Filipino people opposed to war
Vehement opposition to US war in Iraq echoes through Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao
Despite strong condemnation for the newly commenced war on Iraq from so many of the world's countries, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has brazenly declared that her government was part of the "coalition of the willing" that openly supports the conflict.
Macapagal-Arroyo has also exploited the start of the war, which she has eagerly anticipated, to use it as a pretext for plans to use "emergency powers" and rush the passage of the Anti-Terrorism Bill.
Even before the war started, Macapagal-Arroyo had already showed her puppetry to her master, the world's number one terrorist. Peaceful demonstrations against the US war on Iraq were violently dispersed in succession. On the afternoon of March 20, policemen mercilessly truncheoned, water cannoned and arrested members of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN), Pamalakaya, Anakbayan, Anakpawis and KMU. Although 12 of them were injured, the demonstrators returned in bigger numbers to the US embassy, among them bishops, priests and nuns who were members of Promotion of Church People's Response, the Justice Not War Coalition, Bayan Muna, the Moro-Christian Peoples Alliance, Migrante and Gabriela.
Earlier, on March 18, up to 11 demonstrators, including a 10-year-old boy, were injured when their rally was dispersed, also in front of the US embassy. The injured sustained foot and leg fractures and serious head wounds. Members of the pro-US and anti-communist Discovery Crusade of the Philippines also beat up and shot at a group of anti-war rallyists.
Meanwhile, the Women Working for Peace coalition published an advertisement in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on March 20 against the US war in Iraq. Aside from the 31 women who convened the coalition, the advertisement was signed by more than 160 nuns, women legislators and local officials, actresses, women in media and other prominent women leaders as well as 17 women's organizations, students and faculty of 17 schools and thousands of others. The coalition expressed concern for the fate of 1.4 million Filipinos in the Middle East, 65% of whom are women domestic helpers. It said that women and children become more vulnerable to rape and sexual abuse during war. Wartime rape, the coalition added, is a mode of torture and subjugation.
In the first hours of the US attack on Baghdad and other parts of Iraq, Filipinos stood in solidarity with protests in 126 other countries worldwide. Aside from Metro Manila, protest actions burst out in Baguio City and in Rizal, Quezon, Cavite, Laguna and Occidental Mindoro. Panay and Guimaras were paralyzed by a strike against oil price hikes and the US attack on Iraq. Mass actions were also held in the cities of Bacolod, Cebu, Davao, Cagayan de Oro and Zamboanga.
Senators and congressmen who were members of the Legislators Against War (LAW) assailed the unilateral US war.
The Justice Not War Coalition announced that large protest actions would be held starting March 22.
|
