On Thursday, June 9, 2022, in Concepcion town, Tarlac, Philippines, 20 local policemen, and three teams of the Philippine National Police accosted and arrested 93 people for holding a cooperative planting on a 2-hectare piece of the 200-hectare Hacienda Tinang. This arrest is the biggest mass arrest of farmers and peasant advocates under the outgoing Duterte administration.
There should be no doubt that the Filipino people have chosen Robredo and Pangilinan. Marcos and Duterte have relied on their control of the Supreme Court and the Commission on Elections, stacked as these are by the appointees of their fathers; the systematic rewriting of textbooks to falsify history and whitewash the crimes of the Marcoses; defective vote counting machines supplied by a Duterte crony; an army of social media trolls they’ve financed; voter disenfranchisement, vote buying, and intimidation; to engineer a massive operation “dagdag-bawas” (add-substract) to frustrate the will of the Filipino people and steal the elections.
Malaya Canada, an alliance of patriotic Filipinos in Canada, welcomes the revelation by Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Rowena Guanzon that she voted to disqualify Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr., (BBM) from running for the Presidency of the Philippines because of moral turpitude.
We, Malaya Canada, call on all people of good will, to frustrate the political machinations of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr., Sara Duterte, and Rodrigo Duterte.
The Malaya Movement in Canada congratulates Rechie Valdez for winning the riding of Mississauga-Streetsville in Ottawa in the recent 2021 Canadian Federal Elections. She is the first Filipina and the second person of Philippine descent to be elected into the federal parliament.
For our part, as an organization of Filipinos across Canada with deep roots in the Filipino community, we ourselves look toward a long fruitful working relationship with MP Valdez. We welcome MP Valdez’s aspirations to be a genuine representative. We will be here, available, to hold ongoing conversations with MP Valdez on the issues that most affect the Filipino community.
The Malaya Movement in Canada congratulates Maria Ressa as co-recipient of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize. In its announcement, the Nobel Committee cited Ms. Ressa’s
“efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace. Ms Ressa …[is] receiving the Peace Prize for [her] … courageous fight for freedom of expression in the Philippines….”
Ms. Ressa herself, and Rappler.com, the news site she has founded face persecution from the Duterte regime.
In the days approaching the September 20, 2021 Canadian Federal elections, every Canadian should ponder the questions that those who wish to govern the country must address. We are in unprecedented times with the year and a half long pandemic that has hurt the global and Canadian economy and put unexpected stresses upon all our lives.
Canada sees itself as an open multicultural mosaic with progressive values of diversity, tolerance, and fairness. The Government of Canada has gone so far as to admit that “Canadians care about human rights. They expect their government to help build respect for human rights at home and around the world.”
Yet for all that, the practice of the Government of Canada of building respect for human rights at home and around the world leaves much room for improvement.
Joint Statement by Malaya Movement US, Canada and Melbourne (Australia).
We in the Malaya Movement join the Filipino people in calling for Duterte’s immediate resignation. It is just and appropriate for the Filipino people to demand the immediate resignation of a failed and incompetent president. Every single day that Duterte stays in office means more suffering to the Filipino people under the same incoherent and incompetent leadership.
Malaya Movement Canada raises alarm over the recent attack on human rights defender and lawyer Atty. Angelo Karlo “AK” Guillen. Two unidentified masked men stabbed Atty Guillen in the head and at the back on March 3 in Iloilo City. Clearly this attack was planned and had intent to kill and silence Atty. Guillen.
Malaya Movement in Canada, on behalf of over 500 people in the Filipino diaspora and friends who signed, has sent an open letter to Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau, calling his attention and that of the Canadian government to the on-going killings and other human rights violations in the Philippines.
Malaya Movement Canada denounces the illegal arrest and detention of Amanda Socorro Lacaba Echanis, a new mother and her month-old son. Amanda is a peasant organizer under the Amihan National Federation of Peasant Women Cagayan provincial chapter, a group that actively works for the welfare of small farmers, especially peasant women, and engages in the struggles for genuine land reform. Social activism is not a crime.
