ILPS Condemns Coordinated US Police Attacks, Urges Intensification of Occupy Movement

THE Office of the Chairperson of the International Coordinating Committee (ICC) of the International League of Peoples' Struggle endorses the statement below which has been issued by ICC members in the US on November 17, 2011. We call on all ILPS national chapters and member-organizations throughout the world to circulate this statement and undertake further statements and actions to support the Occupy Movement in the US. Thank you.


KEEP IT IN THE STREETS! INTENSIFY THE FIGHT!

Dismantled Occupy Oakland Camp (RT.com photo)

TO OCCUPY IS THE PEOPLE’S RIGHT!

In Oakland and New York City, in Denver and Portland and Chapel Hill, N.C., the 1 percent sent their gun thugs to destroy the Occupy Movement. They want to scare us off the streets and back into the ballot box, beat us back into the good-cop, bad-cop game of the corporate-run Republican and Democratic parties. But behind the façade of electoral politics, the unelected tyrants on Wall Street continue to rule the country. It is they, not the people, who tell the politicians what to do.

The cowardly attacks by Wall Street’s mercenaries in blue were coordinated with the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That’s the same FBI whose COINTELPRO program murdered dozens of Black, Latino and Native activists in the ‘60s and ‘70s.


WHEN THE ENEMY ATTACKS YOU, YOU’RE DONG SOMETHING RIGHT

Along with their cops, the 1 percent have unleashed their media. “Enough,” say the billionaire-owned papers and TV stations. “You’ve made your point. Now go home and leave things to the politicians. You’re only the people. What do you think this is, a democracy?” But when the enemy attacks you, you know you’re doing the right thing.


HAS CORPORATE AMERICA STOPPED ATTACKING THE WORKING CLASS

Have the 1 percent stopped laying us off and attacking our wages and benefits? Have they stopped evicting us and foreclosing on our homes? Have they stopped firing teachers and bus drivers and hospital workers while they hoard trillions of dollars that we produced? Have they stopped plotting to gut our Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, our Postal Service, our schools and hospitals?

Have they stopped denying 30 million people the right to a decent job? Have they stopped denying millions the right to medical care. Have they stopped the mass incarceration of youth of color whose communities the banks and corporations have destroyed. Have they stopped waging bloody and unjust imperialist wars all over the world?


RT.com video on the first Occupy Wall Street fatality (she later had a miscarriage)



 

IF THERE IS NO STRUGGLE, THERE IS NO PROGRESS

The immortal words of Frederick Douglas are as true today as they were in 1857. Real change has never been made at the ballot box.

Look at the 1930s. How did we win Social Security and Medicare, the 8-hour day, unemployment insurance and the minimum wage, the right to retire and the right to organize, all the things they want to take away from us. Workers won these things by marching and striking, by occupying factories and physically blocking evictions, by shutting entire cities down.

Look at the 1960s. How did Black people win basic civil rights and overthrow the regime of legal segregation. By marches and boycotts, by sit-ins and rebellions in the streets. The right to vote was not won by voting.

These struggles were also victorious because they were part of a worldwide struggle against the power of monopoly capital.


POWER IS THE ONLY LANGUAGE THE 1 PERCENT UNDERSTAND

And we have power, the power to shut this country down! Oakland dockworkers, members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, showed the way when they shut the port down the port on Oct. 25 to protest the police assault on Occupy Oakland.


NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER!

The 1 percent want to take everything we have left. They won’t stop unless we stop them!

Now is not the time to retreat! It is time to intensify the fight! To occupy streets and parks-and factories and schools and shopping malls and banks and stock exchanges! Workers created the wealth of this country! Bankers didn’t! CEOs didn’t! Cops didn’t!


THEY DENY US THE RIGHT TO A SECURE JOB, TO A HOME, TO HEALTH CARE, TO EDUCATION AND TO LIVE IN PEACE AND EQUALITY! WE HAVE A RIGHT TO TAKE WHAT IS OURS!

