimate rule by her utter puppetry to US imperialism and other imperialist powers; feeding the corruption and militarism of her generals;  catering  to the vested interests of the big, comprador firms especially those supporting it; sucking the lifeblood of the people by means of onerous taxes and other anti-people economic measures;  squandering government resources on debt service, counter-insurgency campaigns, presidential largesse for favored politicians and for lining the pockets of her plundering family members and business cronies.  Expectedly, Arroyo was quick to ride on the Catholic Church stand against the Reproductive Health Bill, acquiescing to the backward and even reactionary views of the bishops while courting their favor with generous contributions.

Mrs. Arroyo has resorted to escalating military offensives alongside scuttling the peace process with the MILF to cover up its responsibility for the current mess in Mindanao in the wake of its junking of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD).  In the process, Malacañang is whipping up the worst pseudo-nationalist, chauvinistic and warmongering rhetoric and sentiments against the MILF and the Moro people and has caused the displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians, Muslims and Christians alike.

Amid all these, Arroyo’s agenda to stay in power beyond 2010 has not waned. The MOA-AD, which signing the Supreme Court suspended, was used by Malacañang to revive Charter change (Chacha), riding on a Senate resolution to change the form of government to a “federalist” one, as a supposedly long-term solution to the armed conflict with the MILF.

The escalation of hostilities between the government and the MILF has revived questions on the continuing presence of US troops in Mindanao under the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA). This underscores just how the US and the Arroyo regime have been complicit in perpetrating the conflict in Mindanao.

Indeed, Charter change or Chacha goes beyond the narrow political agenda of Mrs. Arroyo and her cabal. The closer alignment of the Constitution with US economic and geopolitical interests in the country and the Asia-Pacific has always been on the US imperialist agenda. Charter revision will allow the US to openly establish permanent military bases, bring in nuclear weapons, own land, wantonly exploit the country’s natural resources, and penetrate heretofore protected areas of the economy.

Much earlier, the regime already torpedoed peace talks with the National Democratic Front and boasted of neutralizing or defeating the CPP-NPA by end of its term, pouring billions of pesos in its all-out counter-insurgency effort.  Extensive violations of human rights and international humanitarian law are continuing, spawned by military attacks on civilian communities as well as the targeting of legal activists and other progressives for assassination, abduction, illegal arrest on trumped-up charges and torture.

The regime’s callousness regarding the intolerable plight of the people and its infinite capacity to lie and manipulate appears to give it some political initiative and room for maneuver but all these are short-term and illusory.

Mrs. Arroyo must contend with the lowest of credibility and popularity ratings since the post-Marcos Dictatorship era and serious political challenges from the democratic mass movement and the Oust Arroyo united front.  As a result, the worst of corrupt schemes and anti-people policies and programs are being thwarted or held in abeyance such as the NBN-ZTE deal, Cha-cha and the implementation of the Anti-Terrorism Law.

The US-Arroyo regime is also up against unflagging armed challenges nationwide led by the CPP-NPA-NDF and, in Muslim Mindanao, spearheaded by the MILF.  The smoldering restiveness within the Armed Forces of the Philippines still has the potential to break out into open rebellion at some critical juncture.

The rapidly deteriorating economic situation, reflected in the widening poverty, misery and further decline in the people’s overall quality of life, constitutes the greatest destabilizing factor for the regime. The steep rise in prices of basic goods and services comes on the heels of record levels of joblessness, depressed wages and very little alternative means of livelihood for tens of millions of Filipinos except to attempt to work overseas.  Everyday, three thousand leave the country for every possible destination abroad; the annual remittance of Filipino migrants for 2008 is expected to approach if not exceed UA$15 billion, according to the Labor Department. Thus labor export has really become the effective safety valve for all the socio-economic instability record high rates of unemployment and underemployment.

Enveloping the crisis situation inside the country is the deepest and most widespread crisis that has hit the world capitalist system, particularly its core, the US economy, since the Great Depression in the ’30s. This implies that the domestic crisis will be longer, more acutely felt and harder to overcome so long as the global economic and financial turmoil persists.

The implication vis a vis the Arroyo regime is that US imperialism is under severe constraints to bail out its puppet given its own economic imbroglio involving trillions of dollars for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the huge bail-outs of financial corporations hit by the housing fiasco and credit crunch, and billions needed to stimulate the recessionary economy.  The campaign for the US presidential elections this year is also preoccupying the US ruling elite.

The US-Arroyo regime’s claims and promises — that it is bringing the country closer to First World Status; that it will bequeath a Strong Republic through electoral reforms, a balanced budget, and unrelenting war against “terrorists”; that it will decisively defeat, if not render inconsequential, the CPP-NPA and reduce the MILF to the same fate; and that it will voluntarily relinquish power in 2010 – are all exposed as nothing but lies, lies and more lies.

What the regime is in fact achieving, quite ironically, is to repeat the feat of the unlamented Dictator Marcos in being the best recruiter, not just for the Oust GMA Movement, but for the revolutionary forces of the NPA and MILF.

Even if the democratic mass movement in the cities in alliance with the various anti-GMA forces is not able to oust GMA before her term ends in 2010, it could be strong enough to trounce Mrs. Arroyo’s anointed presidential candidate and to call for an accounting of the horrendous crimes against the people and against humanity that she perpetrated during her illegal and illegitimate rule.

What is important is that the national democratic forces are able to chalk up solid gains in terms of expansion and consolidation with every ouster or passing of a particular puppet fascist regime.

Should Mrs. Arroyo and her cabal of evildoers resort to ramming charter change down the people’s throats or making another declaration of a state of emergency for the purpose of remaining in power beyond 2010, they will certainly be courting political disaster.  They will be providing the shortest fuse possible for Mrs. Arroyo’s own precipitous downfall.

Why Bayan-Canada

It is not only correct to launch and build Bayan-Canada on the basis of the level of advance of the national democratic movement among Filipinos in Canada, it is actually long overdue.

There are a sufficient number of migrant Filipinos in Canada including the second generation of Filipino- Canadian youth and students. They are exploited, oppressed and discriminated against.  Apart from their issues and concerns as migrants, they also want to see an end to the poverty, backwardness, inequality and injustice in their homeland.  The young people seek their roots, their identities as Filipinos, and are inspired and energized by the people’s movement. They are susceptible to your reinvigorated education, mass mobilization and organizing work.

Solidarity with progressive Canadians in the churches, trade unions, non-government organizations, solidarity movements with other Third World countries, and even among members of Parliament is a historical as well as a current strength of the nationalist and democratic movement in the Philippines.

The setting up and strengthening of Bayan-Canada as a political center for progressive Filipinos in Canada will go a long way in facilitating the coordination and strengthening of political education and mass campaigns among the various sectors, special advocacy groups like the ones on peace and human rights, and among the groups scattered in the different provinces of Canada, in conjunction with the political calls and thrusts of Bayan-Philippines. It will also spur the growth of the Philippine-Canadian solidarity movement beyond tactical issues, on strategic direction and goals, along the anti-imperialist and democratic line.

Once more, our warmest congratulations on your successful launching of Bayan-Canada.

Mabuhay kayo!

Mabuhay ang sambayanang Filipino!

Isulong ang pagkakaisa ng mamamayan ng Canada at ng Pilipinas!