On August 26th, Sulong UBC joined anti-imperialist organizations in Vancouver to show our solidarity with the national democratic struggle in the Philippines, and to show our support for the launch of a new solidarity organization, Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle.
Learn more about Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle:
- Email friendsinstruggle@gmail.com
- Follow @FriendsFFPS on Facebook
- Follow @friends_ffps on Instagram
Watch our solidarity statement & read the full text below:
Warm and militant greetings from Sulong UBC to our friends and comrades as we gather to celebrate the strength of the anti-imperialist people’s movement in the Philippines.
As a youth and student organization, we have studied closely the long history of the Filipino people’s struggle. From Lapu-Lapu to Kerima Lorena Tariman, the Filipino people have heroically fought off the oppression of feudalism, capitalism, and imperialism through armed struggle.
Why is armed struggle the answer? Why do youth and students take up arms alongside peasant, worker, fisher, urban poor, national minority, women, and LGBTQ masses? Why do the Filipino people fight?
They fight for our liberation. They fight because the Government of the Republic of the Philippines has no interest in meeting the needs of its nation’s youth. It has no interest in supporting liberatory cultural work. It has no interest in funding a genuine people’s education. It has no interest in protecting the masses from the exploitation of US imperialism. Instead, the Armed Forces of the Philippines act as the lapdogs of US imperialism: bombing Lumad schools, killing youth peasants and workers, arresting students on campuses for decrying human rights violations.
As the space for civil resistance narrows under the draconian Anti-Terrorism Act and the so-called War on Drugs — which is actually a War on the Poor — the masses take up arms as the last resort against the oppressive state machinery that keeps the Filipino people in the backwards conditions of semi-feudalism and semi-colonialism.
Filipino youth and students and allies in so-called Vancouver stand firm in solidarity with the people’s struggle in the Philippines. We know that the exploitative conditions in the Philippines push Filipino people to migrate here, to unceded Coast Salish territories. We echo the CPP in stating that the top recruiter for the New People’s Army is the Duterte regime — because the Duterte regime is what makes life unlivable for the Filipino masses.
We affirm the necessity and legitimacy of the Filipino people’s struggle. We unite in struggle today, certain that tomorrow, the Filipino people will be free.
Estudyante ng bayan! Palaban militante!
Students of the nation! Struggle militantly!
Ang tao makabayan! Lumalaban!
People of the nation! Struggle!