[asia-apec 1387] UNITY STATEMENT (Congress of Migrante Intl)

[tpl at cheerful.com]

UNITY STATEMENT
Second Congress Migrante International
16 December 1999

We are representatives of over 50 progressive organizations of Filipinos
overseas who gathered here in Laguna province for the Second Congress of
Migrante International. This congress is being held to assess our work for
the past three years, discuss the recurring issues confronting Filipino
compatriots abroad and unite us on the line and orientation of Migrante
International, and the direction the progressive alliance of overseas
Filipinos will be taking in the years to come.

Many things have happened since our first congress in 1996. Today, the
country has a new president who claims to be "pro-poor" but is, in reality,
a rabid defender of imperialists and the local ruling classes of compradors
and big landlords. Since it assumed power in 1998, the Estrada regime has
ensured the sell out of the country to imperialism, thus further plunging
the Filipino people into deeper depths of impoverishment and misery. 

The ever-worsening crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal system in the
Philippines remains the major factor that forces Filipinos to swallow the
government's bitter labor export scheme and leave the country in droves to
look for gainful employment abroad. 

The continuing feudal and semifeudal conditions in the country have
continued to produce unemployment, poverty and hunger. Many of the peasant
population are driven to seek food, shelter and clothing in the urban
areas. However, jobs are also nowhere to be found in the cities because
there is no intention to generate mass employment and no comprehensive
pro-people economic plan that will genuinely harness national
industrialization, employment and national development - the basic
ingredients necessary to create decent and gainful employment. The few jobs
available are subject to downsizing or total collapse depending on the
whims of the compradors and the imperialists. They can subject the working
class to all forms of exploitation and abuse, including regular firings or
terminations because anyway there is a very large reserve of unemployed
waiting to take over from those who would fight for their rights and welfare.

It is revolting that while Estrada is hell-bent on amending the
constitution to grant big foreign transnational corporations 100-percent
ownership of our land, Filipinos in their thousands are driven away to
become practically slaves in foreign countries. 

The US-Estrada regime has totally abdicated its responsibility to provide
employment for its people and has instead intensified the commodification
of the Filipino people through its labor export policy. The labor export
policy is not only a counterrevolutionary scheme to stem the tide of
growing discontent, but is also an oppressive measure to milk overseas
Filipinos of their hard-earned income to prop up the bankrupt Philippine
economy and the inutile and corrupt political bureaucracy. With the
billions of dollars being remitted by Filipinos overseas, the regime
manages to collect the money it needs in servicing the country's foreign
debt and balancing its trade and balance of payment deficits. The labor
export policy has also been gradually destroying and breaking up the
Filipino family and thus, the very source of our cultural and moral values.
  
The current fascist president is no different from its predecessor Ramos in
the further intensification of the export of Filipino labor. But Estrada is
trying to upstage Ramos by vigorously implementing and creating mechanisms
for a well-trained, cheaper and docile labor for export. It recycled an old
Marcos government agency and renamed it the Technical Education and Skills
Development Authority (TESDA) which is headed by a former
progressive-turned-rabid-pro-imperialist, and it introduced another old
anti-people capitalist scheme called the Job Fair Program  under the
Department of Labor.
 
It is indeed ironic that overseas Filipinos are now the ones propping up
the prevailing semifeudal and semicolonial system that has forced them to
leave the country in the first place. Not content with this, the Estrada
regime continues to steal from migrant Filipinos' hard-earned income by
shamelessly exacting various fees, levies and taxes.

Despite their important role in keeping the Philippine economy from total
collapse, Filipinos overseas do not get even the most basic support and
protection from the state, which, in most cases take the side of the
receiving countries whenever a conflict arises. Endless is the litany of
ordeals suffered by overseas Filipinos: breach of contract, physical and
sexual abuse, racial attack and discrimination, arrest and imprisonment,
and death.

Due to various reasons-from being abandoned by their employers to simply
trying to prolong their stay-thousands of Filipinos have also become
"illegal" waiting to be repatriated or choosing to go on eking out a living
to support their families back home and risk of being jailed. Now known as
undocumented workers, this group of migrant Filipinos has become more
vulnerable than ever.

Since our first congress, Migrante International has grown by leaps and
bounds because of our comprehensive organizing work among overseas
Filipinos. Needless to say, it is necessary to further intensify our
struggle, given the fact that the situation of overseas Filipinos under the
present fascist Estrada regime continues to worsen.

We have a lot to do. And our further advance is largely dependent on how we
conduct the tasks ahead of us. Key to this is our firm grasp of the
principles that are reflected in the theme we have adopted for our second
congress. We have to overcome this weakness in the grasp of our
orientation. We can do this by deepening our understanding and social
investigation of the phenomenon of commodification, and by rooting out the
cause of migration from the semicolonial and semifeudal character of the
country. 

Towards this end, the different countries represented in the second
congress can initiate "echoing congresses" in their respective country or
area of responsibility to achieve this goal of fully grasping our line and
orientation that addresses not only Filipino migrants but Filipino
immigrants as well.

It is of utmost importance that we further strengthen and expand our ranks.
To do this, we have to learn from the victories gained by our compatriots
in a number of countries in their organizing work. At the same time, we
also have to advance and enliven our campaigns against the commodification
of our compatriots abroad and to relate this struggle with the struggle
being waged in the Philippines. It is our duty as progressive Filipinos
overseas to join and support the national democratic struggle of our
compatriots in the homefront.

Lastly and more importantly, we are united in the analysis that since it is
the semifeudal and semicolonial system that is at the root of Filipino
migration, only by putting an end to this system and the overthrow of the
class rule of the compradors and big landlords and their imperialist lords,
can our country achieve genuine national industrialization, economic
prosperity, democracy, development and genuine peace.  -o0o-

MIGRANTE International's  contact address:
56-C Masikap Street, Bgy. Pinyahan
Teacher's Village, Quezon City
PHILIPPINES
phone: 435-9152; telefax: 435-6929            
e-mail: migranteintl at pacific.net.hk