2/27/06 Alyansa ng mga Kababayan at UCI Condemns Human Rights Violations and De Facto Martial Law in the Philippines

Alyansa ng mga Kababayan at UCI Condemns Human Rights Violations and De Facto Martial Law in the Philippines

On February 24, 2006, the eve of the twentieth anniversary of the first EDSA Revolution that ended Martial Law under the Marcos regime, “elected” President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo issued Proclamation 1017, declaring a “State of Emergency” in the Philippines. This “State of Emergency” grants her multiple powers such as arrests without warrants and extension of detention without charge, the ability to raid and seize media productions, the suspension of public assembly, and other such powers which can be compared to a “De Facto” state of Martial Law.

The catalyst, according to President Arroyo, for this “State of Emergency” was the disruption of a potential military coup d’etat and an alleged “conspiracy” by political factions on the extreme left and right. However, the facts are that prior to the enactment of Proclamation 1017, the Arroyo administration had long been losing public favor amid national policies that placed the interests of multinational corporations and foreign nations above her own country, coupled with reports by multiple NGOs of human rights violations initiated by her government, as well as the admission of guilt in organizing voter fraud in the last Presidential election that placed her in the very office she currently occupies. Not only has her political opposition shown dissatisfaction in her policies, even former supporters and members of her administration have asked for her resignation.

Congresswoman Liza Maza, who is now facing arrest, states, “Malacanang (The Philippine equivalent of the White House) is bent on muzzling its critics, the opposition, and those who are espousing reforms.” Ultimately, this executive order amounts to a last ditch effort to hold on to power amidst a military, government, and nation that no longer wishes to see her in office.

Although we live thousands of miles away, the same blood that runs through our veins runs through the 7,000 islands back in the Philippines. It is our duty to exercise the liberties and freedoms that have wrongfully been stolen from Pilipina/os. By condemning the actions of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and opposing the human rights violations and the current state of de facto martial law, we stand in solidarity with the people of the Philippines and the struggles that they face and will face in the near future.

Alyansa ng mga Kababayan demands an immediate end of the “State of Emergency” on the Philippines; politically meaning the end of Proclamation 1017, resulting in the immediate release of all unwarranted political prisoners, the return of resources, materials and freedom of speech to all media organizations as well as the restoration of civil liberties and rights to all the citizens of the Philippines.

In Solidarity,

Alyansa ng mga Kababayan at the University of California, Irvine

FUSION – Filipinos Unifying Student-Engineers In an Organized Network at UCI
Kababayan at UCI
PASS – Pilipino Americans in Social Studies at UCI
PUSO – Pilipino Pre-Health Undergraduate Student Organization at UCI
TAPS Kollektive – Tagalog And Pilipina/o Studies at UCI

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2/21/06 (scattered moments of memories past)

i find myself locked in a dream upon scattered moments of memories past
but the thing is...they're not my memories
voices, people, places i've never been to
other worlds, ways of thought
waves of sound, colors never before seen
the other side of the mirror
the day mare to the night dream
it all seems so ridiculously curious
so where am i?
finally a familiar scene that i seem to recognize as my own
but as i look at my reflection i can't recognize my face
and so i continue to race through these dreams
these scenes
these memories i've seen
all these beings
trying to retrace back to where i've been

RIP Pete Navarro

Unsent Letter

Two days before my birthday one of the kids i grew up with in honolulu passed away due to a gun accident. What the hell could I say to my auntie? What words would could match up to having her son back, let alone do his life any justice? I feel so selfish and greedy, cause at the moment, all i can actually think about is myself. Her only request was for me to write to his elder brother, who is my age, who was in Iraq. Even that I couldn't do. I put it off, concerned with what I was doing. School, work, "organizing" a community. Thinks could not seem any better: I have received possibly the best grades I have ever gotten while in college so far (3.80), the community seems to be going in a excellent if not extraordinary direction, all while handling a job. The problem? Everything I "did" was half assed. I barely studied or read, I got drunk before every test and while writing my essays, and I've done the bare minimum of my responsibilities. I had all this time to slack off, get drunk, shirk my fucken responsibilities, chasing after love, all the while pretending to myself and others that I was doing the "best" I could. I feel like scum. All this time and I couldn't write a letter.

