Silent RP officials
Filipinos in the U.S. are active in the ongoing nationwide demonstrations denouncing immigration bills such as the Sensenbrenner Bill. They lambasted the Macapagal-Arroyo administration for not taking a position against the criminalization of undocumented immigrants in Washington.
Quijano said, “Filipinos remain an open target for such blanket repression in host countries abroad because the Philippine government has no real program of protection for overseas Filipinos.”
In fact, based on reports from the New York Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines (NYCHRP), 11 foreign ministers from overseas remittance-receiving countries in Latin America have joined the campaign against the Sensenbrenner-King Bill and the fight for the legalization and upholding of civil rights of undocumented immigrants. NYCHRP commended the eleven Latin American countries – Colombia, Mexico, Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador, Belize, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic – which are taking note of the critical debate in the Senate this month and “are being pro-active for the interest and protection of their nationals.”
Ellorin said that these 11 foreign ministers even approached Consulate General Cecilia Rebong to remark on a definitive RP government position on the immigration debate. But she said Rebong only uttered, “just as the U.S. government does not intervene in our internal political affairs, we must refrain from intervening on this issue.”
Despite having the most overseas remittance-dependent economy in the world and ranking third among the highest labor-exporting countries, “they (Filipino officials) do nothing but be silent when it comes to protecting us from the backlash of anti-immigrant laws that the US Senate is debating on,” said Robyn Rodriguez of the NYCHRP.
Rodriguez said that earlier this year, Philippine Ambassador Albert del Rosario was praising Filipinos in the U.S. for churning in a total of $5.3 billion in remittances to the Philippines in 2005 alone, comprising 60 percent of the total remittances to the Philippines. “Arroyo prioritizes the dollars that we send home, but could care less about our rights and welfare,” he said.
Earlier in 2006, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution commemorating 100 years of sustained Filipino migration to the U.S. “It is sustained because the economic crisis in the Philippines remains unresolved,” said Bayan-USA chair Kawal Ulanday, who participated in a hunger strike called by the Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition in San Francisco.
“The Arroyo administration has a long history of taking from but not giving back to OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) and because of this pattern we see a record-breaking number of OFW deaths, disappearances, and human rights violations under her regime,” Rodriguez said. “This is a glaring reason why there is such a loud clamor from overseas Filipinos who want Arroyo out of office.”
Filipinos’ force
With the Philippine officials’ silence on the issue, Ellorin said that “it is the people’s organizations that have been conducting critical work educating, organizing, and mobilizing compatriots around this issue.” He said that a discussion guide on the Sensenbrenner Bill is posted on Bayan-USA’s website at www.bayanusa.org.”
Rodriguez said that these have been exemplified by the massive turn-out of protest actions in Los Angeles, Chicago, Wisconsin, and Washington DC.
Justice 4 Immigrants Filipino Coalition (J4I) has been at the forefront of organizing initiatives in the Filipino community against the Sensenbrenner Bill when it passed the House vote last December. Aside from hosting meetings about the bill for the last three months, J4I is also initiating more critical action from Filipinos demanding earned legalization, swift family reunification and an end to criminalization and deportation of immigrants. The coalition is composed of concerned Filipino organizations and individuals in New York and neighboring areas such as Philippine Forum, NYCHRP, Anakbayan Filipino Youth, Kinding Sindaw Cultural Troupe, Migrante International, Movement for a Free Philippines, Sandiwa Filipino Youth and the Critical Filipino/Filipina Studies Collective.
