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Communique
Filipino community members and supporters gather to build unity for social justice!
April 30, 2008
Vancouver, British Columbia – Over 50 members and supporters of the Filipino community gathered in East Vancouver’s Kalayaan Centre for a community forum: “Filipino Community Unite for Our Social Justice!” to address the continuing trend of violence and marginalization faced by Canada’s rapidly growing Filipino community. The father of Charle Dalde, a 24-year old Filipino who was killed in Richmond on April 14, 2008, and the mother of Jomar Lanot, a 17-year old Filipino who died after being brutally attacked by a group of teenagers on the grounds of Sir Charles Tupper Secondary School in 2003, both joined the community meeting.
The evening’s forum began with a visual presentation to remember individuals of the Filipino community who fell victim to unjust harassment and senseless fatal attacks. The visual presentation also shared the Filipino community’s history of struggle and resistance against social injustices, particularly systemic racism. The participants offered a moment of silence for the victims.
A panel presentation representing various sectors of the Filipino community opened the discussion.
Gloria Remirata, representative of SIKLAB-BC (an organization of overseas Filipino workers), was first to share her migration story. Remirata, a single mother of three children and sole breadwinner for her family, is one of the diaspora of hundreds of thousands of Filipino women who are forced to leave the Philippines to find better opportunities for themselves and their children. In Canada, she worked as a domestic worker under Canada’s Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) which she described as a program of modern-day slavery, legislated poverty, and institutionalized family separation. A professional teacher in the Philippines, Remirata was relegated back into low-paid, private service of live-in domestic and 24-hour care-giving work for her wealthy employers in Canada. She shared the pain of being separated from her own children for six years while caring for children not her own. And when eventually reunited with her own children, they reunited as strangers.
Remirata expressed her concern over the failure of BC’s education system in integrating her son into high school - who the system claimed was too old for public high school and too young for adult education. As a consequence, he now works as a low-paid construction worker with his older brother to meet the financial needs of the family. She asserted that her son had fallen through the institutional cracks and she expressed fear that her son will be stuck in an under-paid labour force that is difficult, dangerous, and dirty. Remirata also expressed the Filipino community’s growing fear for safety and the growing anger about the contradiction between the police’s supposed role to serve and protect the public, while incidents of racial profiling of the Filipino community as criminals, like the case of the Dalde family, are on the rise.
Albert Lopez, member of the Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance (FCYA) - BC, was next to share his migration story. Lopez is a first generation Filipino youth and son of a former live-in caregiver. Speaking in Tagalog, he related to the audience the trauma of being separated from his mother for seven years, of being taken away from the family who raised him in his mother’s absence, of being uprooted from his home country, and of reuniting with his mother. He was one of the 25 Filipino students of Vancouver Technical Secondary School who were harassed by other students in racial attacks. Instead of addressing the systemic racism in the education system, the Vancouver School Board transferred Lopez and the other victims to Westside schools without sufficient explanation or support. Lopez stated that the social alienation and lack of institutional support led to him dropping out of high school and his eventual involvement in anti-social activities. He connected his experience as an example of the long-term, negative impacts of the LCP and the program’s legislated poverty and family separation.
Carlo Sayo, chairperson of the Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance - National, was next to speak on the collective reality of Filipino youth and their families in Canada. He reaffirmed the panel’s sentiments regarding the political and economic crisis in the Philippines that force Filipinos to migrate abroad. The Philippine government, through its Labour Export Policy, and the Canadian government, through its LCP and Temporary Foreign Workers Program, collude to profit off the Filipino peoples’ highly educated and skilled but cheap labour power. While those in the corridors of power profit, the Filipino people suffer de-skilling, inequality, underdevelopment, and human rights violations. Filipino youth suffer the trauma of family separation and uprooting.
Ning Alcuitas-Imperial, chairperson of the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada, ended the panel discussion echoing the call for the Filipino community to stand united for social justice. She cited concrete examples of the Filipino community’s increasing marginalization in various levels of government and other institutions, despite the community’s growing numbers. Recent Census data shows that Filipinos are the 3rd largest visible minority group in Canada. 95% of domestic workers under the Live-in Caregiver Program are Filipino. And Filipinos are among the most educated of immigrant groups, yet are among the lowest paid. Alcuitas-Imperial stressed the importance of being critical of Canadian policies and programs under the neo-liberal agenda of globalization that create the Filipino community’s marginalization in the social, economic and political life in Canada. She stressed the importance of uniting and naming the policies that mark our community, particularly the Live-in Caregiver Program and its predessor the Foreign Domestic Movement, as estimates show that close to 1/3 of the Filipino community came to Canada under the auspices of these programs. She emphasized the need to educate, organize and empower the community in order to work towards effective social change that genuinely benefits the community.
The floor was then given to the diverse audience who were all given the opportunity to voice their opinions and ask questions. Supporters of the community included a handful of politicians including Mayoral Candidate Raymond Louie and Mike Farnworth, MLA and Opposition Critic for Public Safety. The comments all had common community-centred goals, such as that expressed by Mr. Dalde, “A community of cooperation, unity and action.”
The group’s comments also reflected their demand to see Filipinos genuine participation and integration into the larger Canadian society and to end the root causes of their migration from the Philippines. Many of those who shared their comments were former live-in caregivers, who experienced intense exploitation and de-skilling under the LCP. The story of one participant, who told her experience of community organizing in Winnipeg over two decades ago, reflected the lack of real change in the Filipino community’s systemic underdevelopment and the urgent necessity to work towards equality and social justice within the Canadian and global context.
The audience then came up with a list of planned actions. The underlying issues of systemic racism, economic marginalization and integration underlined many of the proposed actions. The actions include strengthening the campaign to scrap the Live-in Caregiver Program and grant landed immigrant status to migrant workers, continue education and organizing work among the Filipino community and strengthen the community’s capacity to conduct policy engagement.
For Photos of the forum please visit: http://kalayaancentre.net/assets/images/photos/2008/25apr08_uniteforsocialjustice.htm
Communique issued by the Kalayaan Centre organizations: Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada / the Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance – BC (UKPC/FCYA-BC), SIKLAB Overseas Filipino Migrant Workers Organization, Philippine Women Centre BC, BC Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines (BCCHRP), Filipino Nurses Support Group, Sinag Bayan Cultural Arts Collective
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