(Statement by Malaya Canada on the 37th anniversary of the EDSA People Power Uprising)

Minamahal naming mga kababayan and friends.

It’s been 37 years since millions of Filipinos gathered at EDSA to overthrow Ferdinand Marcos’s dictatorship. Yet in cruel historical irony, we are now eight months into the Presidency of another Ferdinand Marcos. Whereas the first Presidency was a tragedy for the country, the second is a farce.

How has this come to be?

The EDSA people’s revolution is a pure expression of the will of the Filipino people to be done with Marcos’s personal dictatorship. But the problem facing Philippine society was greater than just the Marcos dictatorship. It was the very semi-colonial, semi-feudal system, of which Marcos, Sr., had been its chief executive.

The post-EDSA I history of the Philippines has confirmed this reality. Those who came after Marcos betrayed the promise of EDSA. Cory Aquino refused to cleanse the country of the agents of the dictatorship. President after President, these agents falsified and denigrated the significance of EDSA. This cacophony of historical revisionists grew ever louder and more shrill after EDSA II. They conspired to erase the very memory of EDSA I. Finally, after decades of brutality, mendacity, perjury, and corruption; the ruling class of compradors and large landlords have managed to engineer the return of the Marcoses, and their chief buffoon Bongbong.

Bongbong Marcos became President as a result of unprecedented social media disinformation, dirty tricks, rampant vote rigging, and computer generated voting results. In his tenure of eight months so far he has proven himself both corrupt, incompetent, cowardly, and indifferent to the suffering of the Filipino people.

As overseas Filipinos, we cannot stand idly by to watch him continue destroying our country. Like those back home, we too are called to action. So what can we Filipinos abroad do? We can build the patriotic movement of overseas Filipinos to resist Marcos II, and the ruling system that creates his ilk. We can encourage our friends in Canada, people of good will, to engage in acts of solidarity with the Filipino people’s movement

Come and join us to call:

No To US Troops in the Philippines!

Fight for Sovereignty Rights of the Philippines over the West Philippine Sea!

No to Red tagging!

Defund and Reject NTF-ELCAC!

Protect Filipino migrants’ Rights and Welfare!

Peace talks Now!