#anakbayan

[malansangisda]

Filipino youth, stand with Palestine!

[connorthemaoist]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Anakbayan Los Angeles (@anakbayanla)

"Anakbayan LA stands with the nine Jollibee workers at Journal Square who were illegally terminated for organizing for higher wages and better working conditions. We stand with the Jollibee workers in other stores across the US and in the Philippines who are facing similar exploitation such as: wage theft, worker mistreatment, and chronic understaffing by the company.

The workers demand: REINSTATEMENT, BACKPAY, AND A PUBLIC APOLOGY!

-@anakbayanla on Instagram

[susiejj]

i got into theatre as an actress recently and tomorrow we are having our first gmeet orientation.. we r supposed to dress up as a chara from our favourite movie and whoever has the best costume gets a prize but im in my hometown and all my clothes and makeup r at my dorm... i will still try to do liza m sally bowles but im so sad i know i could do something better if i just had my megabox of doom.

[marxism-lelouchism]

times like these make me feel acutely the urgency of joining an org but like. the major communist orgs suck and the east asian american orgs are all radlibs so i feel stuck!

[makapatag]

ruminating on the leftism that guides much of my thinking. i'm avoiding the very common pitfall of simply applying theory (written by people benefiting from colonialism a few hundred years ago) to living conditions here in the neocolony of america and looking for ways to actually apply historical dialectic into here--it takes a lot of self awareness because as with all things the majority left position in the philippines is based off of joma sison's MLM-ness and the struggle for a national democracy, which has now kind of devolved into a ultranationalist jerk off between colonial intelligentsia and constant protesting and rallying. whenever they are challenged by the state, the main response is that "everything they've been doing is completely legal" and that nothing they've done is wrong. of course, paradoxically, as Mark Fisher writes in capitalist realism, much of this ends up just reifying capitalist reals and borders, and neatly squares away activism into yet another portion of capitalist life. activism (now also commonly romanticized by so many of those in the middle class to the petty bourgeois) is now subsumed into capitalism.

of course, from my point of view, doing something is better than doing nothing. i've participated in the movements of the national democratic mass organizations of the PH (anakbayan, etc.) (and still do, though my capacity has become limited and i'm focusing on supporting the communities closest to me for the time being) but they're increasingly becoming a sort of ideological stepping stone and for the most part i believe they have been completely subsumed into capitalist ideology.

i think the philippines is largely mostly just capitalist now, even with some modes of tenancy in the countryside seeming feudal, it operates entirely within a capitalist mode of view and application.

i don't subscribe to the sort of unilinear evolution of societies espoused by some soviet theorists (the classless -> slave -> feudal -> capitalist -> communist thing)--a lot of classical leftist and marxist theories can be pretty easily seen as sort of eurocentric. that's no bash, that's just the work of limited perspective. future marxists like fanon expand the marxist perspective greatly, though they seem to be largely ignored by the white bourgeois in my experience

i think ph leftism should be a lot more aware of local ideas on society, and use that to sort of influence and shape their leftism. a lot of leftists sort of scoff at "precolonial studies" as sort of cute at best and absolutely ethnocentric backwardism at worst (many ph leftists know jack shit about precolonial ph and/or seasia in general due to the education system of the philippines and the america-centric culture of the metropoles)

if we apply historical materialist dialectic all the way back to pre-hispanic times we get a treasure trove of societies to contrast and synthesize upon. a shared culture and binding connections with the rest of asia. the ideal state is of course international consciousnesses and solidarity--one that doesn't fall into the trap of capitalist reification through nationalism and the enforcement of the cacophony of signifiers that only serves to reinforce capitalist structures (jingles, voting, art that just regurgitates old socialist aesthetic, revolutionary art that doesn't really say anything because these artists lack proper class consciousness and/or perspective [many ph left artists come from the metropoles after all and/or have been subsumed into nationalist agenda through education systems and the need to belong in communities, art ph being one particularly egregious example that reinforces nationalist signifiers while becoming ignorant of the signified).

all in all the philippine left is completely defeated, as a movement. many leftists adopt anarchist tendencies, joyful militancies, try to live outside of the confines of communism through communes or living in the mountains. if we are to have any chance of challenging capitalism the ph left must interrogate its own biases, interrogate nationalism, review its literature, and then look inward, look to fellow tribes and societies, avoid the interventionist failures of soviet societies, and actually fight for a world that won't just degrade into more wage-labor slavery

