The Bagong Alyansang Makabayan-USA chapter vehemently condemns the recent series of bombings that terrorized the people in Davao, General Santos City and Makati in the past weeks.
As peace-loving Filipinos in the U.S., we condemn the perpetrators who have recklessly taken and wounded the lives of innocent Filipino compatriots back home. Those responsible must be brought to justice immediately after a full investigation and not unproven accusations and rumors which conveniently fall in line with presidential plans to implement a national ID system and other forms of state repression. Otherwise, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will once again undoubtedly follow the lead of the Bush administration, which has conveniently exploited the 9/11 bombings as a pretext for U.S. military intervention and expansionism in the middle east as well as more than 50 U.S./R.P. war exercises set to take place this year throughout the Philippines.
Philippine history has shown how similar bombings like that of Plaza Miranda and more recent ones in Mindanao have been used to justify martial law in the 70s and to usher back in the country U.S. special operations forces, troops and military arsenal, which have assisted in claiming the lives of countless innocent mothers, fathers and children. The stunning 2002 account of American James Mehring’s suitcase explosion in his Davao hotel room sheds much light to the real purpose of these bombings. After the explosion, Mehring was swiftly taken out of the country by U.S. CIA agents, escaping questioning by local authorities regarding the bombs in possession and any connection to pentagon covert operations. In fact, he was recently spotted walking freely in Houston, Texas
One thing we know, if Mehring’s mission unfolded as planned–those blamed would not have been Mehring or the CIA but most likely another U.S. trained extremist group such as the Abu Sayyaf who play the role of justifying U.S. military intervention and so-called “joint, mutual” agreements that benefit the ruling GMA puppet regimes and U.S. political and economical interests over the needs of the masses of starving people. Let us also not forget the recent mutiny of rank and file soldiers of Armed Forces of the Philippines who also took hostages in Makati in protest of GMA’s corrupt army generals who are known to have coordinated the delivery of weapons to Abu Sayaf extremists.
So these recent bombings must not be used as a pretext to secure an equally terrorizing internal “security” agenda that will impose fascist, anti-democratic policies against the basic civil rights and liberties of Filipinos, such as the proposed national ID system which would be in blatant disregard of the Philippine Supreme Court’s ruling that such a policy would be out-right unconstitutional.
The reasoning touted by Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye on the benefits of a national ID system for the Philippines echoes the bogus logic force-fed to Americans by the imperialist strategist team of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice and Powell in promoting a special registration policy for immigrants of target origins. Bunye insists that national ID system is a noteworthy solution to expose individuals “with something to hide,” when in essence it provides the smoke cloud for real terrorists to hide under while inflicting daily terror of war and militarization that have displaced over 13,000 people in Sulu alone in the name of anti-terrorism.
Furthermore, at a time when a great percentage of Filipinos live below the poverty line because of the chronic and deepening economic crisis, spending P1.6 billion to provide every Filipino with an ID card is absurd, when there is already a great shortage of resources going towards basic necessities and social services. In fact, hundreds of thousands of ID cards would have no address since homelessness is more rampant than ever.
Some of the most horrendous human costs of this racist war can be found right here in our own backyards. In line with these so-called anti-terror measures, Filipinos in the U.S. have been included in a massive wave of immigrant scapegoating that terrorizes our lives daily in the form of rampant detention and deportation, racial profiling, forced family separation, and massive job lay-offs. This includes hundreds of ex-airport screeners in the Bay Area displaced from their jobs and thousands of Filipinos in the process of legalizing their status and living in fear of being picked up, interrogated, detained and deported at any point. The tragic deportation of the Manalastas and Cuevas family and the case of Donita Ganzon, a transexual Filipina, who is being denied the right to petition her husband Jiffy Javellana to legally take residence in the U.S.
These recent attacks under the name of “national security” are some most recent examples of the attacks against our families. While the face of this terror does not make the evening news broadcast, terror campaigns such as the Patriot Act and Homeland Security Act wage daily war against the civil liberties of immigrants and people of color here in the United States.
We stand firmly in solidarity with the Filipino people in pursuing genuine and lasting peace in the Philippines and with all peoples of the world who have fallen victim to machineries of state terror under the perverted name of anti-terrorism.
NO TO NATIONAL ID SYSTEM AND OTHER ANTI-DEMOCRATIC MEASURES!
END HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS AND RESTART NDFP/GRP PEACE TALKS!
RESIST HOMELAND SECURITY AND THE MASSIVE DEPORTATION OF FILIPINOS!
U.S. TROOPS OUT OF THE PHILIPPINES, IRAQ, PALESTINE, KOREA AND HAITI!