Migrante - Washington, D.C.

PRESS RELEASE | Women worker’s group urges President Marcos Jr to help Mary Jane Veloso

As President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. prepares for his official state visit in Indonesia next week, the Kilusan ng Manggagawang Kababaihan (KMK) urges him to heed the cries of families of Mary Jane Veloso, a victim of human trafficking who has been imprisoned and in death row in Indonesia.

President Marcos Jr. should seriously take into consideration in his meeting with President Joko Widodo the plight of Mary Jane who continues to languish in Indonesian prison away from her family. He should personally deliver our collective appeal to President Widodo to grant Mary Jane an executive clemency that will finally allow her immediate release and the eventual return to her family.

As the country’s president, Marcos Jr. has the official capacity to negotiate with foreign state officials on matters relating to the situations of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). Thus, we expect him to fulfill his campaign promise to protect the interests of our modern-day heroes by ensuring a just and humane working environment for them.

We will remain vigilant and watchful on the actions and steps to be taken by President Marcos regarding the case of Mary Jane Veloso as it will definitely test his sincerity and commitment to uphold the rights and welfare of our fellow Filipinos working abroad.

Moreover, the KMK challenges President Marcos Jr. to put an end to labor export policy, and to implement necessary economic reforms in order to create better job opportunities with decent wages and benefits in the Philippines, and reduce the need for our workers to leave the country. # # #

Bayan DMV members protest Imee Marcos Visit to the Philippine Embassy in Washington DC

TINGNAN | Hinarass at tatlo ang inaresto sa mga nagprotesta laban kay Marcos Jr. sa isang sit-in protest sa Asia Society sa NYC. Kinundena ng grupo ang patuloy na pagbaluktot ng mga Marcos sa katotohanan ng diktadura ni Marcos Sr. 📸 BAYAN USA

ONSITE VOTING OPTION FOR KABABAYAN WHO HAVE NOT RECEIVED THEIR BALLOTS

Voters who wish to claim a new ballot are required to bring a copy of their Philippine Passport and execute an affidavit of undertaking (http://tinyurl.com/3wychatp)

Voters are advised to regularly check the List of Return-to-Sender and List of Incomplete/No Address here: tinyurl.com/WDCPERTS

Please email [email protected] to make arrangements for ballot pickup.

STATEMENT: Ayuda para sa mga Saudi OFW claimants, Tagumpay! Panagutin si Duterte at
Bello sa kanilang mga Pangako sa mga OFWs!

Migrante International welcomes the decision of OWWA to provide financial aid relief in the amount of Php 10K for Saudi OFWs who were affected and displaced by the Saudi Crisis starting in 2016. This is a victory for our Saudi OFWs who took collective action to push for financial assistance from DOLE and OWWA while their labor claims are pending in Saudi Arabia.

For more than five years they have been awaiting the resolution of their labor claims that amount to billions worth of unpaid salaries and end of service benefits from their companies who have filed for bankruptcy. Many of them have worked for their companies for more than a decade and yet in a time of crisis, they are neglected. They have lost their livelihood and now they and their families face another crisis brought about by the pandemic.

The provision of financial aid is an initial victory, but DOLE and the Philippine government must urgently and proactively address the main problem and clamor of our Saudi OFWs: the non-payment of their hard-earned benefits and months' long wages. DOLE must also ensure that it provides financial aid to those currently stranded in Saudi Arabia and were likewise affected by the Saudi Crisis because based on the requirements, they are excluded from this financial aid program.

On December 8, 2020 Migrante International and close to twenty Saudi OFWs organized an action in front of OWWA and during a dialogue, presented OWWA Administrator Hans Cacdac the following demands for DOLE to take action on:

1. DOLE to ensure the full payment of unpaid wages and end of service benefits for all Saudi OFWs and immediate resolution of their labor claims in Saudi. Provide legal assistance to our OFWs to boost the efforts of the Saudi Labor Ministry;

2. DOLE to release the details of its meeting with the Saudi Labor Minister, including the actual figures of the total pending claims of all displaced Saudi OFWs from all companies;

3. Provide financial assistance to all affected by the Saudi Crisis, including those who remain stranded in Saudi;

4. Provide repatriation and welfare assistance for those affected and remain stranded in Saudi.

Not a single Saudi OFW has received their wages and benefits before Christmas, as promised by Secretary Bello. We demand a clear plan of action from the Duterte government on how it will protect the rights of thousands of our Saudi OFWs.

