Los Angeles, CA ---- Bayanihan Foundation Worldwide, a Chicago-based registered, nonprofit organization whose mission is to help Filipinos in the Philippines improve their lives, will reveal never seen video footage of 21 victims of unexploded ordnance in the Philippines, in a community forum on Friday, Sept. 16 at Pilipino Worker Center (PWC). Footage will include video of a local villager holding a live mortar in his hand that he found in his backyard in Kinabukasan village in Subic Bay, Philippines. These unexploded ordnance show the continued peril and danger of toxic wastes left behind at the former US military bases in the Philippines. The community forum will be held from 7-8 pm at PWC, 153 Glendale Blvd, Los Angeles.

The Bayanihan Foundation will also release a 20-page literature review, 10-page Facts and Figures sheet and a two-page bibliography to give a comprehensive view of this issue.

September 16, 2011 is the 20th year anniversary of the Philippine government’s refusal to renew the US-Philippines military bases agreement that set in motion the US withdrawal of troops from the Philippines. Twenty years later, the US has failed to clean up the toxic wastes left behind at its former military bases at Clark and Subic. The US continues to deny responsibility based on the military bases agreement that it does not impose any well-defined environmental responsibility to clean up after its withdrawal (U.S. General Accounting Office Report January 1992).

The Bayanihan Foundation, its partners including the Alliance for Bases Clean Up (ABC), the Philippine American Group for the Environment (PAGE), and the Pilipino Workers Center (PWC) are sponsors of the forum.

The video footage will be available at www.fdnbayanihan.org and at YouTube on September 16, 2011. These literature review and other background information will be available at www.fdnbayanihan.org on September 16. For more info, please contact Myrla Baldonado at (858) 382-4580 or myrla@fdnbayanihan.org or contact: Dale Asis (773) 273-9793 dale@fdnbayanihan.org

A local villager from Kinabukasan Village, Subic Bay, Philippines found a live mortar in his backyard (July 2011).