Filipino Nurses Support Group
Statement
Vancouver, B.C., Canada

JUSTICE FOR DR. CHANDU CLAVER AND OTHER HEALTH WORKERS OF THE FILIPINO PEOPLE! STOP POLITICAL KILLINGS IN THE PHILIPPINES NOW!

6 August 2006

Filipino nurses in Canada join the public outcry against the brutal targeting in the attempted killing of another political activist, Dr. Constancio “Chandu” Claver Jr. on July 31 at around 6:30am.

The killers, believed to be military operatives, also targeted Dr. Chandu Claver's  wife, Alice, and their 7-year old daughter, Cassandra by ambushing their van with high powered rifles in Bulanao, Tabuk.  While Dr. Chandu Claver continues to fight for his survival and Cassandra managed to stay alive but is deeply traumatized by the shooting, Alice was not able to survive after struggling for life for five hours from two gunshot wounds in the left arm and chest.

Dr. Constancio “Chandu” Claver, a native of Bontoc is the Chairperson of Bayan Muna-Kalinga and Vice Chairperson of CPA-Kalinga.  He has been a doctor of the masses for decades, being the Executive Director of the former Community Health and Education Concerns for Kalinga-Apayao (CHECK-A).  Chandu is known as a staunch advocate of human rights, peace, and justice.

The killing of Alice leaves a family, entire clans, people and women’s organizations and communities in deep grief.

This recent assault on the Claver family adds to the unprecedented upsurge of state-directed attacks and murders of activists, church people, journalists, lawyers, judges and other unarmed civilians.  We are outraged that as of 1 August 2006, 717 Filipinos have fallen victims of extrajudicial killings since Mrs. Arroyo assumed presidency in 2001.  As commander-in-chief, we hold her accountable for the fact that since the first quarter of 2005, one person has been killed every two days.

While Arroyo touts the creation of jobs, electricity and water for all, health care and education for all, we know the poverty, unemployment, inadequate wages, and cutbacks to health and education budgets have brought on more suffering and misery to the Filipino people.

Arroyo’s government is responsible for more human rights violations, more displacement of people suffering and dying due to preventable illnesses if they only had the very basic needs to live like decent work, education, housing, food, and utilities.  We support health professionals and health workers in the Philippines who have recently signed an impeachment complaint against Arroyo – the sixth this year.

The rotten system under Arroyo forces over 3,000 Filipinos everyday outside of our country because of the lack of jobs, decent wages and livelihood in our homeland including many doctors, nurses and other health professionals.  It is inexcusable that given the deterioration of health in the Philippines as a result of economic ruin, war, and imperialist policies, the country is the number one exporter of nurses worldwide.  Many doctors become nurses, and many nurses become live-in caregivers in countries like Canada.  Here we are used as cheap and exploited labour and are the solution to the health care crisis due to government cutbacks and privatization of health care services.

Despite the worsening nursing shortage all over Canada, Filipino nurses are relegated to live-in domestic and 24-hour support work, doing the dirty, difficult, and dangerous jobs other Canadians do not want.  Some of us are permanently de-skilled into home support work, factory or warehouse jobs, and retail or food services.  We are robbed of our dignity and skills, hit with racist attacks in our everyday lives.

Filipino nurses displaced from our homeland, torn apart from our families, and exploited as cheap labour in Canada denounce GMA’s use of state repression and intensifying political killings of 717 civilians and over 180 involuntary disappearances.  Among these victims and revolutionary martyrs are health workers like Chandu of Kalinga who devote their lives on the path less traveled to the poor and oppressed of the Philippines.

The violent attacks and deaths of martyrs fail to cower our resistance to such a repressive and self-serving administration.  Instead, these human rights violations and political killings only serve to fertilize the grounds of resistance upon which we firmly stand in unity and solidarity with the struggling masses of the Filipino people.

For more information, please contact:
Filipino Nurses Support Group
phone: (604) 255-6870
email: fnsg@kalayaancentre.net
or visit website: www.kalayaancentre.net