As we begin a new year, FiRE would like to THANK YOU for all of the valuable support that you extend to us in our work and for being a part of our community. Some of our 2011 successes include collaborating with KABALIKAT Domestic Workers Support Network for the first time in our organizational history to present Diwang Pinay: The Story Behind the Migrant Woman Worker as a full length, original stage production. In the summer, FiRE members traveled to the Philippines for our annual exposure program and served as delegates to the International Women’s Alliance 1st General Assembly, the 1st International Conference for Progressive Culture, and the International League of Peoples’ Struggle 4th International Assembly. We are also a new member organization of the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON), mobilizing campaigns against the Labor Export Policy and fighting for the rights of labor trafficking victims. We look forward to 2012 and continuing to serve the people. THANK YOU again for all that you have done for FiRE and the peoples’ struggle. Abante! Babae! Palaban Militante!

With love and struggle,

Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment-GABRIELA USA

January 2, 2012

Reference: Bernadette Ellorin, Chairperson, BAYAN USA, email: chair@bayanusa.org

NDAA WILL NOT QUELL THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF DISSENT AS GLOBAL CRISIS ENSUES– BAYAN USA

Filipino-Americans across the US, under the banner of BAYAN USA, and their supporters condemn the last minute moves by President Barack Obama to railroad the signing of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on New Year’s Eve 2011. In one fell swoop, the White House has not only played a key role in the intensification of political repression in the United States and worldwide, it has ruthlessly exposed its true character of being first and foremost a loyal representative of the ruling 1%.

Threatened by the upswing of class rage and social unrest over intolerable structural economic and political inequities, as recently exemplified by the resilience of the Occupy Movement, the ruling 1% believes that the authorization of the US military to conduct warrantless arrests and indefinitely detain anyone—including US citizens–on US soil or anywhere in the world under the guise of national security will somehow quell growing dissent in the US and internationally by invoking fear. However, history has continuously proven that oppressed peoples readily shed their fear, even in the midst of the state’s repressive apparatus, to fight for the basic right to livelihood and dignity amidst a crisis created by monopoly capitalism, or the over-concentration of the world’s wealth in the hands of a minority elite determined to maintain its hegemonic control.

The worsening of the protracted global economic malaise continues as monopoly capitalism’s crisis of overproduction has spawned the crisis of public debt through its scheme of neoliberalism. While neoliberalism, under the guise of “free market capitalism”, has long-forced semi-colonies such as the Philippines and other parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America into chronic debt and abject poverty, it has now erupted mercilessly against working people in advanced capitalist countries such as the US, Canada, and the members of the European Union. Neoliberalism’s financialization of capital has produced an acute debt crisis in the US that has ushered in record-breaking unemployment, under-employment, housing foreclosures, lack of access to food, health care, education, and other social services for working people in order to pay off a debt not of their own making.

Amidst human suffering, the ruling financial oligarchy continues to tow the lie that it can recover from the crisis by siphoning trillions in public funds to bail out big banks and financial firms to stimulate economic growth, thereby justifying back-breaking budget cuts and austerity measures on working families. In order to seize control of overseas markets and cheap raw materials, the ruling 1% must act through its lackeys in Washington to beef up its military industrial complex by throwing in more public funds to wage endless overt wars of aggression, proxy wars, covert counter-insurgency operations, militarization, and other forms of intervention abroad. In fact, the NDAA was signed as part of a defense spending bill that would allocate over $600 billion more in US tax dollars towards the country’s war machine, now granting it unlimited powers to act domestically. This includes targeting US activists who express solidarity for national liberation struggles abroad against US intervention, as well as support for governments asserting national sovereignty.

The Filipino people got a taste of abusive expansion of military powers, warrantless arrests, and indefinite detentions during the period of martial law under the former dictatorship of US puppet Ferdinand Marcos. But not even martial law, including the illegal detention and torture of thousands of dissidents throughout the Philippines, could stop a growing and fearless peoples movement for democracy and human rights that was decisive in ousting the Marcos dictatorship, reviving civil liberties, and opening democratic space in the country. It was through the people’s fight against US-directed fascist dictatorship in the Philippines that BAYAN Philippines was born in 1985.

