On March 24, migrant and Filipino communities in Canada rallied in places such as Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Manitoba to support Bayan Canada’s call to reject Marcos’ charter change (ChaCha).   The groups want RBH 7, or Both Houses Resolution No. 7, to be rejected by the Senate and the Commission on Elections. 

In Toronto, Bayan Canada Chair Wilma Delo urges Filipino overseas migrants and workers to reject and resist the charter change because it will “further open the gates of the country to national plunder and exploitation by foreign monopoly capitalists and local bureaucrat capitalists, big mining firms, commercial loggers at the behest of the US and its local cohorts of political patrons”. 

Delo added that the Marcoses and their associates in both chambers want their term limits to be extended, resulting in an institutionalized political dynasty in the country that favors the Marcos family and its allies over the Filipino people.

The International League of People’s Struggles (ILPS), Canada Philippines Solidarity Organizations (CPSO), Malaya Canada in Toronto, Anakbayan Canada in Toronto and Scarborough, Migrante Ontario, Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI-Toronto) and Filipinos for Palestine are among the organizations that have read anti-cha-cha statements and have joined the call to reject and resist chacha.

During a prayer rally in Vancouver, Bayan-led organizations denounced the Marcos Jr. administration for allowing the charter change agenda in both houses that would have permitted the return of banned US military bases and would have nullified the Constitutional prohibition on foreign imperialist powers such as the United States and China possessing nuclear plants, weapons, and warships. 

Statements read at the vigil rally asserted that despite their assertions that the Cha Cha will be restricted to “economic” changes, it will permit foreign monopolies unrestricted access to land, natural resources, forests, and mines in the Philippines, as well as the establishment of foreign enterprises that will further sink Philippine economy into the abyss of underdevelopment. 

The proposed charter change, according to Migrante Ottawa and other Bayan-led organizations in Ottawa, will not benefit the country or the Filipino people. Rather, it will result in forced migration due to the closure of factories and businesses, the suppression of workers’ rights, including wages, the landlessness of farmers, widespread unemployment, and extreme poverty.

Bayan member organizations in Montreal and Manitoba organized information sessions regarding the charter change, which caused concern among the Filipino community due to its potential repercussions on national sovereignty and patrimony, as well as the exacerbation of poverty, unemployment, and human rights violations.

Bayan Canada and its member organizations vow to continue their protests until the proposed charter revision is defeated. It invites all of its supporters to participate in upcoming protests against the Marcos cha-cha .###