He was in Iraq

Four days ago I was busy playing World of Warcraft, copying my reciepts to turn in a rebate so I could save my ass 30 bucks because I've done a piss poor job of saving money. After we moved to Paradise Hills in San Diego a few months later Pete and Danny Navarro moved up to Poway. It always felt like forever driving up from my house to their house. They lived by the Wal-Mart. Passing by the Mira Mesa Blvd on the 15, I'd see the houses on the hillside of Scripps Ranch, they used to look so far away and I thought they were tombstones on some distant hill. It felt like forever driving there, but it was only a 30-40 minute drive. I remember visiting a few months after their brother Kevin was born, and when his umbelical cord came off we were running around shoving it in peoples faces. A few months later fed up with the situation with our landlord my folks decided to buy a house in Mira Mesa. I was sad because I had a big ass crush on this girl named Alyssa Tuazon, who I met in the ESL class cause I was stupid and put Tagalog as my primary language. It was raining the day we moved, and I was still thinking about her, but as we exited off Mira Mesa blvd, I saw those familiar tombstone shaped buildings, and thought it wouldn't be that far away from Pete and his family. We only visited them occasionally.

Later on their dad got stationed in Italy and they moved away. While I was doing ROTC in high school he was doing it too over in Spain. It was good seeing him in the military papers cause he got hella up there and was commanding a drill team and other stuff. When they moved away, their cousins moved into their house. They were a family of six 3 girls and a boy who was the second child. The fourth child was still in the Philippines. I was twelve or so when I met them at a party. I got into a fight with the third child and I kinda got a crush on her. I would meet her again during my ate's debut when she was one of the royal court, not only did i have a crush on her again after not seeing her for so long, but so did my ate's friend and my friend. Yes you Lyle. Again I fucken shift the focus to me. Anyway, her parents were at my house today. They gave us the news.

Four days ago when I was fucking playing WoW, and worrying about saving fucken money. E-4 Specialist Navarro was on Humvee in Iraq when a roadside bomb exploded killing him and three other soldiers. He came back July to bury his brother. He went back and was killed with less than a month til is tour was over. I couldnt' even fucking send him a letter. I was too "tired" too "busy." doing fucking jack shit. what the fuck am i?

Kevin is my little sister's age, and he lost both his brothers in less than 6 months. god i want to cry so much, but the tears just aren't falling.


12/17/05

Thoughts and Qutoes from Audry Lorde's Sister Outsider

within most patriarchal societies were are socialized and taught to respect, revere, and idolize the extraordinary. in addition to that we are taught that only the actions of men are extraordinary. thus it is only the heroes and not the heroines that are honored, and in addition to we are taught the lives and experiences of our sisters and mothers are not extraordinary. for a great deal of time i did buy into this paradigm, and the fact is it was only a recent realization that i did not have any females that i reguarded as being a person i could aspire to be. so here's some words from Audre Lorde that i found extraordinary.

from "Scratching the Surface: Some Notes on Barriers to Women and Loving"

Racism: The belief in the inherent superiority of one race over all others and thereby the right to dominance.

Sexism: The belief in he inherent superiority of one sex and thereby the right to dominance.

Heterosexism: The belief in the inherent superiority of one pattern of loving and thereby its right to dominance.

Homophobioa: The fear of feelings of love for members of one's own sex and therefore the hatred of those feelings in others.

THE ABOVE FORMS of human blindness stem from the same root - an inability to recognize the notion of difference as a dynamic human force, one which is enriching rather than threatening to the defined self, when there are shared goals....

from "Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power"

...
But the erotic offers a well of replenishing and provocative force to the woman who does not fear its revelation, nor succumb to the belief that sensation is enough.