"that's idealistic!" if you're shooting for the moon you land on the stars. the direction of the movement is more important than the speed. i fully believe ideological recourse is needed in the ph left--some might even say if there is a ph left still. i wouldn't mind abolishing the idea altogether--the left is still a eurocentric categorization after all. perhaps its time for a new revolution that interrogates current structures, even within so-called progressive organizations, with violent indignation, and finds a way to upend capitalism through a firm grasp in pre-capitalist structures and international ties

[newsfromstolenland]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/2-years-into-the-pandemic-anti-asian-hate-is-still-on-the-rise-in-canada-report-shows-1.6404034

Myka Jaymalin says she remembers the final straw that made her quit her customer-service job in the summer of 2020. Working in a downtown Toronto restaurant, she says she was used to one-off confrontations with some diners. But the aggression from one customer that day was different. "He told me: 'If you can't f--king speak English — if you can't understand English — then why would you even work in this industry?'" said Jaymaylin, who is now the chairperson of Anakbayan Toronto, a Filipino youth organization. Advocates say the kind of aggression Jaymalin faced is not only common for Asian people, many of whom have been working in public-facing and precarious jobs throughout the pandemic, it can escalate into violence. They've been ringing the alarm since attacks on Asians began after the first known COVID-19 cases were discovered in China, and when six Asian women were killed in a series of shootings in the Atlanta area last year.  Despite this, a new report shows incidents of anti-Asian racism in Canada are increasing. 

Tagging: @allthecanadianpolitics

[catdotjpeg]

24 Feb 2024, Balik EDSA! Continue the Struggle for People Power! march led by Malaya Movement NY and Anakbayan Queens, Queens, NY

From Malaya NY:

For two decades, Filipinos lived under authoritarian rule while Marcos and his allies enriched themselves through ownership of Philippine press and industry outlets and through the siphoning of funds from U.S., World Bank, and International Monetary Fund loans. From February 22 to 25, 1986, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos gathered on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA) to protest President Ferdinand Marcos and his claim that he had won re-election over Corazon Aquino. This time, though, Filipinos refused to accept this lie. On February 22, citizens took to the streets on EDSA. On the evening of February 25, the U.S. government facilitated Marcos’s escape to Hawaii. Later that same night, protestors stormed Malacañang Palace, exposing the opulent wealth that the Marcos family had amassed during their time in power. Marcos died in Hawaii in 1989 without returning to the Philippines.

[pannaginip]

Translation + summary:

Anakbayan on Twitter @anakbayan_ph:

"Why is the fight of the jeepney driver also the fight of the commuter? Why should we act and mobilize?

The mass transport crisis will intensify. The government will not be able to compensate for the huge decrease in public transportation units. Tens of thousands of jeeps will no longer be allowed to operate if they do not abide by the program by surrendering their individual franchises + vehicles and joining cooperatives/corporations to replace the traditional jeeps with "modern jeeps." [As of 2 days ago, ~31k jeeps in Metro Manila have yet to consolidate.] Commuters will be faced with even more difficulties if this happens.

Passenger fares will increase. The PUV Modernization program is a business. The gov wants corporations/coops to have collective ownership over the franchises of routes and new units. They will be able to freely increase fares, which are the only way to cover the costs of providing new jeeps. The fares are projected to reach P40-50, while wages everywhere remain stagnant. [For comparison, current jeepney fares are P13-15.]

The long-term effects of the PUV Modernization program on the state of mass transportation in the country will be massive. It is a complete foreign and corporate takeover of the mass transport system. Local manufacturers and industries will be killed off with the influx of imported vehicles.

Our right to quality transportation that is truly for the masses is at stake. There are 3 days left before the consolidation deadline. There is no other time, we must act now."

[hesitationss]

i brought some of my own zines to a zine making workshop tonight! hosted by anakbayan! ♡⁠(⁠˃͈⁠ ⁠દ⁠ ⁠˂͈⁠ ⁠༶⁠ ⁠)

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

Los Angeles: Join the MLK People's March & Vigil

Monday, January 15

Gather 2 p.m. @ MLK Blvd. & Western Ave

March 3 p.m.

Vigil 5 p.m.

No to U.S./Israeli Genocide in Gaza!

Money for Food, Housing, Jobs, Healthcare & Education - Not for War & Genocide!

Gather 2pm MLK Blvd & Western Ave for March to a Vigil in Africa Town Square to honor fallen warriors from Dr King to Kwazi Nkrumah and the over 30,000 Palestinians, 60% women and children, martyred by US/Israeli monstrous weapons of genocide.