SAVE THE DATE! BUILDING A BRIGHT FUTURE FOR THE GLOBAL 99%! MON 12/5/11 6:30 PM

INTERNATIONAL ACTION CENTER - SOLIDARITY CENTER -55 W. 17 St., Suite 5C -

New York, NY 10011 - Suggested Donation: $5-10


 (Reprinted with permission from Prof. Joma Sison)

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Source:

ILPS CONDEMNS COORDINATED US POLICE ATTACKS, URGES THE PEOPLE TO INTENSIFY THE FIGHT. Joma Sison;'s wall. https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150541180623066

Photo credit:

 http://rt.com/usa/news/occupy-oakland-camp-dismantled-305/


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WALKING HISTORY: We Did NOT Come from the Ita, Indones, nor Malay!

WE were taught in school that the Filipinos came from the Aetas, Indonesians and Malays who came here in different “waves of migrations” as hypothesized by archaeologist H. Otley Beyer.  The aetas came first from Borneo to Palawan through land bridges that appeared in Southeast Asia during the Ice Age.  Then, through boats, the Indonesians, then the Malays.  When this was first taught to me by my teacher in Grade 1, my beloved Ma’am Luz, I imagined aetas bringing sacks of land and were putting soil on their way as they walked on the sea to form the “land bridges.”  Far out.

Right photo - MT3 from Callao Cave,  oldest human remain from the Philippines to date  (Courtesy of Dr. Armand Mijares)

Left photo - Xiao Chua looks at skullcap of  the Tabon Cave Woman

Only when I went to the University of the Philippines Diliman and took my first history class under Prof. Carlos Tatel that I learned that as early as the 1970s, the Beyer theory was already challenged and most in the academe does not believe it anymore!  Although the aetas came here using land bridges, that’s the only verifiable thing from the theory. Shock.

The Austronesian-Speaking World (Courtesy of Dr. Peter Bellwood)

According to F. Landa Jocano, there were already people who evolved from here.  According to archaeologists, evidence can be found from stone tools left by the so-called Homo erectus philippinensis in a Cagayan Valley cave (500,000/250,000 BC) and the Homo sapiens in Novaliches (150,000 - 100,000 BC) as well as the human remains of a woman (skullcap and jaw) found in Tabon Cave of a homo sapiens sapiens (28,000 - 7,000/5,000 BC).  Dr. Armand Mijares and his team recently found what is now believed to be the oldest human remains in the country, a third metatarsal bone of a foot found in Callao Cave in Cagayan, that predates the Tabon Man, 67,000 years ago.

Xiao Chua with Wilhelm Solheim & Peter Bellwood

The 18th Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association (IPPA) Congress, NISMED Auditorium, UP Diliman, March 2006

But the group of ancestors who can culturally explain our race are what social scientists call the Austronesians.  Originally it is a term ascribed for the southern (from the Latin auster, south winds) island (from the Greek nêsos) language family that spread across Southeast Asia.  There are two competing hypothesis on the origin of the group of people that spoke these languages.  Wilhelm Solheim II, the father of Southeast Asian Archaeology believed that these people he called “Nusantao” came from the Sulu-Celebes area.  This is island origin hypothesis that theorizes that the peoples of Southeast Asia spread from the islands through networks of trade, intermarriages and migrations.

This was challenged by a younger archaeologist Peter Bellwood, who found different jade lingling-os or earrings across Southeast Asia with almost the same design, hinting that the Austronesians came “out of Taiwan” some 5,000 to 1,500 BC to the Philippine Islands.  In whatever case, the two theories can agree that the Filipinos were one of the first Austronesians and that, as I was told by Bellwood himself, a sophisticated maritime culture developed in these islands and with the use of outrigger canoes, the spread of people became possible in Southeast Asia, Oceania, New Zealand, Hawaii and as far as Easter Island in South America and Madagascar in Africa!