It is expected that the minority of monopoly capitalists, in order to survive the very crisis it created and prolong its inevitable demise, will consolidate itself to concoct schemes of political repression to subdue peoples resistance. But this tiny and fragmented front of monopoly capitalists is no match for the broadening united front of oppressed peoples around the world engaged in class struggle for a better alternative. The NDAA and all other forms of repressive legislation will not succeed in quelling the righteousness of dissent for as the long as the global crisis continues. BAYAN USA proudly links arms with working people in the US to build a movement through education, organization, and mobilization that will defeat the NDAA and all other assaults on democracy, human rights, and civil liberties. ###

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BAYAN-USA is an alliance of 15 progressive Filipino organizations in the U.S. representing youth, students, women, workers, artists, and human rights advocates. As the oldest and largest overseas chapter of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN-Philippines), BAYAN-USA serves as an information bureau for the national democratic movement of the Philippines and as a campaign center for anti-imperialist Filipinos in the U.S. For more information, visit www.bayanusa.org

Reference: Irma Bajar, Chairperson, Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment (FiRE), fire.nyc@gmail.com

Stories from the Global 99%: Fil-am Women Share Stories from Mass Movement & Recent Exposure Trip in the Philippines

In 2011, six women from the NY-based GABRIELA USA organization, Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment (FiRE NYC), traveled to the Philippines on an exposure and integration program with Gabriela Philippines. The women, Hanalei Ramos, Candice Sering, Jennine Ventura, Zarah Vinola, Julie Jamora, and Krystle Cheirs, had one major goal in mind: to experience first-hand what the MASS MOVEMENT is like in the Philippines, and bring back what they learned to their community in the United States. On Monday, November 21, 2011, FiRE will host a special report-back from 7:00pm-9:00pm at the International Action Center’s Solidarity Center (55 W. 17^th Street, Suite 5 C).

“We want people in New York to feel the dynamism of the National Democratic Movement in the Philippines,” stated Candice Sering, FiRE’s Cultural Director. “It was also important that we pay tribute to the organizers and communities that we met in a creative way.” The event will include interactive elements (guerilla theater, sound installation, and visual arts), traditional Filipino street foods, and stories. FiRE has also made it possible to view the event live via UStream.tv, a live-streaming Internet site, for those who are abroad (both nationally and internationally) but wish to support the event. “Our friends and fellow organizers in the Philippines can’t physically be here, but we wanted them to be able to share in the telling of their stories, so we’ll set up a live-stream,” stated Hanalei Ramos, who served as team leader for the summer trip.

In the wake of a global economic crisis and the worldwide Occupy people-led movement (including Occupy Philippines), FiRE is drawing connections to the people-powered National Democratic Movement in the Philippines. “By sending our members to the Philippines for an extended period of time, they witness and experience first-hand the concrete conditions that the basic masses, the real 99% of the Philippines, are living under every day,” said Jackie Mariano, Vice Chairperson of FiRE. “Most importantly, they learn how the masses have organized themselves to take action to build a brighter future.” The report-back will shed light on the daily injustices committed in the Philippines and the ways in which Filipinos are responding, challenging and changing the system.

For more information on Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment and the Exposure & Integration Program, visit http://firenyc.org.

###

EDUCATE. ORGANIZE. MOBILIZE.

A Reportback brought to you by FiRE

MONDAY NOV 21, 2011

International Action Center Solidarity Center

55 West 17th Street, Suite 5C

NY, NY

8PM-10PM, doors open at 7:30PM. (Please note the time change!!)

