The Philippines is Not For Sale! Oppose Marcos Jr. at APEC!
Malaya Movement USA opposes Marcos Jr.’s participation in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco, where the son of the dictator will further auction off the Philippines to foreign governments and corporations.
Despite this trip being his third to the United States and his 16th outside of the country since June 2022, the promised investments have yet to bear fruit for the Filipino people and has only resulted in more foreign subservience for the Philippines. APEC will be no different in that regard, that’s why we joined Filipinos and thousands of others in the streets of San Francisco on November 12-15.
Since 1989, APEC has been touted as a forum for “progress” but a closer look reveals chronic hardship for Filipinos and others in the Asia Pacific region. We see increased prices of basic goods like food, water, oil, and gas. The rising prices in turn make overseas workers' remittances worth less because of the absurd cost of goods, in addition to US inflation, leaving Filipino workers with less money to send home.
APEC says it is concerned with “green and technological innovations” but this means the phasing out of jeepneys without adequate transitional support, which will not only increase the cost of public mass transportation on a majority poor population but also force already struggling jeepney drivers and their families to lose their livelihood.
APEC and neoliberal schemes like the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) will further incapacitate the Philippines by making us more reliant on agricultural imports that will disenfranchise the majority peasant and farmer population. Production will continue to prioritize cash crops and natural resources for export, which only benefit wealthy landowners and corporations. To facilitate such production, the military will ramp up its violence against farmers organizing for genuine agrarian reform and better wages, and indigenous peoples defending their land.
The economic crisis in the Philippines is compounded by neoliberal policies negotiated in APEC, designed to only make profit for the few ruling elite at the expense of millions of low-wage Filipino workers. This exclusive club of millionaires and billionaires, including Marcos Jr., is completely disconnected from the suffering and exploitation of millions. The week that Marcos Jr. will spend in the United States for APEC is just another stop in his tour to auction off the Philippines to the highest bidders.
Instead of selling off our sovereignty and wasting the people’s money on lavish dinners and unnecessary entourages, why not work for genuine solutions to the economic crisis in the Philippines?
Rather than overblown confidential and Intelligence funds, counterinsurgency funds, and debt servicing, we need higher wages, lower prices, genuine land reform and national industries, healthcare and education systems that aren’t perpetually neglected, and investment in job creation that allows for upward mobility instead of more low-wage and contractual employment.
From joining the over 10,000 who marched the streets of San Francisco on Sunday demanding people over profit and the defense of Philippine sovereignty, Malaya Movement USA will follow Marcos Jr. wherever he goes on his U.S. trip to uplift the demands of the Filipino people!
