Tag: featured

On November 12th, 2023, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leader’s Meeting will impinge upon the San Francisco Bay Area, drawing in over 21,000 people and heads of states from 21 countries including President Bong Bong Marcos from the Philippines and US President Joe Biden. Throughout the preceding APEC ministerial meetings earlier in 2023 leading up to the Leaders Meeting, the United States has been pushing forward the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), luring countries to adopt this multilateral trade policy aimed at re-asserting US security and trade interests while opposing China’s Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). The last round of IPEF negotiations are taking place between Nov 5-15.

The International Coalition on Human Rights in the Philippines-US chapter categorically rejects the United States ongoing attempts to re-assert its dominance over the Asia Pacific region via IPEF. In light of the recent murder of labor leader, Jude Thaddeus Fernandez, IPEF and other unequal trade agreements grant countries with deplorable worker’s rights conditions contracts with multinational corporations. These trade agreements are a race to the bottom for cheap labor and worker exploitation, particularly in the Philippines where attempts by workers to unionize is penalized through kidnappings, false arrests, surveillance, and in the case of Fernandez, death. 

With finance ministers, heads of states, corporate lobbyists, and CEOs negotiating in closed door meetings that are kept secret for 5 years, IPEF is a deeply undemocratic and unjust process that decides outcomes affecting billions of people. Big Tech has written a majority of the digital trade aspect of IPEF, seeking to steal value from the digital data of different countries. The focus on the digital economy also underscores the United States search for cheap labor even in the tech industry, where much of the research and development of technology will benefit the military industrial complex. IPEF plays a major role in upholding US security and corporate interests in the Asia-Pacific region.

In favor of increasing corporate profit, IPEF devastates local farmers and peasants in developing countries by forcing them to use imported genetically modified seeds created by big agribusinesses, undermining traditional agricultural practices and limiting biodiversity. Instead of improving the lives of peasant farmers in the Philippines, IPEF will deepen their despair by forcing them to grow cash crops meant for export and burying them into deeper debt.

Instead of advocating for the rights and welfare of Filipino workers and peasants, President Bongbong Marcos will sell the Filipino people and their resources to the highest bidder. In fact, Marcos will defend the interests of these corporations by silencing the voice of the Filipino people. ICHRP-US stands with the Filipino in their fight against IPEF and other neoliberal schemes that seek to exploit them further. We advocate instead for people’s rights – right to land, fair wage, and self-determination to control their economic situation. 

This week, US President Biden, claimed he had “no confidence” in the Palestinian death toll and even stated “I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s the price of waging a war.” His words confirmed what ICHRP-US has been witnessing during his presidency – that the US condones war crimes committed by its own security forces or its allies’ forces done with US material support. The callousness of Biden’s words is appalling as the US’ ally Israel has brutalized the Palestinian people of Gaza with airstrikes and deprived the people of food, water, electricity and fuel imposing a death sentence on those not killed in the bombings.

The same callousness has been expressed by the administration when Filipino people’s organizations and their allies, including ICHRP-US, have demanded a halt of US military aid to the Philippines. Military aid has been used to commit human rights violations and war crimes against civilians as part of the Philippine government’s counterinsurgency program. US government officials have claimed their hands are tied especially as they fan the flame of tension with the Chinese government. The US needs the Philippines as a physical base in a potential conflict with China and does not value the lives lost to red-tagging, extrajudicial killings, and indiscriminate bombings enough to do more then feign concern.

Not surprisingly, Biden also warned China this week that it would defend the Philippines if China attacks. It is hard to find sincerity in those words when it is clear the US has the most to gain from military victory over China including economic and military superiority in the Asia region. At the losing end would be the ordinary Filipino who would have nowhere to hide, and even less access to already scarce food and resources if the US were to go to war with China.

We stand with the Palestinian and Filipino people demanding an end to US support to the Israel and Philippine states!

On Friday, Sept 29, Philippine labor leaders & US advocates testified in a bipartisan Congressional briefing on the severe labor crisis in the Philippines, hosted by the office of Democrat Rep Susan Wild in cooperation with Republican Rep Brian Fitzpatrick. Among the speakers were Mylene Cabalona, President of BPO Industry Employees Network (BIEN), Raymon Basilio, Secretary General of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers, Melinda  .

The International Trade Union Confederation has ranked the Philippines among the ten most repressive countries for workers and the labor movement over the past seven years. Under former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, there were 56 documented cases of labor-related extra-judicial killings. The January 2023 investigation by the International Labor Organization’s High-Level Tripartite Mission into labor rights in the Philippines documented “380 alleged local labor rights violations cases” and included initial findings that demonstrate a practice of baselessly linking unions to the ongoing insurgency in the country. Activists are regularly labeled by government bodies as “communist” or “terrorist,” essentially putting targets on their backs. The report finds a “climate of impunity” where workers cannot organize and exercise their rights without fear of retaliation. 

