Small addition to this. Janelle Quibuyen (SCCC, Anakbayan Seattle) was also on the panel and Ian “Daps1” Dapiaoen was also a member of Anakbayan Seattle.Alliance Alumni | October 29, 2011
At the last NWFASA Meeting/Leadership Conference, a few Alumni stopped by to share their stories and words of wisdom. They were founders, thinkers, and overall leaders during the first decade of the NWFASA.
Clockwise from top left: Kuya Jeff Ocampo (WSU FASA, KUYAS), Kuya JoJo Gaon (WSU FASA, KUYAS), Rosie Rimando (WSU FASA), Kuya Freedom Siyam (WSU FASA, KUYAS), Ian “Daps” Dapiaoen (UW FASA), & Patrick Villaflores (PSU KAIBIGAN).
To All:
I want to thank all of you for your efforts and dedication to Human Rights and Human Kindness, in the past year I have experienced such emotion, joy, sadness and never ending faith. It is because of all of you that I am alive today, as I look at my sister Martina I am marveled by the love she has for me and of course I worry about her and her health, but as she tells me she is the eldest and she will not back down from this fight to save my life and prove to the world that I am innocent of this terrible crime.
As I look at my mail from across the globe, from places I have never ever dreamed I would know about and people speaking languages and expressing cultures and religions I could only hope to one day see first hand. I am humbled by the emotion that fills my heart with overwhelming, overflowing Joy. I can’t even explain the insurgence of emotion I feel when I try to express the strength I draw from you all, it compounds my faith and it shows me yet again that this is not a case about the death penalty, this is not a case about Troy Davis, this is a case about Justice and the Human Spirit to see Justice prevail.
I cannot answer all of your letters but I do read them all, I cannot see you all but I can imagine your faces, I cannot hear you speak but your letters take me to the far reaches of the world, I cannot touch you physically but I feel your warmth everyday I exist.
So Thank you and remember I am in a place where execution can only destroy your physical form but because of my faith in God, my family and all of you I have been spiritually free for some time and no matter what happens in the days, weeks to come, this Movement to end the death penalty, to seek true justice, to expose a system that fails to protect the innocent must be accelerated. There are so many more Troy Davis’. This fight to end the death penalty is not won or lost through me but through our strength to move forward and save every innocent person in captivity around the globe. We need to dismantle this Unjust system city by city, state by state and country by country.
I can’t wait to Stand with you, no matter if that is in physical or spiritual form, I will one day be announcing,
“I AM TROY DAVIS, and I AM FREE!”
Never Stop Fighting for Justice and We will Win!
Today is the 39th anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law by Ferdinand Marcos on September 21, 1972, which continued until the People Power uprising in 1986. Throughout the 14-year period of fascist dictatorship and absolute military rule, thousands were killed, abducted, imprisoned, and tortured by the US-backed Marcos regime. The Filipino people had their basic rights taken away from them and lived in a police state under constant surveillance and control.
Marcos was a corrupt puppet of the United States that exponentially increased his and his cronies’ personal wealth by stealing from the Filipino people and selling out our country’s natural resources and labor to foreign business.
But despite his vicious repression of the people, the national democratic movement grew by leaps and bounds, proving that even the most oppressive dictatorship cannot stop the people’s just and historic mission to achieve genuine freedom and democracy in the Philippines. People’s organizations resisted and continued to organize throughout the entire period of Martial Law, while the revolutionary movement in the countryside grew steadily. Even after the overthrow of Marcos in 1986, the movement continues to grow until this day.
Full of arrogance and self-indulgence, Marcos created a Mt. Rushmore-like statue of his face in Baguio in the mid-1980s, to be accompanied by the building of a park and golf course. The Ibalois tribe was displaced by the building of this statue and had long called for it’s destruction. In response to the people’s call for justice, the revolutionary New People’s Army blasted the statue in 2002, destroying the face of Marcos.
Yet, even after the Marcos was overthrown and the illusions of liberal democracy were restored, each president that followed has still been a subservient puppet of the US and advocated only for the interests of big business and big landlords. In essence, it is not a true democracy. It is merely a democracy for the bourgeoisie, the wealthy ruling class that only makes up 1% of the population.
This is reminder to us all that we must persevere to rid the country of the inherently corrupt and unjust ruling system and replace it with a system that is run by the working people and truly serves the interests of the majority.
Isulong ang pambansang demokratikong pakikibaka hanggang sa tagumpay!
Advance the national democratic struggle until victory!
Never again to Martial Law!
(via prometheusbrown)
Julian and Richard leading AnakBayan Seattle in their rendition of Careless Whisper
#sexysaxman
(via manilaryce)
New Limited Edition ‘Prometheus Brown & Bambu Walk into a Bar’ tees by PNOY App X Manila Ryce will be debuting at FPAC this weekend (Point Fermin Park, San Pedro) and at The Blu Monkey Sept 10th (5521 Hollywood Blvd).
Since we’re such righteous muthafuckas we thought we’d give you a chance to cop one for free. Reblog this photo and you’ll be entered into a raffle to win! We’ll announce the winning Tumblr on Friday night.
That black Limited Edition ‘Prometheus Brown & Bambu Walk into a Bar’ t-shirt dropping this weekend chee
The problem with cultural appropriation is that it replaces the original with a copy created by the dominant culture. It dilutes the original, removes all symbolic value from it and replaces it with a ready to consume product devoid of context and meaning.
Cultural appropriation, at its most extreme, is a violent form of colonization because it removes the original group behind the culture and reinforces stereotypes about that group (i.e. ALL First Nation folks are reduced to “war bonnets”, whether their culture uses them or not; all Latin@s are reduced to a stylized version of Catholicism regardless of their spirituality; etc.). The mechanism of commodifying a culture ends up being a tool to reinforce racism as it reduces the people behind those cultures to a mere cartoon like representation of their realities. It’s a great way to ultimately Other and objectify entire groups of people by taking something that is dynamic and ever evolving and freezing it for a marketing photo opportunity.
Flavia Dzodan (via comingonstrong)
because it still seems like many people need to be reminded…
(via garconniere)
(Source: seppin, via manilaryce)
Exposure 2011: back in my hood
i am filled with joy to be posted up and posting this from the bayan office here in general santos city, where i was born. it feels incredible to finally be able to understand the conditions of this region and integrate with the organizers and community here. tomorrow, we will be with the urban…
The name Lumad grew out of the political awakening among various tribes during the martial law regime of President Ferdinand Marcos. It was advocated and propagated by the members and affiliates of Lumad-Mindanao, a coalition of all-Lumad local and regional organizations which formalized themselves as such in June 1986 but started in 1983 as a multi-sectoral organization. Lumad-Mindanao’s main objective was to achieve self-determination for their member-tribes, or, put more concretely, self-governance within their ancestral domain in accordance with their culture and customary laws.
(Source: expo2011)
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