The erotic has often been misnamed by men and used against women. It has been made into the confused, the trivial, the psychotic, the plasticized sensation. For this reason, we have often turned away from the exploration and consideration of the erotic as a source of power and information, confusing it with its opposite, the pornographic. But pornography is a direct denial of the power of the erotic, for it represents the suppression of true feeling. Pornography emphasizes sensation without feeling.

from "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action"

...
And where the words of women are crying to be heard, we must each of us recognize our responsibility to seek those words out, to read them and share them and examine them in their pertinence to our lives. That we not hide behind the mockeries of separations that have been imposed upon us and which so often we accept as our own. For instance, "I can't possibly teach Black women's writing - their experience is so different from mine." Yet how many years have you spent teaching Plato and Shakespeare and Proust? Or another, "She's a white woman and what could she possibly have to say to me?" Or, "She's a lesbian what would my husband say, or my chairman?" Or again, "This woman writes of her sons and I have no children." And all the other endless ways in which we rob ourselves of ourselves and each other.

Q&A with Malcolm X after his speech "The Black Revolution" It's interesting the question he gets at the "Militant Labor Forum"

About school integration

"But a segregated school system isn't necessarily the same situation that exists ini an all-white neighborhood. A school system in an all-white neighborhood is not a segregated school system. The only time it's segregated is when it is in a community that is other than white, but at the same time is controlled by the whites. So my understanding of a segregated school system, or a segregated community, or a segregated school, is a school that's controlled by people other than those that go there.

But in an all-white neighborhood, where you have an all-white sschool, that's not a segregated school. Usually they have a high-caliber education. Anytime someone else can put on you what they want, naturally you're going to have something that's inferior. So the schools in Harlem are not controlled by the people in Harlem, they're controlled by the man downtown. And the man downtown takes all of the tax dollars and spends them elsewhere, but he keeps the facilities, the schoolteachers, and the schoolbooks, material, in Harlem at the very lowerst level. So this produces a segregated education, which doesn't do our people any good.

On the other hand, if we can get an all-black school, that we can control, staff it ourselves with the type of teachers that have our good at heart, with the type of books that have in them many of the missing ingredients that have produced the inferiority complex in our people, then we don't feel that an all-black school is necessarily a segregated school. It's only segregated when it's controlled by someone from outside. I hope I'm making my point. I just can't see where if white people can go to a white classroom and there are no Negroes present and it doesn't affect the academic diet they're receiving, then I don't see where an all-black classroom can be affected by the absense of white children. If the absence of lblack children doesn't affect white students, I don't see how the absense of whites is going to affect the blacks.

So, what the integrationists, in my opinion, are saying when they say that whites and blacks must go to school together, is that the whites are so much superior that just their presence in a black classroom balances it out. I can't go along with that."

Can Black leaders achieve their freedom without the help of white radicals?

"England became powerful because she had others to fight for her. She used the African against the Asian and the Asian against the African. France used the Senegalese. All these white powers have had some little lackeys to do their fighting for them, and America has had 22 million African-Americans to do your fighting for you.

It is we who have fought your battles for you, and have picked your cotton for you. We built this house that you're living in. It was our labor that built this house. You sat beneath the old cotton tree telling us how long to work or how hard to work, but it was our labor, our sweat and our blood that made this country what it is, and we're the only ones who haven't benefited from it. All We're saying today is, it's payday - retroactive."

What does Diaspora Mean to You?

Tersely speaking, the diaspora is the movement of bodies from their “native” territory to a new territory. Originally applied to describe the dispersal of the Jewish people from the territory called Israel or Palestine, it has been applied to various other populations such as Blacks, Pilipina/os, or any immigrant population under the sun. For myself, the notion of diaspora holds significant meaning. As a second generation Pilipino-American, I feel diaspora is a term that explains the nature of the majority of my identity. A good portion of my experience as an individual is based upon the interactions I have with my parents. At times there have been large amounts of conflicts and I feel it is because we have different diasporic experiences.