Raymond Basilio described the attacks on his union: “In 2019, we have documented a total of 39 cases of illegal profiling of our members. These 39 cases involved 28,000 of our members. The profiling was conducted in a way where the Philippine National Police created an internal memoranda wherein their field officers were directed to list down names of our members and their whereabouts.” 

Basilio was also among those targeted. Basilio commented, “I’ve received around twelve death threats from 2019, that involved me receiving direct calls, and I’ve had followers come after me on public transportation, they would just suddenly come up to me and say I was next on their list. They called my family members and friends to ask about my whereabouts.”

Kamz Deligente of the Centre for Trade Union Rights, remarked that the conditions of workers have only worsened under the Marcos Jr administration, despite domestic and international advocacy. “State forces through NTF-ELCAC implement an elaborate campaign to force unionists to disaffiliate from their respective unions. . . Imagine fully armed state forces going house to house in small communities, knocking on their doors, interrupting their families and telling them to disaffiliate from their unions, and saying their union funds are going to terrorists.”

Despite claiming to be worker centered, multinational corporations are pushing to use IPEF to place the rights of multinational corporations above those of workers, increase offshoring of jobs during an already severe unemployment crisis, give corporations and governments easy access to personal data for surveillance and profit motives, deregulate price and product quality standards, and the further erode democratic governance in countries throughout the Pacific.

It is particularly worrying that details of IPEF negotiations have remained largely secretive. Melinda St. Louis, Global Trade Watch director at Public Citizen , stated “Despite repeated demands from 400 civil society and dozens members of Congress, the negotiations [of IPEF] have been classified. What’s clear is there needs to be more than lip service paid to workers in the Philippines and other countries.”

Speaking on behalf of Communications Workers of America and promoting international solidarity among workers, Elena Lopez blasted not only the bad trade policies that hurt workers but further urged for sensible legislation like the Philippines Human Rights Act, HR 1433. “We all have the shared goal of fighting corporate greed and putting power in the back in the hands of workers. It’s important American workers and unions get involved because we face many of the same struggles workers face abroad. That’s why CWA is proud to support the Philippines Human Rights Act, which would help end the targeting of trade union activists.”

This statement comes from the Faith-based Working Group for Human Rights in the Philippines, representing faith groups and denominations including United Church of Christ-Disciples of Christ, Presbyterian Church USA, the United Methodist Church, various Catholic organizations and ecumenical advocates, in conjunction with the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines, U.S.

As an ecumenical coalition of faith groups advocating in the United States for just and lasting peace in the Philippines, representing a diverse cross-section of Catholic and Protestant organizations with partners across the Philippines, we express our deepest concerns over the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflicts’ “whole-of-nation” approach to the ongoing armed conflict in the country. The whole-of-nation approach has resulted in the intensification of red tagging, intimidation, and human rights violations. We express solidarity with the religious groups and other peace and human rights advocates who have been targeted. We call for the abolition of the NTF-ELCAC, the repeal of Executive Order 70 under which it was established, and the resumption of inclusive peace talks that address the social and economic root causes of conflict.

We watched with concern as NTF-ELCAC Executive Director Usec. Ernesto Torres misrepresented the Episcopal Commission on Public Affairs’ recent efforts to engage with the task force, and expressed that NTF-ELCAC intends to involve more religious groups in its whole-of-nation program.

We were heartened by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines’ statement clarifying that it was not the CBCP itself, as Torres had implied, but one of over 30 episcopal commissions that had sought to engage with the NTF-ELCAC, in the interest of raising concerns over red-tagging. CBCP President and Kalookan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David indicated in the statement that the CBCP will continue to discern the best way forward, and the possibility of bringing concerns to NTF-ELCAC without having to join it as a member.

Signed in 2018 by then-President Rodrigo Duterte, Executive Order 70 replaced peace talks, from which the government had withdrawn the year before, by establishing NTF-ELCAC to oversee a whole-of-nation counterinsurgency program. This program has excluded key stakeholders from peacebuilding efforts, eroded trust, and been used to red-tag and otherwise persecute various faith groups and other unarmed civil society members. In light of such failures and abuses by NTF-ELCAC, its leadership’s attempt to misrepresent the Episcopal Commission for Public Affairs’ engagement with it, and in careful consultation with our partners on the ground, we must conclude that further engagement with NTF-ELCAC only serves to legitimize its abuses, thereby undermining work for true, sustainable peace.

At this crucial moment in the history of the Philippines, the prophetic witness of the church is essential to the establishment of just peace and respect for human rights. Even the perception of collaboration with NTF-ELCAC by church authorities threatens to undermine these efforts. We look to the CBCP for solidarity and moral leadership. We trust that any of the bishops’ concerns over red-tagging or other activities of the NTF-ELCAC can be expressed directly to government officials without participation or membership in the NTF-ELCAC. We seek the resumption of peace talks as the best hope for lasting peace with justice for all.