Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance/Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada-National
Statement

National Day of Action Towards genuine Social Justice for Filipino Youth, their Families and the Community!

February 9, 2008

Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada/Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance, (UKPC/FCYA-National) extends our sympathy and condolences to the family and loved ones of 15 year old Deeward Ponte, who was stabbed in Grays Park in East Vancouver, and later died in hospital on January 27, 2008.

Since last night, organizers of Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada/ Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance (UKPC/FCYA) gathered together youth and the community in three major cities across Canada to hold vigils, masses and marches to commemorate the life and tragic death of 15-year old Deeward Ponte and to call for the “scrapping of the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) and towards genuine social justice for Filipino youth and their families.”

In Montreal, youth organizers in Kabataang Montreal-UKPC held a mass at St. Kevin’s Parish in the Cote-des-Neiges area. In Toronto, UKPC-Ontario is hosting a vigil at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish. In Vancouver, UKPC-BC are gathering at Sir Charles Tupper Secondary, the site of the 2003 death of another Filipino teen, Mao Jomar Lanot, and march through the Filipino community along Fraser Street to Grays park to where Deeward was killed.

The unfortunate death of Deeward Ponte is a traumatic event for our community. Since hearing of Deeward’s death two weeks ago, we have collectively expressed sadness, disbelief, anger and frustration that we have lost another young member of our community.

As we try to make sense of this tragedy, we are reminded of the 2004 death of Jeffrey Reodica in Toronto, of Mao Jomar Lanot, and as far back as 1999 when Filipino students faced harassment and physical assaults at Vancouver Technical Secondary. Through it all, we continue to look to one another and to our supporters to find answers and to listen and to learn. In UKPC, we understand that these events carry undertones of racism at both personal and systemic levels, and are examples of the impacts of forced migration and underdevelopment our community faces in Canada that prevent our full participation into Canadian society.

The marginalization of the Filipino community in Canadian society becomes more striking. We are currently the third largest visible minority immigrant group in Canada, and yet we remain among the most underpaid and under-represented. A study at the University of British Columbia (UBC) suggests that Filipino youth hold one of the highest high school drop-out rates in major cities across Canada. These are mostly newly-arrived Filipino youth, who must also face the trauma of migration, family separation and reunification.

Our work in UKPC has shown that Filipino women who under Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC)’s Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) are separated from their children on an average of 5 years after entering Canada. Currently, 95% of workers coming under the LCP are Filipino women, who cannot bring their families when they enter Canada to work. Filipino youth are the most affected as they are the ones left behind while their parents are working abroad.

This was the case for Deeward Ponte, and his mother Daisy, who where separated for five years. What happened to Deeward Ponte and Jomar Lanot are extreme cases of the impacts of migration on our community. While the two cases are unrelated in circumstance, in UKPC we never see these as isolated incidences. They are part of a larger trend of systemic underdevelopment of our community through racist immigration policies designed to make use of cheap foreign labour from countries like the Philippines.

While policies like the LCP give Filipinos false expectations they offer little to no services from both the Philippine and Canadian Governments. When community groups questioned CIC on the social impacts of its programs, like the LCP and the Temporary Foreign Workers Program, CIC Deputy Director for Permanent Resident Policy and Programs admitted there is no money for the integration and settlement within the LCP for our migrant communities here in Canada. CIC’s disappointing statement offers a bleak future for our community, and could only worsen the situation for Filipino youth and their families.

With the death of Deeward Ponte, we are again urged to come together, and re-examine at the issues faced by Filipino youth and the community. There is a need to understand the policies affecting the Filipino community and other communities of colour. There is a need to look at the root causes of these traumatic events, at the roots causes of racism and oppression.

For us in the UKPC/FCYA, we have been at the forefront of educating and organizing our community, and sharing the experience of our youth to supporters. We have been actively conducting Anti-Racism work for over ten years, mobilizing Filipino youth and empowering them
to take a critical look at the immigration policies and the roots of our migration.

We demand that the racist, anti-woman, Live-in Caregiver Program be scrapped and that the Labor Export Policy of the corrupt and fascist US-Philippine Government be scrapped so that our families are not torn apart because of forced migration and the need for economic survival.

We demand social justice for our Filipino youth, their families and our community. We have to remain vigilant and strong, and committed to the empowerment of our youth and our community, so that the circumstances that lead to the death Deeward Ponte, and Mao Jomar Lanot before him do not happen to future generations. This is the best way for us to honor their lives.

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The Philippine Women Centre at the Kalayaan Centre in Vancouver has set up a trust fund to support the family of Deeward Ponte.

PLEASE DONATE TO THE DEWARD PONTE TRUST FUND:

 Donations can be made by:

1. Visiting any Vancity Branch and making your donation to Account #63487, Branch #28, "In Trust of Deward Ponte" (Chequing Account 3) OR;
2. Sending a cheque payable to "In Trust of Deward Ponte", c/o Philippine Women Centre of B.C., 451 Powell Street, Vancouver, BC, V6A 1G7
(all proceeds go to the Ponte family)

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