Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance
SIKLAB – Canada (Advance and Uphold the Rights of Overseas Filipino Workers)
Press Release

Local Filipinos to protest Arroyo’s Charter Change

December 14, 2006

VANCOUVER, B.C. – Local Filipinos will rally as part of international protests against moves by Philippine President Gloria Arroyo to change the country’s constitution. They will hold a protest rally tomorrow, Friday, December 15 from 4:30 – 5:30 p.m. in front of the offices of the Philippine Consulate at 700 West Pender (corner Granville St.).

“Filipinos in Canada will not be fooled by Arroyo’s proposed amendments to the 1987 Constitution,” says Carlo Sayo, National Chairperson of the Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance. “We know Arroyo’s championing of Charter Change is simply a diversionary tactic to try and distract the people from the crises that her administration is facing, including the recently postponed ASEAN summit and the state of natural calamity,” he added.

According to the group, since assuming power in 2001, Arroyo’s presidency has been racked with controversy. They say popular opposition is growing due to Arroyo’s “anti-people economic policies, wide allegations of fraud in the 2004 elections, and increasing state fascism.”

Since 2001, there have been over 800 political killings and nearly 200 disappearances as well as other human rights violations of civilians according to the Philippine human rights group Karapatan.

President Arroyo’s presidential term will end by 2010, but the proposed Charter Change will extend her term in office for three more years. After 2010, Arroyo, as transition president would share powers with a Prime Minister who would head a parliamentary system of government. At present, the Philippine government structure is modeled after the US.

The actions in Canada are in solidarity with massive protests in the Philippines opposing the Charter Change including a prayer rally on Dec. 15 in which a wide cross-sector of people are being called to join including Catholic bishops, Opposition leaders and even members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

“As Filipino migrant workers who have been actively exported by our own government to take on difficult, dangerous and dirty jobs in Canada, we oppose Arroyo’s anti-people policies such as the Labor Export Program which continues to push millions of Filipino migrant workers, mostly women abroad,” says Glecy Duran, Vice-Chairperson of SIKLAB – Canada (Advance and Uphold the Rights of Overseas Filipino Workers).

According to Duran, Arroyo not only “turns a blind eye” to the conditions faced by overseas Filipino workers, but continues to promote the export of human labour since the annual $10 billion US in remittances superficially saves the Philippine economy from total collapse.

“Instead of investing in comprehensive social and economic reforms that would address the roots of poverty, Arroyo uses us as her ‘milking cows’ squeezing us dry of our remittances while at the same time prioritizing military spending for her counter-insurgency program and the Charter Change at a time when there are intense crises facing the nation,” says Duran. “This is why we are calling for her immediate ouster,” she adds.

The Charter Change has prompted Speaker of the House of Representatives Jose de Venecia to call for elections next year (coinciding with congressional and local elections) and for a constitutional convention in which delegates would look at changing the Charter.

The group says the rally will be followed by a public forum at 6:30 p.m. at 451 Powell St., (at Jackson Ave.) in Vancouver.

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