Caracoa, warship of the Austronesians, was the basis of ship shown in AMAYA.

Therefore, despite the 171 languages and culture in the Philippines, we can have a basis of unity through our base culture of our Austronesian speaking ancestors.

(as written)


(Reprinted with permission from Prof. Michael Charleston Briones Chua)

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Source:


Chua, Xiao. WALKING HISTORY: WE DID NOT COME FROM THE ITA, INDONES & MALAY,  
Good Morning Philippines. 9 November 2011




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In Support of the Egyptians vs. the US-backed Military Regime

by Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson
International League of Peoples’ Struggle
11 November 2011

THE International League of People’s Struggle (ILPS), with over 300 member- organizations from all regions of the world, conveys most militant greetings of solidarity and support to the Egyptian people on the occasion of the International Day to Defend their struggle for freedom, human rights and social justice on 12 November 2011.

We join the Egyptian people in condemning and fighting the gross and systematic violations of human rights rights by the US-backed military regime that has hijacked the victory of the Egyptian people in overthrowing the corrupt and authoritarian regime of Mohammed Hosni Mubarak who ruled Egypt for 30 years.

We support the people’s movement to stop the killings of activists and protesters, the incarceration of those who dare expose the repression and exploitation of the Egyptian people, the violence committed against Egyptian women, and the climate of fear and terror that the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) is spreading to snuff out the burning desire of the Egyptian people for fundamental changes.

The continuing stranglehold of the military on the Egyptian political system is directed by US imperialism to suppress the people’s movement that has surged in Egypt since January. The US is hell-bent on maintaining its neocolonial control of Egypt and preventing the uprising of the Egyptian people from turning into an anti-imperialist struggle.

Egypt has long been dominated by the US economically and militarily. It has been under a US puppet regime that plays a crucial role in the US-Zionist offensives against the Arab and Palestinian people. Since 1975, the US has poured in more than US$50 billion in the country to prop up and use the Mubarak regime as a despotic tool of US interests.

In this period when the people of Middle East and North Africa are rising up to assert national independence and democratic rights, the US is frantically trying to retain a new set of puppets in order to perpetuate control over the vast energy resources of the Middle East and Africa. Egypt is a strategically important US neocolonial base in the region.

The SCAF is dependent on US military support that runs at US $ 1.8 billion in the current year. It is directed by the US to conduct a campaign of suppression against the Egyptian people’s resistance. Both US imperialism and the persistent fascist Egyptian military regime are responsible for the bloody crimes against the people.





We are inspired by the courage of the Egyptian people in continuing the struggle for fundamental economic, social and political changes despite the tremendous odds. We urge them to persevere and intensify their struggle. Only through revolutionary struggle do they have a chance to overcome the escalating oppression and exploitation brought about by the worsening crisis of the world capitalist system.

It is necessary for the Egyptian people to link up their resistance with that of other peoples in the Middle East, Africa and the entire world. Through their concerted struggles, the peoples of the world can inflict powerful blows on the imperialist powers and the puppet regimes and aim for the realization of greater freedom, democracy, social justice, development and world peace.

We in the ILPS salute the heroic people of Egypt. We stand with you in your fight against the brutality of the US-directed military regime and for your national and social liberation from the scourge of imperialism and the local reactionary classes. You struggle is our struggle and your revolutionary advance is ours.###


(Reprinted with permission from Prof. Joma Sison)

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Sison, Joma. IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE EGYPTIAN PEOPLE AGAINST THE US-BACKED MILITARY REGIME. 11 Nov. 2011. http://www.josemariasison.org/?p=8913#more-8913


Photo credits: 

 https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBAo4unwHwW4fR2_SiiAz54AFd5T-LXajp4PhTxQhNS1T7CEtdzv9N5WtEJBEEmzYtXqS7Kh2bE59ikrXLUVbs2w6LGmmTYEVukOe-XrKnnpqDikVh4jnxLTDG4d3VQlZxqCwokCMGYrg/s1600/egjypt_i.jpg

http://gaza.haimbresheeth.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Obama-and-Mubarak.gif

 
Video from RT.com

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Death and (our) Beginnings

by Michael Charlestone Briones Chua


“LANGIT, LUPA, IMPIYERNO, IM-IM-IMPIYERNO" was a popular game that we played as kids.  Years ago, I suddenly wondered why we teach this to kids when it describes violence, “saksak puso, tulo ang dugo!”  Imagine.