For live-streaming: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/fire-nyc

News Release
October 8, 2011
References:
Irma Salvatierra Bajar, Chairperson, Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment-NYC, email: fire.nyc@gmail.com
Raquel Redondiez, Chairperson, GABRIELA-USA, email: gabrielawomen@gmail.com

FILIPINO WOMEN PROTEST WITH THOUSANDS IN OCCUPY WALL ST. MARCH ALONGSIDE UNIONS AND COMMUNITY GROUPS IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST CAPITALISM AND THE PROTRACTED GLOBAL ECONOMIC DEPRESSION

NEW YORK, NY—On Wednesday, Filipino women of grassroots organization Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment (FiRE), under the banner of GABRIELA USA, a member organization of the newly formed International Women’s Alliance (IWA), joined a mass rally and march to Zucotti Park, the site of the 3-week-long Occupy Wall Street demonstration in New York City. The rally and march, organized by community organizations and labor unions, drew in thousands of participants and has been the largest demonstration since the launch of Occupy Wall Street. The rally commenced at Foley Square where more than fifteen public sector organizations and unions, including the United Federation of Teachers, United Auto Workers, and Transit Workers’ Union, gathered with other community and labor leaders to protest against income inequalities and poor public education in New York City.

FiRE marched with fellow BAYAN USA Northeast member organizations, Anakbayan New York, Anakbayan New Jersey, and the New York Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines, as well as with member organizations of the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON). This Filipino contingent joined the “New York Communities Contingent” which included People’s Justice, Nodutdol for Korean Community Development, Picture the Homeless, and FIERCE. FiRE members chanted “The banks got bailed out. We got sold out,” carrying signs reading “No to Imperialist Globalization. End U.S. Economic Intervention.”

Malou Logan of GABRIELA Australia, which is also a member organization of the International Women’s Alliance, is visiting New York City and joined the march. Of the march she stated, “I joined the march in New York as an expression of my support, and to represent the voice of the Filipino women of GABRIELA Australia and MIGRANTE Australia. Wall Street is the financial capital of the world, the epitome of corporate greed that sucks all the profits labored by the immigrants and citizens of third world countries. We as immigrants in the U.S. and in Australia are forced to leave the Philippines to look for decent jobs for our families and the women workers bear the brunt of the financial crisis.”

Monica Moorehead, an organizer with the Women’s Fightback Network, and a steering committee member of the International Women’s Alliance says, “The Occupy Wall Street actions amount to a growing mass rebellion against the global capitalist economic crisis which has already devastated the lives of millions of people, especially women, and promises to destroy the future of the youth. This radicalization of youth must continue to open up political space for the workers, who are losing their jobs, their homes, their health care and their pensions, and the most oppressed, who face political repression in the form of police brutality, cutbacks in social services, and the prison industrial complex. The Occupy Wall Street actions must be wholeheartedly supported and continue to flourish throughout the globe until ‘Occupy the World’ becomes a reality, not just a slogan.  This dynamic movement inside the U.S. has been inspired by righteous occupations in Egypt, Tunisia, Greece, Spain and Wisconsin–many of them led by women.”

Irma Bajar, Chairperson of FiRE-GABRIELA USA, stated, ”Women in the U.S. and all over the world have been fighting against capitalist exploitation, patriarchy, and multiple intersecting oppressions and discrimination. The enemy is this unfair capitalist system and imperialism. People across various immigrant communities and people of color have been standing in solidarity with Occupy Wall St. because people are fed up with the injustices and unfair systems.” Bajar continues, “As a Filipino American woman, I can connect the reasons why my mother had to leave the Philippines to the Occupy Wall Street struggle because of the economic conditions and joblessness there. Women are forced out of the country and legally trafficked by the Labor Export Policy that benefits imperialist countries like the United States and big corporations like Dole and Nestle.”

The International Women’s Assembly (IWA) successfully held its First General Assembly on July 5 and 6, 2011 in Quezon City, Philippines under the theme, “Advance the Global Anti-imperialist Women’s Movement! Strengthen the International Women’s Alliance!” FiRE-GABRIELA USA urges other anti-imperialist organizations to join us in fighting against capitalism and imperialism from the level of grassroots organizing expanding to global networks. Class consciousness becomes the basis for women to fight for economic equity, political rights, freedom of association, and to oppose colonial and imperialist wars.

UNA-USA Young Professionals of the Southern New York State Division is proud to present “Faces and Voices of Asia: FiRE! at the Village Pourhouse,” the first event hosted by the newly formed Asian Affairs Committee.

Join us in commemorating the United Nations’ International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, annually observed on August 23. Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment (FiRE NYC), a local nonprofit connecting the local diaspora to the women’s struggle for equal rights in their home country, will discuss the “iVOW” campaign, focusing on helping human trafficking victims in New York and in the Philippines.