Orgs: Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice, Black Alliance for Peace, Al-Awda Right to Return Coalition, Martin Luther King Coalition of Greater LA, Union del Barrio, Black Autonomy, Code Pink, Harvard Blvd Block Club, Justice for Palestine - LA, Anakbayan, All African Peoples Revolutionary Party, Black Men Build, Diaspora Pa'lante

[seeyouinthespring]

all this happening while im in an anakbayan meeting lol

[milkboydotnet]

If there's anyone listening who's not Filipino—maybe you're not in an organization, maybe you're in an organization that's focused on US work — and wondering what's the rationale for joining a Philippine solidarity org, or expanding the scope of your org's work to include an aspect of solidarity with the Philippine revolution, let me try to make a case. For me, I feel that, while working towards the redistribution of wealth and access to resources in the US is important and necessary, that alone will not change the fact that that wealth, those resources, are stolen from nations of the Global South that are subject to US imperialism. We can organize to win really robust social welfare programs for the US working class, and we deserve that, but it would still be subsidized by the blood and sweat, the lives, of people in the semi-colonies, of Filipino workers and peasants. To me, as people living in the belly of the beast, it really is our duty as internationalists to support the liberation struggles of the countries that the US is occupying, extracting from, and exploiting. Ultimately, the victory of the Filipino people will strengthen the fight of the working class in the US and all over the world. I also think it's important to consider that there are 4 million Filipinos living in the US, working some of the most vulnerable and least compensated jobs, and yearning to return home, to see their homeland prosper. I've heard people say before in response to me being in POPS like "oh, that's so niche." And I'm like, how is this niche? There are probably Filipinos taking care of your grandma in the nursing home, or bringing you food if you're in the hospital for a procedure. They're making your clothes in a local factory, they're cleaning your hotel room, they're spending months at sea to bring us goods from overseas. And they are fighting the longest running people's war today — we in Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle know that the victory of the Filipino people will contribute to the worldwide weakening of imperialism. The Filipino people in struggle are on the leading edge of the development of the science of revolution, that is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. So why would you not put in the time to support their revolution, and learn from it? It is our duty to show our solidarity, and we have a lot to gain from working more closely with this movement and absorbing the immense wealth of practical and theoretical knowledge gained from decades of lessons learned. So get in touch with FFPS, with POPS, get in touch with your local National Democratic mass organizations like Anakbayan, Gabriela, and Migrante, because Ka Louie needs you support, we gotta defend our comrade! The Filipino people need your support, we gotta defend their revolution! And you will not be the same, your organization will not be the same, after witnessing the incredible revolutionary work this movement is accomplishing. Become friends of the Filipino people in struggle! 

Dana from People Organizing for Philippine Solidarity (POPS), a Portland chapter of the Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle, in the most recent episode of Mass Struggle

[declaredmissing]

The contradiction of airplanes in the sky

Whenever I’m in an airplane, I think of the contradiction that experience it embodies, and how it seems to be a metaphor for modern life. There’s so much wonder in flying thousands of miles into the sky, and yet we do it in a cramped, claustrophobic quarters that dilute or negate the magic. That’s what living today is like, is it not?

But of course, despite myself, being in an airplane always makes me feel wine-drunk with awe. When I flew back to Kansas last winter of 2021, I watched the sunset from the JFK airport and thought about the cycles of disappointment in love that I’d gone through that year, and thought about who I used to be, with my naive optimism and defensive arrogance protecting a shaky self image. At that time, I cringed to remember my past self.

But looking back now, I think of how I was just 22 and trying to figure it out. How much I love the boundless naive optimism that I carried with me throughout all the different selves I became, and how natural it seems that I would end up in Anakbayan – and how much that experience changed me. It affirmed my stance of joy as defiance.

There’s a word in tagalog that we use to refer to each other in the movement – “kasama”. It loosely translates to ‘together’, and ‘with you.’ What binds us in the movement is a current that’s deeper than political affinity – it’s shared vision, a shared history of “filipino and not-filipino.” The variable we share in common is that we’re all taking a gamble, staking our lives to a future that remains dark.

When I joined the movement, I was shocked to see people my age quoting Mao, identifying as radical anti-imperialists, and re-enacting guerilla theater of rebels. Up until then, I thought that organized resistance was a dead pipe dream of the 60s. To discover that it was real, even if only in the margins, shifted everything that I thought was possible.