In describing the relationship between my family, the diaspora, and I; two important notions are that of the “imagined community” and the concept of “home.” Home, or more specifically, the feeling of the existence of multiple homes for oneself, is a marker of a diasporic experience. I identify home not only as the U.S., but the Philippines as well. This is interesting in that I have only been to the Philippines once as a child. How is it that I have an attachment to a land that I have only been to once? If my parents also identify the same two homes, how can they still consider the Philippines a home after they have left it? This question ties directly to the idea of the “imagined community,” a term coined by Benedict Anderson. The Philippines is a land that dwells within the imagination of our minds, for my parents it also dwells within their memory. It is a place that I have given value and attachment to; not only does it have a completely autonomous existence in reality, but I have added in my own ideas of what the Philippines is and created an alternate reality of what that land is for myself.

The difference between the diasporic experience of my parents and I lies in our immigrant status. As a second generation immigrant still living in the U.S., the experience of living in the Philippines is one that can only exist in imagination. Therefore, the land becomes a symbol of all the ideals that I have conferred upon it; and having a more radical, anti-colonial mindset, the country became an idealized symbol of resistance and struggle. As first generation immigrants, the Philippines exist as a completely different land of imagination for my parents. Having prescribed to pro-western colonial values, they view the Philippines as a land of decadence, a perspective which had influenced their decision to flee to the U.S. for employment opportunities. In addition to their imagined view of the Philippines, the country becomes locked in stasis existing within memory. While time flows on the other side of the globe, the Philippines remains what they remember it to be. Thus, changes that they may learn of become unsettling as they try and consolidate the home in their memory and the other reality they learn through newspapers, television, or the internet.

While the Philippine diaspora was created through U.S. imperial force and “benevolent” coercion, in the neo-colonial setting, U.S.-Philippine relations are marked by the contemporary trend towards globalization. According to Arjun Appadurai in his work Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy, globalization is more than just merely cultural homogenization. He argues that there are five “-scapes” of movement that do not flow in just one direction, but intersect and flow back and forth across boarders. The ethnoscape, or movement of people, shows just that with the case of the Philippines. While Pilipina/os have been moving away from the Philippines, citizens of other countries, with interests in the archipelago, have moved in; whether they be missionaries or workers of multinational corporations. Although having moved away, my parents have also made return visits. The technoscape is the global configuration of technology, which has connected the world and has in essence made it “smaller.” This allows for communication across boarders, and has been a source of exporting labor in the technological field. While the Philippines has made great strides in engineering and technology and has had much worked outsourced to it’s shores, a large portion of the country has yet to experience it, as my relatives do not even have their own telephone line. Financescapes are the movement of global capital, and as Appadurai states, is dependent on the movement of the ethnoscapes and technoscapes. As the movement of people and labor in technology move away from the country the value of the Philippine peso is greatly effected as it has been decreasing in value to the dollar at a steady rate. The media and ideoscapes are particular subjects of interest when dealing with the Philippines. The mediascape is the flow of popular cultural and imaged based stories, while the ideoscape deals with the ideologies and beliefs. While the Philippines is known to consume American popular culture and reproduce it, sometimes more faithfully than reproduced in it’s country of origin; Philippine media is also emulated by second generation Pilipina/os here in the United States. The mediascape is one venue to help push the ideoscape, as it has been a pathway for U.S. ideology to take hold in the Philippines by presenting a certain image of the U.S. However, for second and 1.5 generation Pilipina/o-Americans, it is also through the mediascapes that radical Philippine ideology reaches the shores of the U.S.; through the news and video.

Serendipity

does serendipity ever dance at dawn?
when moon beams shine on mountains tops
as the earth echoes and yawns
her eyes fade as the stars do
to an endless sea of blue skies tinged with light
she never sighs or weeps
at least not in front of me
her laughter brings a joy that's limitless
and her smile an ecstasy beyond sexual bliss
yes, you boarder on a spiritual divinity
because a part of God lies within you
for you to see God within everyone individually
chizzled by the wind and nutured by sun and water
daughter mother of all and mother of one
your tongue speaks of mysteries answered by truth
youth is only a state of mind for you as is sooth
no you say: you're not perfect, because perfect isn't real
well you're as unreal as it gets
and your imprefection is your beauty
least i ever forget

08/19/05