Migrante remains steadfast in continuing its campaign to pursue justice for all our Saudi OFWs until they receive their hard-earned wages and benefits! We will hold to account Secretary Bello and Duterte for their promises!

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Martial Law then and now: BAYAN USA continues to build people power resistance against Duterte’s U.S.-backed dictatorship • BAYAN-USA BAYAN USA commemorates September 21 as the day that the U.S.-backed dictator Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in the Philippines, plunging the country into nearly 20 years of violent fascism. Forty-eight years later, martial law stands not just as a historical event; rather, it is a violent rea...

DUTERTE’S MILITARY CRONY IN PHILHEALTH: OFW group blasts Duterte’s trust on Philhealth chief Ret. AFP Brig. General Ricardo Morales Migrante International fully supports the investigations being conducted by the Senate and House of Representatives into the corruption scandal involving Philhealth officials. Philhealth has alread…

BAYAN USA Call to Action: STOP the Anti-Terrorism Bill becoming Law – BAYAN-USA CALL TO ACTION- JUNE 29 & JULY 8 2020 BAYAN USA is joining global days of action against the Anti-Terrorism bill to show international outrage and opposition to this bill in the Philippines, which would result in increased repression against all Filipinos including overseas Filipinos. JOIN BAYAN USA...

Undocumented Filipino migrants among the hardest hit amid pandemic - Bulatlat Filipino migrant leaders in the United Kingdom, Canada, and US revealed that undocumented workers in those countries are the hardest hit with the lack of social protection amid the dreaded pandemic.

DJ TALKS: Ang ating panawagan sa gobyerno sa panahon ng pandemya:

Asking for emergency powers after allotting Php14 Billion for Tourism is foolishness! Duterte resign now! -- Migrante International

STATEMENT (23 March 2020)

Our doctors are dying, our people are starving. In the streets, cancer and dialysis patients are walking miles and miles just to reach hospitals and treatment centres. People are wailing out of this tragedy but here we have the Duterte regime allotting a whopping Php 14 Billion for tourism! Where is President Duterte getting all the nerve to ask for an emergency power?

From the beginning of his term, Duterte already made a Php 31 Billion budget cut for health in 2016 while the 2020 allocation for the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine was slashed by 57 percent. No wonder that the country has been experiencing a torrent of epidemics from measles to the worst dengue outbreak we have seen in 10 years. Polio has even made a grand comeback two decades after its eradication. The Duterte regime has failed big time in providing quality healthcare and medical services to the Filipino public. There is nothing universal about Duterte’s “Universal Healthcare” Law that is being extolled by his bootlickers. All responsibility is being passed on by Duterte to LGUs. Was it LGUs who made these budget cuts in the first place? This is a global pandemic that necessitates action at the national level, for heaven’s sake!

As we have seen in the past few days, big political personalities and senior government officials close to President Duterte are getting the highest VIP treatment in the COVID-19 tests despite the absence of symptoms. Abusing their power at the expense of thousands of ordinary people who endure days waiting for their results. Woe unto these ruling class parasites!

While other countries are doing great strides in conducting mass testing, the Philippines is way far behind with only 1,200 tests conducted. This is way lower than Vietnam’s 15,637 tests and less than half of Palestine’s 2,519. Even Iran which has been hit hard by US sanctions has already made 80,000 COVID-19 tests. With 1,545 tests, the scarcely populated and landlocked country of Kyrgyzstan is enough to shame the Duterte regime. His health secretary stubbornly rejects calls for mass testing.

If the Duterte regime can’t even provide relief and welfare to the local Filipino population who are just under his nose, then OFWs have more than enough reasons to fear that they have been trashed once more into oblivion. Welfare assistance for those terminated from their work is meagre. As thousands are stranded and hit by overseas retrenchments, destitution awaits them upon their return.

President Duterte has Php 13 Billion as Contingency Fund and Php 16 Billion Disaster Risk Reduction Management Fund, what is this emergency power for? No doubt, this only redounds to Duterte voraciously salivating to have more power for corruption! More money for his opulence and depravity! He spoiled more than 3 years of his time granting boons to POGO operations when he could have built more hospitals, research facilities and treatment centres. With doctors dropping down dead, our healthcare system is fast collapsing but the agony of the Filipino people fall on deaf ears.

There is no more reason for the Duterte regime to stay in power. Duterte’s folly and incompetence are just too flagrant to be pushed aside. The deepest recesses of hell and eternal damnation should be reserved for Duterte and his entire legion of abusive officials and corrupt politicians who have plagued this country for too long.