Advocate, ruminate, and activate through The Self-Portrait Project – find and document your inner humanitarian voice and share it with others in this unique educational and fundraising event. Use a remote-controlled two-way mirror photobooth to capture yourself with signs that state how you want to create a better world. Then access them online to share on Facebook, Twitter – anywhere you want your voice heard!

Confirmed Speakers:

• Andy Lin, Photographer and Creator, The Self-Portrait Project
• Irma Bajar, Chair, Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment

Photo tickets: $5 for three pictures; $10 for seven pictures (photo tickets will be used in the raffle drawing at the end of the evening)

Proceeds are shared between UNA-USA Young Professionals and FiRE!

Drink specials offered until 8 p.m. ($2 Bud Light Draft, 2-for-1 on select cocktails)

To RSVP, e-mail Asian Affairs Director Mandy Gor at mandy_gor@yahoo.com

http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=grm8uubab&v=001ip99edeIjlatiqbI0Tt5xmpKGbtRS4Jqrlf2c7DmWX_zzWBPO-8nFbi9GIdeYJ7oSyumtmYUQND5pzPK5ggHeZ4CMPLQqic3ZCmWf37IyvSlIjviPlmfHniNOs6tHTf0N9jN4NnBa7nE6O_lJ4S8fp4U83PKrVdaYQrAM9gJHnbMiRlFvB7Jl2-YThQZExzi

Reference: Bernadette Ellorin, Chairperson, BAYAN-USA, email: chair@bayanusa.org

One Year Later, Filipinos Still in Crisis Under Aquino– BAYAN-USA

Filipino-Americans, under the banner of BAYAN-USA, are taking part in actions across the US and in Manila during the scheduled State of the Nation Address (SONA) in the Philippines to register strong condemnation and disappointment over the failure of the administration of Philippine President Benigno Simeon “P-Noy” Aquino III to facilitate significant changes to improve the lives of the burdened Filipino people after one year in office.

Citing continuing subservience to foreign dictates and a worsened economic situation as measures of the Aquino’s failure to deliver upon promises made during the election and during last year’s SONA, BAYAN-USA and its allies in the US remain adamantly unconvinced that the administration is genuinely for change.

Shameless US Puppetry

At the heart of Aquino’s failure is unrelenting loyalty and puppetry to US foreign policy.

Within his first year, Aquino has willingly allowed the US to use the Philippines as its puppet state to take advantage of the regional territorial dispute over the Spratly Islands and provoke profit-making military aggression in Asia, and particularly against China.

As war and arms production has become the most profitable industry for the US ruling elite, the US government has in turn been able to rely strongly on the compliant Aquino administration to continue with a sugar-coated version of Arroyo’s deadly Operation Plan Bantay Laya by implementing Operation Plan Bayanihan, per the US State Department’s Counter-Insurgency Guide (US COIN). The objective of this counterinsurgency program is the same as it was for Arroyo’s administration and as utilized by repressive regimes worldwide: to suppress dissent and eliminate opposition using a combination of deceptive and increasingly violent tactics. The end result is the protection of imperialist economic and political interests at the expense of human lives.

The Poor Get Poorer Under Aquino

Under the thumb of US foreign dictates, Aquino has further pushed a neoliberal economic framework that has made life more miserable for the majority of the Filipino people. Landlord families, such as Aquino’s, remain in control of the country’s natural resources and push for privatization. Liberalization continues to hike up the prices of basic commodities such as food, gas, and water out of the reach of Filipino families. Contractualization hurts workers by decreasing wages, sowing job insecurity, and busting unions. Under Aquino, there are over 11 million unemployed Filipinos in the country with virtually zero job growth.

Privatization schemes such as the so-called Public-Private Partnership (PPP) not only serve to bulk up the pockets of wealthy and powerful multi-national corporate investors at the expense of ordinary Filipino citizens and workers. They also widen the gap between the few Filipino families that control the majority of the country’s wealth and political power and the burdened majority who must pay from their own pockets for the risks of private investors. It is the impoverished majority who suffer the most from the Philippine state’s abandonment of its public responsibilities.

