prepared by: Anakbayan NJ

What is Human Trafficking?

The crime of human trafficking is modern-day slavery and involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act.

Human trafficking victims are found in all legitimate and illegitimate labor sectors, including sweat shops, agricultural fields, restaurants, hotels, massage parlors, and domestic service.

If you have been forced or deceived into working against your will and are unable or afraid to leave employment, you may be a victim of trafficking.

Violence is often present in human trafficking situations, but exploitation can occur without physical violence and traffickers often use subtle methods of coercion to induce fear and exert power over their victims.

Are Filipinos at risk for human trafficking?

Yes. Filipinos are at risk for human trafficking due to the semi-feudal, semi-colonial Philippine society, where conditions of landlessness, joblessness, low wages, and contractualization are prevalent. The Philippines’ government-facilitated Labor Export Policy (LEP) [learn more about LEP here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SNE5ZphHYo] and the culpability of its various departments such as the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA) have dealings with foreign recruiters undertaking labor trafficking operations.

Are there any known human trafficking cases of Filipinos in the US?

Yes. One case that has surfaced recently is that of the Florida 15, or F15. In this case, a group of 15 Filipino workers were recruited by the San Villa Ship Management Co. (Philippine-based) between 2008-2009 to work at the W Hotel in Miami, Florida as housekeepers and managers. Here are the facts of their case:

• The workers were required to pay up to $7000 each for placement fees
• While working at the hotel, their payrate was supposed to be $16-17 per hour, but the agency only gave them $6 per hour without overtime bonus
• Many were paid only once a month and paychecks were issued very late
• The agency failed to renew their H2-B visas without the workers’ knowledge leading them to overstay in the US without proper documentation
• Because of their immigration status, some were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agency and are pending deportation
• San Villa has played deaf to their pleas for help and appeal to work-out their visas
• All 15 workers have left their employer in Florida and are now employed in the NJ/NY area.
• They are now seeking the help of Anakbayan’s NY and NJ chapters and our allied organizations to fight with them against deportation, against human trafficking, against illegal recruitment.

Are there any U.S. laws protecting workers against such abuses?

Yes. In the U.S., the Trafficking Victims Protection Act is a federal law that guarantees certain legal benefits and services to victims who are in the U.S. because they were trafficked. The law provides several options for immigration relief to be explored with the help of an attorney.

Once an individual is determined (by a federal agency) to be a victim of trafficking, he or she will become eligible for Continued Presence (CP). CP is a temporary status that allows you to remain in the U.S. for one year (renewable if necessary) during the ongoing investigation or prosecution of the trafficker. Once you obtain CP you can also get a work authorization.

A T Visa is a 4-year non-immigrant status that enables victims to stay in the U.S. and assist federal and/or state authorities in the investigation and prosecution of trafficking cases.

For those older than 18, in order to receive a T Visa a victim must be complying with reasonable requests for assistance from law enforcement unless unable to cooperate due to physical or psychological trauma. A T Visa recipient must be likely to suffer extreme hardship upon removal from the U.S. Receipt of a T Visa also enables recipients to bring certain family members to the U.S.

There are other forms of immigration relief that may be applicable depending on the victim’s unique circumstances. All options should be explored with an immigration attorney.

What can we do as youth and students? As Filipinos overseas?

The National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON) is leading the launch of a community campaign called the STOP Campaign. As youth and students overseas, in alliance with our kasamas in the Philippines, we can join the STOP campaign which aims to:

• Fight for the back wages of human trafficking victims from their former employers, including compensation for related damages to their labor trafficking and wage theft cases
•  Have the removal proceedings against human trafficking victims cancelled
• Hold legally accountable the former employers of the human trafficking victims by filing criminal charges and maximizing other legal measures
• Educate and mobilize the community on the reality of modern-day labor trafficking
• Expose and oppose the Philippine government’s culpability in labor trafficking and criminal neglect of overseas Filipino workers.
• Encourage and build confidence in other Filipino victims of labor trafficking to come forward and fight for their rights.

