Philippines election draws Manitoba protest

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This article was published 24/05/2022 (848 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Manitoba-based Filipino youth advocacy group has joined efforts to protest against the presumed winners of the recent Philippines election, fearing a rewriting of history and further human rights abuses.

The May 9 vote is at the heart of discussions in the Filipino community due to the big-name candidates involved — most notably, Ferdinand (Bongbong) Marcos Jr., son of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Results available to date show Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte (running mate as vice-presidential candidate and daughter of outgoing president Rodrigo Duterte) as presumptive winners.

As the children of political leaders who have often been compared to each other by critics for their human rights violations, some fear history will be repeated and erased in the Southeast Asian country.

International Filipino groups have spoken out against the partial results which show a landslide victory for Marcos Jr. and Duterte.

The Philippine Election 2022 International Observer Mission released a report documenting instances that have led to widespread skepticism over the election results.

“They (the elections) were marred by a higher level of failure of the electronic voting system than ever before, along with rampant vote-buying, disturbing levels of state and military orchestrated red-tagging of candidates and parties including numerous incidents of deadly violence,” said Séverine De Laveleye, commissioner of the IOM, in a news release.

Many Filipino-Canadian advocacy groups have made statements or held rallies rejecting the Marcos Jr.-Duterte win, including Anakbayan Manitoba.

Anakbayan (meaning “children of the nation”) Manitoba, part of a larger international youth organization that includes six groups across Canada, rallied May 22 outside the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg.

Members said even though they anticipated fraud and disenfranchisement, seeing the partial results was frightening and disappointing.

“It was still a disbelief because it’s one thing to say, ‘Yes, this is a huge possibility to happen,’ but for us to actually see it and to now live it — it’s a lot more work to be done now post elections,” said Stefanie Martin.

Winnipeg has the third-largest Filipino population and the largest Filipino population per capita in Canada. Martin stated mailed ballots from Manitoba’s overseas votes are under the jurisdiction of the Philippines consulate in Toronto, which reported a total of 39,108 registered voters.

Despite this large voting base, vocal critics of the election results have been criticized by some Philippines residents who claim they are “disconnected” from the country.

Anakbayan Manitoba member Alex Payawal said it is discouraging to have their voice diminished when their work stems from wanting to see the Philippines prosper.

“To see people disregard that work and say, ‘Oh, you don’t speak Tagalog. You lived here (Canada) for most of your life. You shouldn’t be saying anything about it’ — it is really disheartening,” said Payawal.

“We are the bridge to what’s happening here in the diaspora and in the Philippines,” Martin added. “Whatever happens in the Philippines affects what’s happening to us here and we have to know our roots.”

Comments invalidating the voices of the diaspora youth overlook part of the Filipino diaspora’s history.

“I think it’s very important for us to be having this conversation in the diaspora because a lot of people will be affected economically as we have seen in the administration of Marcos Sr. (and) the institutionalization of labour export,” said Ana Ilagan, Anakbayan Manitoba member.

Marcos Sr. ruled the Philippines for 20 years, exercising authoritarian power before being ousted by the People Power Revolution in 1986. During his reign, in 1972, Marcos Sr. declared martial law to counter an alleged communist insurgency.

In the almost 10 years of martial law, the Philippines experienced severe economic depression, lack of job opportunities, and political oppression. Marcos Sr. created a policy to encourage emigration to stimulate the economy. This policy, combined with the rising violence, and poor living conditions caused thousands of Filipinos to seek employment abroad.

Even after the Marcos Sr. regime, the Philippines could not recover and the country’s overseas workers continue to increase in number.

This issue, Ilagan said, will continue with the transition to Marcos Jr.

Kimi Saddul, another Anakbayan Manitoba member, said as a student in the Philippines, he felt the system favoured the idea of overseas Filipino workers.

“It’s like a breeding point for migration, where I feel like the foundations and the system itself is trying so hard for Filipino students to migrate, the system is trying to formulate, and mould us to be foreign workers or OFWs,” said Saddul.

Celinda Roche went to school in the Philippines for a short time, but noted the inaccessibility or poor quality of education there, which she states can worsen with Duterte leading the education department.

“We’re going to have (a) really heavily censored history — and even now… we still glorify our colonizers, we still glorify the people who took advantage of us who treated us horribly, who took away our culture, and it’s just dehumanizing and disgusting. And it feels like in a sense… Filipinos brainwashing other Filipinos,” Roche said in Winnipeg.

Anakbayan Manitoba members stated they fear the transition of power to Marcos Jr. and Duterte will cause historical revisionism and all the consequences that can come with it.

fpcity@freepress.mb.ca

This story was written for the Reader Bridge as part of a partnership with New Canadian Media.