But it describes our Christian Worldview and our belief in the afterlife.  Note that although we have indigenous terms for heaven (langit) and earth (lupa), we borrowed the European term “inferno.”  This means that before Catholicism, our ancient Filipinos had no concept of a place of eternal suffering.  As it was explained to me by Dr. Zeus Salazar, “langit” for them is the place of the “bayani,” the rest goes to the underworld which is not really a bad place.

How to get to the afterlife?  Expert interpretations of archaeological artifacts based on oral traditions can help explain this.

Many of our Austronesian ancestors bury their dead in burial jars such as those found in the Tabon Cave Complex, Palawan in 1964.  Archaeologists classify these jars as primary burial jars, where they place the whole corpse, to secondary burial jars, smaller ones where they place bones.


One of the secondary burial jars found there was the Manunggul Jar, dated as far back to the Neolithic Period, about 710 B.C.  Described by Dr. Robert Fox as “the work of an artist and master potter,” its design became part of the reverse side of our soon to be demonetized 1,000.00 bill.  The two figures riding a boat reflect the effect of the Ancient Filipinos’ already sophisticated maritime culture to their worldview as studied by Dr. Bernadette Abrera:  the “kaluluwa,” accompanied by an “abay” (companion) goes to the afterlife passing by the sea.
 
In many oral traditions, the “kaluluwa” goes back to the world to guide the living people and return in nature:  in trees, mountains, rivers, rock and soil formations (the aetas call Mt. Pinatubo Apo Namalyari or the Lord who can make things possible, and the “nuno sa punso”).  That’s why design of the Manunggul Jar shows us not two “kaluluwas” but three:  The dead person, the “abay” and the boat, all of which had faces.  This is the reason why our ancestors had so much respect for the environment not as dead things but creatures with life and soul, the home of their ancestors.

Some believe that these jars are so important people bring them every time they migrate.  When they started settling down, they eventually buried their dead in soil, but as found in a Batanes gravesite, the marker stones formed a boat shape.  In Cordillera, coffins were boat-shaped.  All these make one wonder if the word “bangkay” has something to do with “bangka.”

This All Saints Day, let us remember how we Filipinos treat death with style then and now.  Then, we stay awake all night, “lamay,” because the aswang might come and eat our loved one, and replace the corpse with a puno ng saging.  So although we grieve, we also sing the virtues of the dead (Ilocano dung-aw as studied by Dr. Lars Ubaldo), and we gamble (saklaan fund-raising for those left behind).  Wakes become family reunion as we help each other cope with loss and remember happy memories our loved one left us, then we laugh.  What a happy colorful people we are.


(Reprinted with permission from Mr. Michael Charlestone Briones Chua)


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Source:

Chua, Michael, Charlestone Briones. Death and (our) Beginnings. 26 October 2011. https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150376419523622


Reposts are licensed to the respective authors. Otherwise, posts by Jesusa Bernardo are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Philippines.