Contact us to see how you can get involved! anakbayan.nynj@gmail.com * http://www.anakbayannynj.wordpress.com

Join Anakbayan and be part of the Filipino youth movement in affecting genuine social change in our communities and in the Philippines!

NAFCON Activates Bayanihan Relief for Victims of Disastrous Calamity in Mindanao

PRESS RELEASE
20 December 2011

Contact: Jun Cruz
NAFCON Public Information Officer
Email: info@nafconusa.org
Phone: 650-580-7382

On the quiet night of December 17th, the Philippines was struck by another calamity in the Southern Islands of Mindanao identified as tropical storm ‘Sendong’.

Cagayan de Oro, Negros Oriental and Iligan were amongst the worst cities hit by flash floods and landslides leaving 650 confirmed dead, with more reported fatalities expected, and nearly 100,000 victims homeless.

The National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON), with member organizations throughout the U.S., is activating its Bayanihan Relief program for the victims of ‘Sendong’ in Mindanao.

NAFCON is collecting exclusively monetary relief (not material goods) and ensures that your donations go directly to the communities of the Philippines who are deeply and adversely affected by ‘Sendong’.

“As we near Christmas, we urge our kababayan to ease the suffering of children, families, and loved ones back home who were hit hard by ‘Sendong’ by making immediate monetary donations in the true spirit of the holidays,” said Terry Valen, NAFCON President.

NAFCON has established collections centers throughout the U.S and has a Paypal account. For Paypal go to: http://tinyurl.com/bayanihanreliefeffort or click on the donate button below:

Cash or checks go to locations listed below. On memo please write: NAFCON Bayanihan Relief

North East: Checks Payable to “Philippine Forum”
Mail to 40-21 69th St. Woodside, NY
Regional Coordinator: Michelle Saulon, ne@nafconusa.org, (347) 867 – 1550

Mid West: Checks Payable to “Good Shepherd Congregation”
Mail to 4707 W. Pratt Ave Lincolnwood, Il 60712
Regional Coordinator: Lorena Nabua, mw@nafconusa.org, (224) 678 – 3415

Nor Cal: Checks Payable to “FOCUS-Filipino Community Support”
Mail to 4681 Mission St. San Francisco, Ca 94112
Regional Coordinator: Angelica Cabande nc@nafconusa.org, (415) 946 – 9904

So Cal: Checks Payable to “Tulong Sa Bayan (TSB)”
Mail to: 519 S. Spring St., Los Angeles, CA 90013
Regional Coordinator: Alex Montances, sc@nafconusa.org, (253) 381 – 7444

North West: Checks Payable to “Pinay Sa Seattle”
Mail to 5740 Martin Luther King Junior Way Seattle, WA 98118
Regional Coordinator: Freedom Siyam, nw@nafconusa.org, (206) 659 – 1130

For more information on fundraising and relief activities in your area please contact NAFCON regional coordinators nearest you.

The recent failed attempt of former Philippine military leader Jovito Palparan to flee the Philippines for Singapore turned all-out manhunt to arrest the retired major general who remains in hiding is not only a clear admission of guilt for the heinous crimes committed against scores of innocent civilians under the former Arroyo administration, but a product of arduous, continuous peoples struggle for the recognition and respect of human rights against an impotent justice system wallowing in a culture of impunity. Filipino-Americans in the US, under the banner of BAYAN USA, and their supporters echo the call for Jovito Palparan to immediately surrender himself to the state authorities and face the law.

