Robert Reid | Global Chair FFPS
The 4th day of the International Solidarity Mission (ISM) wraps up the special learning tours and solidarity missions to communities in Rizal, Mindoro, Negros and Eastern Visayas. These ISM delegations aim to learn more about the reality of people on the ground, who are on the frontier of vulnerability from climate change, human rights abuses and US imperialism’s growing war preparations against China. The key findings of these missions will be presented at the Asia Pacific People’s Conference Against Climate Imperialism and Militarism in Manila on October 16–17.
Even though this is the final day of those missions, it is not the final day of solidarity!
There is still an urgent need to:
- Help promote the ISM, its findings and the struggles of the local communities and their resistance to plunder, exploitation and oppression
- To write and publish statements in support of the missions, its delegates and the communities that were visited
- To continue to strengthen our solidarity with the struggling Filipino people who are fighting for a just and lasting peace.
Even as the international delegations are heading back to Manila, the Indigenous communities in Mindoro are already facing fascist retribution for their hosting of the ISM. Next to surveillance by low-flying drones and motorcyclists, dozens of fully-armed soldiers and police officers entered the Mangyan-Iraya campsite that had hosted the ISM. There are also reports of military and police agents searching for Haira Dollano, Mindoro Youth for Environment and Nation Chairperson. It is to be expected that these repercussions will continue to intensify and also expand to other communities visited by the ISM.
The US-Marcos regime is clearly exposing itself in violently trying to cover up the common practices of land grabbing, destructive mining and infrastructure projects, and other forms of exploitation which these organized communities are resisting. However, the people and their militant mass organizations are resilient and continue their struggle for land and livelihood.
As international solidarity we need to be prepared to continue to stand with them in support of their urgent struggles, as well as against fascist attacks and the de-facto martial law that is implemented in the countryside.
For this reason we are joining the call to hold urgent protest and/or propaganda actions in support of the ISM and the struggling rural communities who are actively resisting climate imperialism and militarization!
Call To Action: September 21 – Filipino Peasant Day
We call on the international community to join us in global action in support of rural communities in the Philippines, their militant mass organizations and the peoples’ struggles against land grabbing, de-facto martial law, and other forms of exploitation and oppression. We want to highlight and amplify their justified resistance against climate imperialism and the US-Marcos regime’s war of suppression, as well as continue our international solidarity and respond to urgent fascist attacks.
We encourage creative propaganda actions that attract interest and media attention to the situation, as well as other initiatives or mobilizations that can amplify the struggles of the Filipino rural masses, primarily peasants, and the people in general against fascist repression.
FFPS mobilized delegates from the US, Canada, Ireland, the UK and the Netherlands to the international solidarity mission in a concrete effort to help break the military cordon around civilian rural villages and expose the crimes of the US-Marcos regime to the world. The attacks that these ISM delegates faced cannot be separated from the constant repression of the people on the ground and their various struggles.
Let us raise awareness on the importance of the ISM, amplify the resistance of the organized communities, and show our support to the Philippine peasantry, the backbone of the Filipino people’s struggle for national and social liberation!
The basis for revolution
Despite the US-Marcos’ attempt to silence the solidarity efforts through continuing harassment and surveillance by state forces, the local communities and ISM delegates were able to ensure the deep integration, documentation and reporting of the local situation and struggles.
From Rizal to Mindoro, and from Negros to Eastern Visayas, the ISM delegates’ and communities’ resilience was able to ensure these concrete solidarity efforts. These help to put a spotlight on the issues of climate injustice, militarization, and development aggression faced by communities across the country.
For previous reports, please refer to our ISM Watch editions of October 13 and October 12, as well as our response to the state attacks. All of these findings underscore the urgent need for genuine change in the Philippines.
They tell the dire stories of exploitation and oppression through wide-spread landlessness, land grabbing and displacement, destruction of livelihood, state suppression and many other key issues. All of these are concrete aspects of the semi-feudal and semi-colonial system which only benefits the landlords, bureaucrat capitalists and the foreign imperialists. While these plunder the countries’ resources for superprofits, the people are forced into hunger and poverty.
These are important on-the-ground realities for us to raise awareness on and provide the basis for why so many Filipinos take up arms in revolution. As FFPS we strongly amplify the NDFP and its allied organizations’ position that real change and a just and lasting peace, a people’s peace, in the country can only be brought about through the people’s democratic revolution that fights for national and social liberation.
We will continue to report on the findings of the ISM, so please stay up-to-date through our website https://ffps.info/international-solidarity-mission-ism/ and by following https://www.facebook.com/peoplesrisingcj or https://www.instagram.com/prcj.global/