ANAKBAYAN NY SAYS NO TO TRUMP ADMINISTRATION!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Reference: Nikki Pagulayan, Chairperson, Anakbayan NY | Tanya Villalobos, Vice Chairperson, Anakbayan NY
Michael Garrovillas, Secretary General, Anakbayan NY | Mike Legaspi, Solidarity Officer, Anakbayan NY
Email: anakbayanny@gmail.com
Phone: 718.419.9219
January 21, 2017
FILIPINO YOUTH SAY NO TO TRUMP ADMINISTRATION!
Fight for our communities! Fight against fascism and U.S. imperialism!
Anakbayan New York stands united with all communities in the United States and throughout the world!
Filipino youth face their education being privatized and made further inaccessible by tuition hikes including in New York City’s “public” universities. Also, they face displacement due to gentrification by monopoly capitalists and discrimination & harassment by anti-LGBTQ workplaces. On the other hand, New York City funds more than $1 million dollars a day to “protect” Donald Trump in order to protect the next face of the fascist state that is the United States and to uphold its agenda of economic hegemony at the expense of New York City’s most oppressed sectors.
Trump’s assertion that Filipinos are “animals” from “terrorist nations” continues to serve the United States’ violent, imperialist agenda that not only threatens Filipino youth in the U.S. but our fellow kababayan in the Philippines. Such assertions serve as justification for the U.S.’s continued military presence in the Philippines, upheld by agreements such as the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) and the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) that allow for the activity of U.S. military bases and rotation of U.S. troops throughout the Philippines. They continue to uphold counterinsurgency programs such as Oplan Bayanihan aimed to repress resistance to the oppressive status quo. And such assertions affect Filipino youth and their communities in the U.S. as they face high rates of deportation by Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) and other anti-immigrant groups. Many Filipino youth, unable to afford an education, are forced to become complicit in the U.S.’s imperialist agenda as they are pushed to join the military that allows foreign domination over countries such as the Philippines.
In the first few days alone after Trumps inauguration, we have already seen several executive orders issued by Trump that are clearly gross violations of human rights. A short list includes: ban against immigration from Muslim minority countries; a plan to build a border wall between Mexico and the US while simultaneously hiring 5,000 more Border Patrol agents, 10,000 more Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and cutting federal funds to sanctuary cities; advanced approval of Keystone XL Pipeline and Dakota Access Pipeline. Despite efforts at repression, the resistance has only grown stronger . After Trump’s executive order banning people from 7 countries to enter the US, people showed up in peaceful protest at airports where refugees and immigrant were being detained. After political pressure, they were released.
Throughout history, Filipino youth have shown that they too are opposed to the fascist regime. A fascist regime is not new to filipino youth when we recall the heroic stance that Kabataang Makabayan took against the fascist dictatorship of former President Marcos. Youth and students from different sectors of society banded together with the oppressed masses of workers and peasants in order to fight against the Marcos regime. We remember too the courage of the Katipunan–the revolutionary organization made mostly of youth who fought to end 333 years of Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines. Even today, Filipino youth march and participate in demonstrations that call for US troops and military bases to be pulled out of the Philippines, yell NO to neoliberalism, hands off Filipino im/migrants, and to resist US Imperialism and Fascism and to Fight Trump!
We call on Filipino youth from all sectors of society to unite against the rise of fascism and to combat the imperialist status quo in the U.S. education sector and liberate themselves from colonial ways of thinking. We call on the Filipino youth to be bold and daring in this era of fascism, neoliberalism, white supremacy, imperialism, and monopoly capitalism! We call on the youth to act and support each other within their own communities and those within the most oppressed sectors of society. It is up to the Filipino youth to be at the forefront in society and to create the change necessary to build society –and each other– forward, rather than depending on politicians and capital gain. Through collective power and struggle we, the people, have the solutions to our liberation!
#DaretoStruggleDaretoWin!
#FightFascism!
#RighttoRebel!
#DefeatImperialism!