Before his stint as a Philippine Congressman representing the Bantay Party-List, Palparan was a decorated military general under the former Arroyo administration. He was notoriously known as “Berdugo” (the Butcher) by human rights groups and their supporters for the lead role he played in crafting one of the bloodiest counter-insurgency campaigns in the country’s history– Oplan Bantay Laya (OBL)– with the blessing and support of Washington and tens of millions of dollars annually in US military aid. According to human rights groupKarapatan, nine years of OBL under the Arroyo government claimed 1,206 civilian lives through extrajudicial killings and another 206 inenforced disappearances. Justice for the victims remains painfully absent as an overwhelming majority of these cases are unresolved and the perpetrators still at large. Families of the victims still have to contend with a justice system that grants the Philippine military as well as private armies of corrupt politicians a free pass to terrorize civilians, particularly open critics of the government, in order to quell dissent and protect the interests of a ruling landlord bureaucracy.

 

Against this current, it is principally the unflinching perseverance of the victims and their families, along with human rights advocates such as Karapatan, the peoples’ organizations under BAYAN Philippines,churches, lawyers, and progressive partylists to gather evidence and file cases in the domestic and international courts, reach out to human rights groups abroad to shape broad worldwide solidarity against impunity, and build a strong, dynamic people’s movement for human rights and for justice. Nearly a decade later, the fruits of this labor are beginning to appear with the issuance of an arrest order by the Regional Trial Court in Bulacan against Palparan and 3 co-accused in the 2006 dual abduction of University of the Philippines students Cadapan and Empeno.

 

BAYAN USA and its supporters welcome the recent and uncharacteristic turn of the Philippine state authorities to pursue an arrest of Palparan and his cohorts, following the arrest of his former commander-in-chief Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for electoral sabotage. But there remains no reason to assume the struggle for human rights can rest. Now more than ever, the people must stay vigilant in their pressure to the current Aquino administration to exact the full extent of the law on Palparan and his co-accused and ensure due payment for their crimes. This is but a fraction of what the victims and their families truly deserve.

Anakbayan NY and NJ Anniversary Statement From the streets, campuses, factories and barrios of the Philippines to the communities of Queens, Jersey and several other major cities in the U.S., Anakbayan Philippines celebrates its 13th founding anniversary and 6th for New York and New Jersey chapter. This serves as a testament to Anakbayan’s resilience and also as a challenge to realize its historic and revolutionary role in our people’s struggle for national liberation and genuine democracy.

It is with utmost pride that we declare the formation of Anakbayan New Jersey and Anakbayan NY Chapter Organizing Committee, together with the launching of Anakbayan Silicon Valley, as new additions to the growing Anakbayan chapters in the U.S.

In 2010-2011, we’ve made huge gains. We were able to breakthrough in organizing and mobilizing the youth. But these gains were not sustained due to weaknesses in organization and leadership. We took one step back, assessed and summed-up our experiences and came out stronger, bringing forth valuable lessons and stronger determination. We must learn our lessons well and put them into practice.

Armed with lessons from our rich experiences, the condition is most favorable for us to make our great leap forward and contribute further to the advancement of national democracy towards a new and higher level here in the U.S. and in the homeland.

International and National Situation

We are witnessing the escalating and irresolvable contradictions of this system called global monopoly capitalism. The 1% continues to accumulate unimaginable amounts of wealth while the global 99% continue to live a life of increasing misery. Massive lay-offs, high unemployment, deteriorating social services on one hand and endless wars for profit on the other.

But the world is waking up in this nightmare called Imperialism. We saw the people’s uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and the middle east in what would be known as the Arab Spring, the student strikes in Chile, workers strike and demonstrations in London and France and the tidal wave of revolutionary people’s war in India, Nepal and the Philippines.

Here in the U.S., the youth’s condition continue to worsen. One in every four youth is unemployed. While tuition fees have went up by an average of 8% as states cut down spending on social services. Migrant youth continues to face harsher and more racist laws. It is clear that the youth does not have a bright future under the current system.

Our Tasks

We need to arm the membership and the community with a clear grasp of the line and program of national democracy through a broad and widespread education and propaganda movement. We must start gearing the organization for campaigns and mass struggles. As the crisis intensifies, we must prepare to participate in Philippines, International, National and Local/Community issues.

