Washington D C. July 22—“The Philippines is Not for Sale, Not for Sale, Not for Sale” rang out for three days while President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr, the fascist dictator and U.S. flunky from the Philippines, was meeting with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. Over 100 people joined rallies around the White House, at the WWII Memorial, and Blair House where he was staying. A coalition of Filipino organizations and the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) will continue this activity during his State of the Union address next week in Manila. A Progressive Labor Party (PLP) member who is active with the University of Maryland TerpCHRP(Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines) students joined the White House rally, sharing CHALLENGE with the Bayan and Malayan organizers and reconnected with students from Baltimore and Towson University.
The blood soaked Marcos return to the Philippines was met with thousands of workers protesting his visit. PLP is committed to communist internationalism and urges all workers and students to join our efforts to fight directly for communism to replace all the varieties of capitalism and imperialism that exist around the world.
Fascism and anti-communism in the Philippines
Marcos, Jr is continuing the fascist legacy of his father, former president Marcos, Sr, who declared Martial Law in 1972 to combat the new Communist Party of the Philippines. He met with Trump to seek tariff relief and was “rewarded” for his “ironclad” commitment to the U.S. defense strategy in the South China Sea. Trump decreased the tariff on the Philippines from 20 percent to 19 percent! Funding for an ammunition hub in Subic Bay was another “gift” as the U.S. rebuilt its military and especially naval activity in the area to intimidate its Chinese rivals. Protestors demanded that the U.S. military and its private contractors get out of the Philippines along with the recent Fighter jets bought by the government.
Students and alumni of the University of Maryland travelled to the Philippines to observe elections and view the conditions of the workers and small farmers. One student reported back to the group noting several attacks on militant workers fighting for their livelihood. Fishermen, farmers, and workers who organize resistance are “red baited” and many have been forcibly displaced or killed. Meanwhile, clean drinking water on coastal fishing sites is scarce due to privatization as Prime Water Infrastructure Corp., owned by the politically connected Manuel Paolo Villar family, siphons water off to other projects.
Fighting racist deportations
Worker groups from the Philippines and and their allies have also fought the deportations of workers from the Philippines residents in the United States, calling on the Embassy and Ambassador Romualdez to protect its citizens. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continues to deport Phillipine workers including SEIU union members, green card holders and, more recently, cruise ship workers. These reform campaigns have mobilize immigrants from the Philippines in the U.S. to fight back. They also demand a national government that boots out U.S. imperialism.
The Bayan speaker at the most recent rally called for national liberation and socialism, a misleading strategy for the liberation of the working class. PLP will continue to fight side by side against racist repression and deportation of our brothers and sisters from the Philippines even as we advance the fight to smash all imperialist states, from the U.S. to China, and build an international revolutionary communist party to build a new world.
