The last four years for Lumad students like Inday and Toper seemed like a tug-of-war struggling for their right to learn, and fighting for their return to their ancestral lands.
“We are told, ‘Stay home and stay safe. Wash your hands regularly,’ but the displaced Meranaws live in cramped makeshift spaces without sufficient water supply. Those whose homes are at ground zero still could not return.”
It is dangerous to view the ongoing attacks as a mere “conflict”. History would teach us that the ongoing brutal crimes against the Palestinian people are because of the illegal occupation of their lands, ethnic cleansing of their people, and annexation of their territories by Israel state forces.
“As we painstakingly arouse, organize and mobilize against US Imperialism, we will continue to cherish Ramsey Clark’s spirit of internationalism that waged a remarkable and principled struggle for the peoples of the Global South from the belly of the beast.”
“Our task now is to learn from the Paris Commune and think what needs to be done in the coming decades so that many of the debacles that the workers had the courage to face before will be turned into a situation wherein there is nothing else to do but turn down the existing state power.”
“The truth is, many Moro women have been leading liberation struggles, they have been at the forefront of resistance movements, providers for their own families, decision-makers, fighters.”
Hundreds of families have been forced to evacuate since the imposed lockdown due to continuous military operations allegedly against the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF). But the aerial bombings and mortar shelling victimized civilians; the latest casualties include two children and a pregnant woman.
“The economic model of India is characterized by a huge marginalization of the agricultural sector, and this is because of the deliberate undervaluing of the primary produce of farmers. The people who are dependent on primary production have incomes that keep on shrinking. They cannot produce much, not because they are inefficient but because what they are producing are actually of low value to the nation. The agricultural sector has collapsed really hard especially this pandemic.”
Activists in the Philippines, Guatemala and Palestine are arrested and detained for their political beliefs. The international community demands the release of all political prisoners.
The national government is not only guilty for its criminal neglect of the Filipinos ravaged by the typhoons. It is also guilty for deliberately defunding the 2012 Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards (Project NOAH), which was supposedly aimed to develop technologies and enhance efficient disaster mitigation plans.
Biden and Trump may seem like they’re polar opposites but they’re not. The former plays a strongman right-wing fanatic character, while the latter takes the “Uncle Joe” / “Obama association” character. Either way, both candidates play through character branding while they fall short on the real programs that would genuinely benefit the people.