No to emergency powers!
Free mass testing now!
Duterte resign!

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Link: https://bit.ly/33BuqPE

Filipino Workers Who Refused to Break a U.S. Strike Now Jailed for Union Activism The Duterte regime plants ‘evidence’ on call center union members who declined to scab when U.S. workers walked off the job.

GABRIELA Washington, D.C. honors our 6th Year Anniversary of serving the people and committment to and

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GABRIELA USA
GABRIELA | A National Alliance of Women

On the SC ruling allowing Mary Jane Veloso to testify Migrante International welcomes the Supreme Court decision to finally allow Mary Jane Veloso to give her testimony against her traffickers through written deposition. With this ruling, Mary Jane wi…

Migrante USA Demands Justice for Brandon Lee and to End All Attacks on Human Rights Defenders

Migrante USA condemns the shooting of Brandon Lee, a Chinese American who has dedicated his life to serving the peasant communities of Ifugao, Philippines. Brandon serves as a paralegal volunteer for the Cordillera Human Rights Alliance and as a provincial human rights officer in Ifugao, Philippines. Brandon had also served as a volunteer staff member for the BAYAN-USA Northern California region before he decided to relocate permanently to the Philippines in 2010 to advance justice and genuine peace for the Filipino people.

Because of his commitment to stand with the marginalized, Brandon was shot on August 6th in front of his daughter in Lagawe, Ifugao and sustained serious injuries. According to Cordillera Peoples Alliance, “Brandon has been subjected to serious threats to his life for his human rights work in the Ifugao Peasant Movement, the provincial chapter of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance and the Justice and Peace Advocates of Ifugao. Earlier, he and other human rights defenders in the province have been hounded by the 54th IBPA in their homes and offices invoking Malacanang's Executive Order 70 targeting all forms of legitimate dissent and opposition to the anti-people policies of the government.”

The shooting of Brandon is the latest in a disturbing trend of attacks on human rights defenders and anyone critical of the US-Duterte regime. As part of the counter-insurgency program Oplan Kapanatagan, the Duterte administration has adopted the previous regimes’ practices of red-tagging and vilification of open and legal organizations and individuals who advocate for human rights. The Duterte administration is desperately doing everything to silence its critics, who are growing in number each day due to the government’s gross neglect of the needs of the Filipino people. Brandon is only one of the many victims of the terrorist tagging of this state.

Migrante USA has also been a target of the silencing and terrorist tagging of the Duterte government, which recently facilitated a misinformation campaign against progressive organizations in the U.S. The recent fake Lumad leaders’ tour that brought members of Mindanao Indigenous People’s Council of Elders (MIPCEL) is just an example of the state-sponsored deception campaign. Once exposed and cornered, these sham "elders" of indigenous people and their rabid supporters attacked US-based people’s organizations, including Migrante USA, tagged them as terrorists and even threaten to deport their leaders. Such campaigns of vilification belittle and endanger the lives of activists who fight for the rights and welfare of Filipinos.

As migrant Filipinos, we condemn all forms of attacks under the US-Duterte regime -- whether it is forced migration due to the rampant poverty and landlessness in the country, the displacement of indigenous communities due to the neoliberal policy of selling out of ancestral lands, or the intensifying fascism of the government that targets, criminalizes, and attacks activists like Brandon who dedicate their lives for the advancement of the rights of peasant farmers and poor people in the Philippines.

Migrante USA demands that the state’s security forces--the 54th IBPA, the 5th Infantry Division, and the Northern Luzon Command--and the Duterte government be held accountable for the attack on Brandon. Migrante USA calls for an end to the attacks on human rights defenders and for an ouster of Pres. Rodrigo Duterte, who explicitly calls for increasing violence against the Filipino masses and those critical of the fascist state.

House Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific calls human rights situation in the Philippines “appalling” - Manila Mail US By Jon Melegrito, Manila Mail, July 27, 2019 Washington, D.C. Citing the “thousands of persons who h

[BAYAN USA-DMV]
People Power Na!
Unity Statement for United People's SONA 2019

Reference:
Jhong Delacruz, Regional Coordinator
(202) 630-5068 / [email protected] /

WASHINGTON, DC - BAYAN-USA member organizations in the DMV (DC-MD-VA) GABRIELA Washington, D.C., Migrante - Washington, D.C. and Migrante Youth Fort Washington MD all UNITED to uphold the BAYAN (Bagong Alyansang Makabayan) 8-Points of Unity, the calls of Malaya Movement, and the fight for genuine change in the Philippines.