I gained a specific kind of optimism that comes from seeing what revolution looks like in practice. It’s a feeling I haven’t found a language to quite articulate or describe or understand yet, though I think it has to do with resisting the state of psychological domination our culture is paralyzed by.

Of course, this spirit of optimism isn’t a constant. There are times I often look around and think, we really are just a small group of ragtag organizers. When I first joined, there would be times I would question the worth of our work in the larger scheme. It was easier to be a cynic than to dare to hope. Years after joining, I told my kasamas that this felt like the only sane space to me, and they all exchanged incredulous looks. And I understand, because actually, it does seem to feel that you have to be a bit insane to pursue the unrealistic and improbable.

To be radical is to change the parameters of what we can fight for. That was the most critical question in college, that I’ll always carry with me in my heart. What does it mean to be radical? Years later, as I’m writing this, I have an answer. To decide to eliminate the chair itself.

This work – the work of revolutionaries – goes against the dominant culture, which is why it’s so fucking difficult to do in isolation. It isn’t praised, or popular, or funded, or accepted in the mainstream, which makes it easy to question ourselves every step of the way – which can make us doubt ourselves – if we lose an inch of conviction. I admire my kasamas deeply for the courage it takes to ask for more than what’s realistic.

I think part of our optimism comes from – and is part of – the way we feel part of history. We share the understanding that the work we do in our lives goes beyond the brevity of our lifespan. There’s comfort knowing that even if change doesn’t happen in my lifetime, we’re building on the groundwork that generations before us have set, and generations after us will continue to build on, and whatever we accomplish, no matter how small, it won’t have been for nothing.

There are some who compare this kind of faith to the kind you find in organized religion, and that brings with it warnings of the dangers of idealizing any kind of ideology. The fear of being absorbed into an ideology is what made me initially hesitant to join a movement. But I’ve been part of a church before, and to me, there’s a clear distinction between political work and being a christian, even though they’re also familiar. It’s about committing to a value system and world view. The difference is that while I think political ideology offers a way to transform my values into action, by no means do I turn to it for either a blueprint or final answers.

There was a deep, fundamental change in my life finding the movement. I think my stance of optimism has somehow come from the gradual radicalization of my politics, and how that led me to recover hope and the spirit to fight. I found a home for my values, and an alternative to aspirations for material success and personal ambition that wasn’t just protecting my own individual happiness for the time I’m alive.

I think I write about this because I wonder what leads people to a movement. What radicalizes someone. Because I’m interested in what kind of spirit counters the fatalism of capitalist realism. A word for the opposite of loneliness. Because the words kasama and political home didn’t exist in my language a few years ago. For all the ways I’ve changed since accepting ‘revolutionary’. My shifting perceptions of the words “radical” and “revolution”. Paradigms upended. Wondering about the common variable behind the emotions of joy, agency, self-determination, the willingness to struggle, optimism, hope, faith, these supercharged euphorias. Courage and strength, all entertwined with love and rage and compassion and kindness. The seedling of an understanding that if we want a revolution, we have to understand how these emotions all can be transformed and channeled into revolution. Into people power. There’s an answer, somewhere, in the optimism that comes from seeing other people care and believe, just as much, in what used to seem to be an untenable fantasy: revolution. Genuine change within our lifetime. That what we dream of is not to much to ask for. But we have to start with naming what we are fighting against, and what we are dreaming of. James and I joke, without really saying it, that the answer is revolution. What is to be done with this world? Where are we going?

I’ve been thinking about the premise of my conclusion in college – how the word utopia is an ancient Greek pun on “ou-topis”, meaning “no place”, and “eu-topos”, meaning “good place”. It was originally coined by Thomas More, and implies that a perfect political state cannot actually exist. I have no masterplan for saving the world. I don’t have the details of what an ideal world would look like. But we always ask each other, what do you want for your community? What are you fighting for? As if these questions are worth asking, are serious questions to consider, and not frivolous at all. I do think we are entirely capable of asking for a different present, of dreaming for the way that we can live right now.

Hannah Arendt believed, above all, that if we could say, I don’t want to live this way–and that if we projected these longings into the world–we could work to address the lonelinesses we inflict on others; the isolation that drives us to destruction and our desire to dominate. In her biography of Lessing, you can find Lessing’s notion of love threading throughout her work; the kind of love that simply says “I want you to be”. She believed that in order to rebuild cultures from the politics of exclusion and division, ones that make truth and justice meaningful in the world, communication and changes in modes of thought had to happen between two people. She believed we could imagine only by understanding, by living and knowing together.