We must also pay close attention to the welfare of our community. Through systematic and regular integration in the community, we must identify our community’s most urgent concerns, build their collective power and together, launch campaigns to uplift their conditions.

In order for us to do this, we must daringly expand the mass membership in a solid and well-rounded way towards the building of a national Filipino youth movement to serve as the primary vehicle of the Filipino Youth in confronting the crisis and contributing to the advancement of the national democratic struggle of our people to a new and higher level.

Onwards with the upsurge! Long live Anakbayan! Long live the national democratic struggle!

IT IS RIGHT TO REBEL

The International League of Peoples Struggle, representing hundreds of organizations in 43 countries, stands with the young workers, students and unemployed occupying Wall Street and city centers around the United States. You are fighting a battle that needs to be fought. You have a right to march and protest without fear of arrest or brutality.

MASS ACTION IS THE ONLY WAY FORWARD

You are right to take to the streets in mass action rather than waiting for change from overpaid Republican and Democratic politicians who are on corporate payrolls. You are right to follow the militant path taken by people from Egypt and Tunisia to Greece and Spain, from Britain to Chile to Wisconsin. From Social Security and the 8-hour day in the 1930s to civil rights laws in the 1960s, mass action is the only way people in this country have won any rights from the corporate ruling class. You are right to take the battle to the doorsteps of that class, the unelected tyrants who own the top 500 banks and corporations. Every day, at electronic speed, they send trillions of dollars around the world in financial transactions while millions cannot find work or afford health care. Their decisions shutter factories, destroy jobs, throw people out of their homes and wreck the economies of communities and entire nations.

WALL STREET IS THE ENEMY OF ALL HUMANITY

These bankers and billionaires also rake in super-profits from murderous imperialist wars against people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Palestine and elsewhere. In the U.S., they have created a monstrous police state-prison-industrial complex to lock up mostly youth of color, the children of generations of workers, whom they now deny the right to a job.

BLOOMBERG LIES, JOBS DIE

New York City Mayor Bloomberg, one of the richest men on earth, lies when he says that banks create jobs. His banker pals at JPMorgan Chase and Citibank have destroyed 7 million jobs since 2008. This billionaire parasite is closing schools, bus lines, clinics and libraries while increasing his personal fortune by billions of dollars since he took office. WHERE DID THE BANKERS GET THEIR BILLIONS? They stole them! And not just the bailout money they were given by both the Bush and Obama administrations. The fortunes of the top 1 percent are the unpaid labor of generations of workers not just in the United States but all over the world. It was created in farms and factories, mills and building sites, mines and offices from the Nile Delta to the Mississippi Delta, from South Africa to South Korea to South Carolina, from Mindanao to Mexico to Michigan. Many of the biggest fortunes in the U.S were founded on the slave trade. This wealth belongs to all humanity.

IMPERIALISM IS THE SOURCE OF THEIR POWER

It is not a matter of making the rich pay their “fair share.” They have no right to even a penny from anyone else’s labor. We must smash their power over our lives. The source of that power is imperialism, the merger of finance and industrial capital that is plundering the entire world. To fight them we must take a clear stand against imperialism and racism and join hands with people all over the globe who are fighting the same enemy. Both the Republican and Democratic parties represent Wall Street, we have to fight for ourselves. As ILPS Chairperson, Prof. Jose Maria Sison, pointed out in his Keynote Address to the 4th International Assembly this past July, “The Democratic and Republican parties in the US compete as do Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola in flagrantly carrying out the policy dictates of the financial oligarchy and the military industrial complex. Both parties agree on raising the US debt ceiling. And to blunt public protests, they promise to bring down the public deficit, with the Democrats wishing to reduce the tax cuts for the corporations and upper class and the Republicans demanding the further reduction of government social spending.” Everyone on this planet has the right to a job, food, health care, education, a home and a peaceful life. The wealth is there! We created it! But to take it back, we must deepen our struggle, strengthen our unity and increase our organization and continue to fight!