During its annual Family Day, GABRIELA DC spearheaded not just the traditional “larong Pinoy” or Filipino Picnic games, but facilitated “Pulso ng Bayan” (People’s Pulse) to unite with the call of MIGRANTE USA, where participants shed light on both the effects of Duterte administration policies and the just demands of the People for genuine and lasting social change in the Philippines. These were raised in creative ways, such as skits, tableaus, placards and protest chants.

Included in these policies and the corresponding demands are:

1. Junk and “derail” TRAIN [Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion] Law! (Ibasura at i-diskaril ang TRAIN!)
This raises the prices of basic commodities and places the brunt of gentrifying infrastructure projects on the poorest majority of the population while giving tax breaks to the rich and higher income brackets.

2. End ENDO! Raise wages, lower prices! (Wakasan ang ENDO! Sahod itaas, presyo ibaba!)
Short for “End of Contract”, an inherently corrupt and anti-worker hiring practice which does not ensure tenure, job security and benefits to employees. It serves as a “race to the bottom” for wages, instead of upliftment of livelihood, and adds to the difficulty of the working class to cope with all the rising prices of basic commodities and the other aforementioned anti-People policies.

3. Oppose Build Build Build! (Harangan ang BUILD BUILD BUILD)
This is a series of rapid infrastructure development that, while aesthetically pleasing and attractive for foreign investors, comes at a steep price of extremely usurious foreign loans and rapid gentrification that will undoubtedly harm and displace the poor and benefit the rich. While we all aspire for progress, it must not be done at the expense of the poorest communities and those most prone to environmental degradation and socioeconomic instability.

4. Stop the Killings! Uphold due process and independent investigation! (Itigil ang pamamaslang, katarungan, ipaglaban!)
Whether vigilante-style or summary ex*****on by police forces under Oplan Tokhang, extra-judicial killings are a violation of human rights. The 30,000 and counting victims of Duterte’s sanctioned drug war are devoid of due process and targeted indiscriminately, one of the latest victims being three-year-old bystander Myka Ulpina, to which neophyte Senator Bato Dela Rosa labeled “collateral damage” and to whom he infamously exclaimed “Sh*t happens”. These killings have received international condemnation and have spurred an investigation by the UN Human Rights Council.

5. Junk Duterte’s Cha-Cha! (CHA-CHA ni Duterte, ibasura!)
With Duterte virtually controlling the supermajority of legislative and judiciary branches of government, we are anticipating a renewed and vigorous push for Cha-Cha (Charter Change), which would essentially incorporate crucial amendments or a total overhaul of the 1987 Philippine Constitution. Our main objections were the slated proposals for: (a) 100% foreign ownership of Philippine businesses and industries; (b) Removal of term limits for politicians; (c) Shifting the form of government to federalism, seemingly progressive but actually further entrenching feudal landlords and warlords in power.

It is clear that the majority of our alliance-members who are recent immigrants and migrant-workers do not expect terms of genuine, lasting and pro-people social change. We believe that this brutal and ruthless administration cannot create the change we need that would create conditions to end decades-long unemployment, forced migration and our separation from our loved ones back home.

“The Pulso Ng Bayan (People’s Pulse) activity demonstrated that as overseas Filipinos, we find strength in our unity to fight for the rights and welfare of our kababayan here and in the Philippines. We are connected to the ongoing struggle for national democracy and a truly free Philippines", said Delia Manuel, Co-Chairperson of GABRIELA Washington, D.C.

This is precisely the reason why we unite with the MALAYA MOVEMENT and all its allied and member-organizations in exposing the true State of the Nation both back home and for overseas Filipino communities, especially here in the DMV Region. We call on all patriotic forces, friends, family and allies to join us in the UNITED PEOPLE’S STATE OF THE NATION ADDRESS (SONA) in Washington DC and in major cities across the US and the whole world. For these locations and the various workshops, cultural events and build-up activities happening in Washington DC, please visit www.malayamovement.com, email or search for "Malaya Movement" on social media.

We are looking forward to march with you all and putting forth the real State of the Nation!

BAYAN USA DMV Dc-Md-Va is the campaign coordinating center of progressive and anti-imperialist Filipino organizations representing students, scholars, women, workers, artists, and youth in the DMV (DC-MD-VA) area. It serves as the local regional alliance for BAYAN USA, the first and largest overseas chapter of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan. It currently has three member-organizations, namely, GABRIELA Washington DC, Migrante Washington DC and Migrante Youth Fort Washington Maryland. # #