Ang Pagtingin ng Ama ng Pantayong Pananaw sa tumukoy sa wikang P/Filipino bilang "language of the streets"

Pinagsamang lathain nila Dok Zeus Salazar,  Michael Charleston Briones Chua, at Jesusa Bernardo

Dahil marami ang nagtatanong kung ano ang masasabi ng isa sa pangunahing tagapagtaguyod ng Wikang Filipino sa hindi lang sa akademya kundi para sa bayan upang makabuo ng isang talastasang bayan ukol sa artikulo ni James Soriano sa Manila Bulletin ukol sa Wikang Ingles sa Pilipinas, aking pinapaskil sa facebook ang pakikipagtalastasan sa akin ni Dr. Zeus A. Salazar

Dok Zeus Salazar, historyador, antropologo, guro, at Ama ng Pantayong Pananaw

Photo Art: JB

Ang James bang ito ay yung nagsulat sa Inquirer (sic) tungkol sa kanyang pagiging Inglesero (kung papaano siya naging Inglesero at kung papaano niya napagtanto na mas malalim ang Pilipino, di tulad ng pagkakaalam niya sa simula; ngunit nasisiyan pa rin siya na siya ay Inglesero dahil ito ang karaniwang landas tungo sa tagumpay sa ating lipunan ngayon, sa ngayon)? May katotohanan itong huling bahagi at nakita ito ng kanyang nanay na nagdril sa kanya mula sa pagkabata upang siya ay maging Inglesero [bagamat hindi talaga sapat ang kanyang kaalaman sa wikang Ingles, tulad ng makikita sa napakaraming Inglesero at nagpapaka-Inglesero, laluna yung mga nasa Konggreso; "debater" daw siya kaya malamang na kinagaya niya ang punto ng Kano o baka Ingles pa, na hindi garantiya na gagap niya ang balarila ng Anglo-Amerikano]. Ang nakainis siguro sa iyo ay nilait pa niya ang wikang Tagalog/P/filipino dahil sa kanyang palagay ito ay wikang lansangan lamang at hindi wika ng edukasyon [may katotohan ito sa pangkalahatan hanggang ngayon at ito nga ang ating kinakabaka hanggang ngayon at sa palagay ko tayo ay magtatagumpay, sa simpleng dahil na ang wikang pambansa ay wika nga ng lansangan (ibig sabihin, ng Bayan) kung kaya't hindi na maiiiwasan na maging wika ng buong sistema ng edukasyon, bagay na makikita sa kasalukuyang islogan ng buwan ng wika; ang kailangan lang ay ang patuloy at masinsinang pakikibaka] at hindi rin wikang intelektuwal [ang dahilan nito ay marahil dalawa: ang una, wala siyang alam sa mga nakasulat sa P/filipino at Tagalog, bagay na hindi nakapagtataka dahil sa pangyayaring nakatuon (itinuon ng kanyang nanay dahil sa carrierismo) ang kanyang pansin at punyagi sa Ingles at sa kulturang Anglo-Amerikano (samakatuwid iyon ang pinag-aksayahan ng panahon para magtagumpay sa lipunang Inglesero ng Kasalukuyan); ang pangalawa, hindi siya mismo isang intelektuwal (dahil ang isang tunay na intelektuwall ay interesado sa lahat, sa iba't ibang wika at kultura at sa sarili niyang (mga) wika at kalinangan at kabihasnan). May katiting siyang pagka-intelektuwal dahil sa napuna niya naman ang mga katangian ng sariling wika, hindi man niya ito ginagamit liban sa pakikipag-usap di-umano sa mga katulong, drayber, atbp.; tulad ng dating lakad-patong dating Miss Universe na si Gloria Diaz na pagkatapos ay natutong masinsinang magsalita ng Tagalog dahil naging aktres simula nang naging "Pinakamagandang Hayo[?] sa Balat ng Lupa" ni Vic Vargas. Sa ganito, mas intelehente pa siya sa kanyang sa wari'y katoto na si Sergio Apostol; ang bentahe niya rito ay mas bata pa siya at may pag-asa pang matuto at magbago. Batid na niya ang kadakilaan ng wikang atin; nais niya lang magtagumpay sa kasalukuyang lipunan ng Ingleserong elit.

