STATEMENT ON THE POLITICAL KILLINGS IN THE PHILIPPINES

STATEMENT ON THE POLITICAL KILLINGS IN THE PHILIPPINES

Since 2005, the number of killings of activists in the Philippines has risen at an alarming rate. With over 600 documented cases of murdered activists since 2003 and potentially hundreds more if the trend continues to the end of Arroyo's term in 2010, it is becoming abundantly clear that something needs to be changed regarding the Philippine government before it is too late.

We in the Filipino-American Student Alliance to Stop the Political Killings, Orange County chapter, can no longer idly sit back and just watch as Filipino citizens trying to fight for their rights are relentlessly murdered by a government that would rather eliminate its people to further its own greed, power and servility to foreign interests than address the needs of those it is meant to serve.

As student advocates, we find these truths to be very upsetting and demand that something be done to rectify these injustices. We take the Philippine government to task for its current course of action and demand that it stop its murder of activists. We also call on the Filipino people to help effect a progressive change in the leadership of the Philippine government for their own sake and welfare.

On the basis of its murder of activists in Hacienda Luisita and many others, its continued imprisonment of labor leader and lawmaker Crispin Beltran, and its terror tactics that include its 2006 "State of Emergency", we see the need for a fundamental change regarding the Philippine government. As Filipino-American student advocates, we are also aware of the posture of disinterest and silence of the U.S. government and its failure to support the Filipino people and their human rights. We decry the fact that the U.S. government continues to maintain and prop up the puppet and servile Arroyo government, while exploiting the human and natural resources of the Philippine nation.

As Filipino-Americans separated from our ethnic homeland, we cannot help but witness these travesties from a distance. However, this does not mean that we cannot and should not join in the struggle of the Filipino people to attain meaningful change.

It is our responsibility as both Filipinos and Americans to insist and help see to it that such changes be made and the leadership of both the Philippine and American administrations be altered drastically in favor of both peoples. It is also our responsibility to support our brothers and sisters in the Philippines in their struggle for democratic change, and to do what we can from where we are.

It is our demand that an end be put to these injustices and that the people of the Philippines finally enjoy the rights and freedoms that they are fighting for. We can no longer allow the Filipino people to suffer further injustices. We call for an end to a Philippine government that works against rather than in the national interest.

We are one with the just fight to put a stop to the murder of Filipino activists.

In solidarity,

Filipino-American Student Alliance to Stop the Political Killings in the Philippines.
Orange County Chapter