Filipinos are left with no choice but to seek opportunities abroad, like in the United States. But in these desperate economic times, many Filipino workers fall prey to human trafficking schemes to the US.

Philippine Government: #1 Human Trafficker

The cases of the Sentosa 27 healthworkers, the Florida 15 hotel workers, and hundreds more similar cases of Filipinos duped into coming to the US under the auspices that they would have contract work waiting for them only to have their money taken, passports confiscated, and be left by their recruiters to fend for themselves as undocumented migrants are another clear measure of the Philippine government’s failure to address the country’s economic woes.

In addition, the Aquino government continues Arroyo’s non-accountability to overseas Filipino workers in distress by not providing adequate social services and protection from abuse, maltreatment, and exploitation abroad.

Last Names Do Not a Great Leader Make

Though he was able to capitalize on his last name and the dirty record of his predecessor to win the election, it is clear that none of these things actually translated into making Aquino a great leader or any improvement to the state of the Philippine nation.

Like Obama, Aquino has proven that he is not much different than his predecessor, particularly with his human rights record. In one year of the Aquino presidency, 45 activists have been slain in politically-motivated killings, 5 have been victims of forced disappearance and over 300 political prisoners remain behind bars. The perpetrators of the 1,206 extra-judicial killings, more than 300 forced disappearances, and over 1,000 cases of torture committed under the previous administration of President Gloria Arroyo remain at-large, including those guilty of abducting and torturing renowned Filipina American poet, artist, and BAYAN USA member Melissa Roxas.

As Aquino delivers his formal State of the Nation Address (SONA) to the Philippine Congress today, Filipino-Americans will be amongst those who refused to be deceived and who understand that real change can only come from ordinary people in collective struggle, not from individual politicians with famous last names. ###

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BAYAN-USA is an alliance of 14 progressive Filipino organizations in the U.S. representing youth, students, women, workers, artists, and human rights advocates. As the oldest and largest overseas chapter of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN-Philippines), BAYAN-USA serves as an information bureau for the national democratic movement of the Philippines and as a campaign center for anti-imperialist Filipinos in the U.S. For more information, visit www.bayanusa.org

FiRE sisters and allies at the Educational Discussion Symposium, June 11, 2011

Dear FiRE sisters and allies,

Thank you so much for making the Educational Discussion Symposium on Saturday, June 11 at Hunter College a success!

For all of those who attended, we hope that you had an enriching, agitating, and empowering experience. Our morning session featured “Basic Women’s Orientation”, our intro course, which outlines the socio-historical and political condition of Filipino women in the Philippines and the U.S., AND “We DID Start the FiRE: How to Represent FiRE”, which helped us learn how to make speeches and write press releases that rep the militant Philippine women’s movement. In the afternoon session, we viewed a film called “Modern Heroes, Modern Slaves”. Afterwards, we discussed the Labor Export Policy of the Philippines, and the experiences of Overseas Filipino Workers, particularly Flor Contemplacion and her family.

For those of you who missed the ED Symposium, don’t worry! We have an exciting summer coming up, full of ED’s when we can continue to learn and grow together.

FiREd UP!!!: A Summer ED Series for FiRE members and allies.

—Make-up session for “Basic Women’s Orientation”. Late JUNE or early JULY, TBD. ***IMPORTANT: It will be a “training for trainers”, or an opportunity for folks who have taken BWO before to learn how to facilitate it, and conduct the ED for folks who have yet to take this intro course. If you are interested in sharpening your facilitation skills OR if you haven’t taken this ED yet, please contact Jackie at fire.nyc@gmail.com.***

—Track 1 (beginners) ED “Personal Migration/Migrante Orientation” JULY, TBD

—Track 2 (advanced) ED “Philippine Society and Revolution: A Short Course” JULY, TBD

Please keep a look out for more announcements with details about the EDs!

Thank you again for attending the ED Symposium. If you would like to get more involved in FiRE’s Education Committee, a.k.a. Each One, Teach One, please contact Jackie! To find out how you can get involved in more FiRE activities, please contact Cris at fire.nyc@gmail.com.

Isang Bagsak!