Tagalog marahil si James; "miseducated" lang sa wari sa sentido ni Constantino (na sa kabila ng lahat ng kanyang anti-amerikanismo ay nagsulat ng halos lahat ng kanyang akda sa Ingles, pinasalin niya lang ang ilan, bagamat Tagalog siyang malapit sa bayang kinagisnan ni Balagtas); tila naman hindi siya katulad ni DUA BALABAL ng SOAS daw at ng City University of London, isang Tagalog din, na ngayon ay nasa Latvia (?) na raw -- ipinagtanggol niya, tulad ng alam ninyo ni Atoy, ang Ingles sa pamamagitan ng internasyunalismo. Hindi rin s katulad si James ng ilang di-Tagalog na ipinagtatanggol ang kanilang pagiging Inglesero sa pamamgitan ng kanilang wikang etniko na kadalasan ay hindi na nila talagang gagap (si Apostol ay ganito). Ipinapahayag ni James ang kanyang "miseducation" (maling pagkapalaki) sa wikang Ingles at tanto at batid niya ang importansya ng wikang pambansa; kailangan lang kasi ng maraming umangat sa buhay na makibagay sa kasalukuyang lipunang Inglesero. Ingat.

--Dok Zeus Salazar

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Pinagkunan:

Chua, Michael Charleston Briones. SI ZEUS SALAZAR UKOL KAY JAMES SORIANO, 30 Agosto 2011. https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150298615343622

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Nota ni Jesusa Bernardo:

Ang James Soriano na tinutukoy ay nagsulat ng artikulong nakakabahala at masasabing nagiinsulto sa wikang Filipino bilang "language of the streets." Wika daw ng kalye ang ating wika, samantalang ang wikang Ingles daw ay wika ng kaalaman.

Kung si Ka Tony Donato, isang komersyal na alagad ng sining at dating mananaliksik ng National Historical Commission ang tatanungin, siguradong sasabihin niyang si James Soriano ay isang "pusang tumatahol." Lol. Ako naman iba ang sasabihin ko diyan dahil malamang ay isang mestizo si James Soriano kaya masasabing isa siyang hybrid ng pusa (Filipino) at aso (Westerner) na mas gustong tumahol kaysa ngumiyaw.

Sabagay, umamin naman itong si James Soriano na "split-level Filipino" siya, na "disconnected" siya sa pagiging Pilipino, sa identidad bilang mamamayan ng, at lahing mula sa, ating bansang Pilipinas. Sa huli, sinabi niyang ang wikang P/Filipino ay maaring maging wika ng kaalaman nguni't hindi ng mga nakapagaral. Ang basa ko dito ay nakikita niya ang katotohanan na sa kasalukuyan, ang ating sariling wika ay ginagamit ng wasto o lubos sa ating sistemang pang-edukasyon. Sabi nga ni Dok Zeus Salazar ay kailangan pa ng maiging pakikibago para makamit ito. 


Ang tanong ko dito ay bakit ba kailangang ipinaglalaban pa ang ating wika upang mangibabaw ito? Bakit ang ating sariling wika ang dehado samantalang tayo ay nandito sa ating sariling lupa at hindi sa lupain ng imperyalistang Kalbong Agila o ng puting bakang Espana? Hindi ba dapat na ang ating sariling wika ang nananaig? Matagal na tayong malaya sa mga puting mananakop, hindi ba?

Ang mga katulad ni James Soriano ay nakikita, nararamdaman, at naiintindihan ang katotohanan na ang wikang Ingles, imbes na ang wikang P/Filipino, ang wika ng may kapangyarihan o impluwensya sa bayang ito. Maraming nagalit sa pang-insulto niya sa ating wika nguni't ano ba ang puno't dulo nito?  Hindi si James Soriano kundi ang sistemang pinaiiral ng mga 'tumatahol, hindi ngumingiyaw' na mga elit ang ugat nito. Iyan ang ating puntiryahin, ang ating bigyang lunas.