___________

Somewhere outside the invisible net cradling earth, satellites are spinning in the yawning empty black and the pulse of cities is so far away. People are dying from a pandemic, in the antiseptic halls of hospitals. In future dystopias, a love song waltzes from an underground bunker.

It’s spring now, and I find myself caught in the still warmth of an evening where I have absolutely nowhere to go. The busyness of the day fading to twilight, bright shadows thrown up against the skyscrapers of Manhattan. It’s an alien feeling, the relief to realize I have no obligations. I stand for a moment in Brooklyn as bodies rush past me, looking at the sky, looking at people, a still point in a crowded intersection, feeling for the first time in a long time that I longer have to be anywhere. A breeze on the back of my neck, the air tasting like lemon and sticky asphalt, and no one knows who I am.

On my way to Coney Island, I accidentally dislocate the chain from the gears with my shoulder, and so I stop in the middle of the sidewalk to lock it back in place, wipe the grease from my fingers onto my backpack. Beyond the language of nuclear radiation and retreating shorelines, there’s a place where we go on and survive.

despite how difficult it is, how widespread futility and cynicism are, we are all suffering together and finding joy somehow, and there’s comfort in that.

[catdotjpeg]

if you live outside of the Philippines, you can also donate through p*yp*l or v*nmo to the following organizations (all of whom I can vouch for) working in coordination w groups on the ground in the PH:

National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON)

Kabataan Alliance

Anakbayan USA

the philippines got hit by Typhoon Carina (or known by its international name, Typhoon Gaemi) yesterday and the effects of the nonstop rain put metro manila under a state of calamity as intense flooding hit the capital along with many other areas in luzon

rains have stopped now in most places and water levels are beginning to recede, but since many were evacuated from their homes, lots of people are in need of assistance

here is a running list of donation drives (accepting monetary or in-kind donations) that you can support to help those who were affected by the typhoon

note: all listed drives as of now only accept monetary donations via cash transfer methods that can only be done from within the ph

if youre able to help, it will definitely go a long way. thank you!

[dislanguagement]

i've been stewing on this for years but the main thing that annoys me about those fil-am leftists is their condescension. they talk like the only reason the filipino left would not have a rosy view of ccp is because they are just too brainwashed by the united states, as if leftists here aren't also perfectly capable of reading theory and applying what we've learned to analyzing our society. it honestly also just stinks of racism. i mean, surely the average filipino is incapable of critical thinking! we don't have ivy leagues! we are simply too stupid!

i think this condescension is ultimately due to their lack of connection with actual movements happening in the country. sure, they'll join their overseas anakbayan chapters but when it comes to connecting with and supporting mass orgs in the philippines... crickets. it's just so obvious because if they actually interact with organizers here then they'd know the filipino left is also critical of the united states, that we acknowledge we're still its semi-colony, that we want the us out. it's frustrating because most filipino leftists i interact with know a lot about us politics and they actively make an effort to stay informed about fil-am struggles, but it feels like they can't even bother to do the same for us. it's sad!

[mayarism]

05.12.22 - letter to mom –

I hope you’ve been doing well in Kansas! I know it’s been a long time since I’ve written you, I’ve been going through an existential crisis lately when it comes to work and I’ve been trying to find ways to care for myself and stay sane. My organization, Anakbayan Manhattan, held a film screening on Saturday to fundraise for the Tinang97. The ‘Tinang97’ are a group of peasant activists that got arrested for reclaiming the land they were forming on (essentially unused land that they decided to start growing food on to feed themselves). Our fundraiser was to support their legal fees. We held the screening outdoors, at “Sunset Park” in South Brooklyn. The park sits on top of a hill, so we were able to see the sunset and the skyline of Manhattan.

I also started work at the new office today. I have a desk facing the window, and the bright light flooding in makes me happy. I also face the billboards, but they’re not as distracting as I thought they’d be. The new location at Times Square is overwhelming, but I love that it’s only a few blocks away from Bryant Park. I went to the city early today just so I could sit at the park and write and read and decompress a little. I brought “The Peace Process” by Edward Said with me on the train so I could read during the commute. It’s a book that uncovers the political mechanism that forces Palestinians to accept the terms of Israel and US, and I find it a thoroughly informed but also deeply principled argument for self determination. Have you been reading or learning that interests you lately? write you soon – love, f.