A JOB IS A RIGHT! HEALTH CARE IS A RIGHT! EDUCATION IS A RIGHT! A HOME IS A RIGHT!

WE CAN GET THEM IF WE FIGHT!

DARE TO STRUGGLE, DARE TO WIN!

The International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) is an anti-imperialist and democratic united front of mass formations at the international, global region and national levels that represents the interests of the workers, peasants, indigenous peoples, youth and students, women, queer and questioning, the homeless, migrants and refugees. It brings together and coordinates the people’s organizations according to common multisectoral and sectoral interests and purposes. The ILPS initiates and launches mass campaigns and various types of activities and seeks the cooperation of other anti-imperialist and democratic forces and at the same time, it joins and supports their initiatives. For more information, or link up with us at http://ilps.info/joomsite/

The national youth group Anakbayan joins other progressive organizations and individuals in the Philippines today in expressing its solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement in the U.S, and the other ‘Occupy’ protests that have been launched across America and the world. We salute our members and chapters in New York City for being part of the hundreds of thousands in the OWS. We also hail our members and chapters in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Silicon Valley for taking part in the protests in their areas.

What is the significance of OWS to the Filipino people? First, it is the clearest symbol yet of the failure of globalization and capitalism to provide a decent existence to billions of people all over the world. In the land of the so-called ‘American Dream’, unemployment is at the highest in decades, social services suffer from budget cuts, while public funds are used to save bankrupt banks and other giant multinational and transnational corporations.

Capitalism is bound to fail because it is a system where a minority gets rich off the labor of the majority because the former owns the tools and machines used by the latter. However, due to the elites’ very monopoly of the wealth produced by the capitalist system, the latter is unable to purchase the very goods it produces. To save their system from collapse, capitalist governments have taken over many countries, either as colonies or semi-colonies, for their raw materials, cheap labor, and to create new markets for their surplus goods. It has even reached the point where war is now good business because it consumes products, or where billions of ‘fictitious’ dollars are created in the stock markets for capitalists’ profits.Yet even these measures have failed to save capitalism from itself and the U.S from its worst economic crisis in history.

Second, it has removed what little excuse Philippine president Noynoy Aquino has for advancing his pro-globalization, pro-foreign corporation, and anti-people agenda, which includes: constitutional amendments to allow foreign corporations further control over our economy and natural resources, budget cuts to education and other social services, allowing foreign corporations to exploit us through monopolies in oil and other vital industries, and rechanneling of public funds to the military and foreign debt payments.

Third, it has dealt a solid blow against the lie that there is no alternative, no better system than capitalism. It has now lead millions of people across the U.S and the world to seriously consider any alternatives to capitalism and globalization. Anakbayan urges OWS to intensify its struggles.

With every day that the Occupation continues in Wall Street and in other parts of the world, the lies of capitalism crumble more and more. Not only does it enlighten the American people, it also boosts the national liberation movements across the world today. Furthermore, we challenge OWS and other similar movements to now seriously consider alternatives to capitalism and to plan on how to achieve a more just and humane society.

Meanwhile, Anakbayan calls on the Filipino youth and people to bring our struggle for a more just and humane society to a new, higher level. The protests rocking the very heart of capitalism have removed any justifications to remain apathetic and accept the social status quo. There is no excuse for us Filipinos to remain silent any longer. And there has never been a better opportunity for the youth and oppressed masses of the world to overthrow U.S imperialist control and to establish a truly just and humane society in the ashes of the old.

People over profits!

Long live Occupy Wall Street!

Long live international solidarity between the youth and oppressed masses of the world!

No to corporate greed!

Dismantle the financial oligarchy!Down with U.S imperialism!

Struggle for national liberation and genuine democracy towards socialism!