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Ang  sipi ng Agosto 24, 2011 na artikulo nitong si James Soriano ay tinanggal na daw* sa Manila Bulletin dahil sa hindi magandang tugon ng mga mambabasa kabilang sa internet ay matatagpuan dito: 

http://www.pinoymoneytalk.com/james-soriano-column-filipino-language/

Language, learning, identity, privilege

By JAMES SORIANO
 August 24, 2011, 4:06am

MANILA, Philippines — English is the language of learning. I’ve known this since before I could go to school. As a toddler, my first study materials were a set of flash cards that my mother used to teach me the English alphabet.

My mother made home conducive to learning English: all my storybooks and coloring books were in English, and so were the cartoons I watched and the music I listened to. She required me to speak English at home. She even hired tutors to help me learn to read and write in English.

In school I learned to think in English. We used English to learn about numbers, equations and variables. With it we learned about observation and inference, the moon and the stars, monsoons and photosynthesis. With it we learned about shapes and colors, about meter and rhythm. I learned about God in English, and I prayed to Him in English.

Filipino, on the other hand, was always the ‘other’ subject — almost a special subject like PE or Home Economics, except that it was graded the same way as Science, Math, Religion, and English. My classmates and I used to complain about Filipino all the time. Filipino was a chore, like washing the dishes; it was not the language of learning. It was the language we used to speak to the people who washed our dishes.

We used to think learning Filipino was important because it was practical: Filipino was the language of the world outside the classroom. It was the language of the streets: it was how you spoke to the tindera when you went to the tindahan, what you used to tell your katulong that you had an utos, and how you texted manong when you needed “sundo na.”

These skills were required to survive in the outside world, because we are forced to relate with the tinderas and the manongs and the katulongs of this world. If we wanted to communicate to these people — or otherwise avoid being mugged on the jeepney — we needed to learn Filipino.

That being said though, I was proud of my proficiency with the language. Filipino was the language I used to speak with my cousins and uncles and grandparents in the province, so I never had much trouble reciting.

It was the reading and writing that was tedious and difficult. I spoke Filipino, but only when I was in a different world like the streets or the province; it did not come naturally to me. English was more natural; I read, wrote and thought in English. And so, in much of the same way that I learned German later on, I learned Filipino in terms of English. In this way I survived Filipino in high school, albeit with too many sentences that had the preposition ‘ay.’

It was really only in university that I began to grasp Filipino in terms of language and not just dialect. Filipino was not merely a peculiar variety of language, derived and continuously borrowing from the English and Spanish alphabets; it was its own system, with its own grammar, semantics, sounds, even symbols.

But more significantly, it was its own way of reading, writing, and thinking. There are ideas and concepts unique to Filipino that can never be translated into another. Try translating bayanihan, tagay, kilig or diskarte.

Only recently have I begun to grasp Filipino as the language of identity: the language of emotion, experience, and even of learning. And with this comes the realization that I do, in fact, smell worse than a malansang isda. My own language is foreign to me: I speak, think, read and write primarily in English. To borrow the terminology of Fr. Bulatao, I am a split-level Filipino.

But perhaps this is not so bad in a society of rotten beef and stinking fish. For while Filipino may be the language of identity, it is the language of the streets. It might have the capacity to be the language of learning, but it is not the language of the learned.

It is neither the language of the classroom and the laboratory, nor the language of the boardroom, the court room, or the operating room. It is not the language of privilege. I may be disconnected from my being Filipino, but with a tongue of privilege I will always have my connections.

So I have my education to thank for making English my mother language.

*Subali't mukhang naibalik, dito sa MB.com na URL na ito: http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/331851/language-learning-identity-privilege





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Condemning the Bald Eagle's TPPA scheme to further control Trans-Pacific Trade

by Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson
International League of Peoples’ Struggle
30 October 2011


THE International League of Peoples’ Struggle resolutely condemns the drive of the US government and its monopoly capitalists to realize the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) as a scheme to impose their power over trade and investment flows. This would aggravate the exploitation of the working people and the environment as a way of raising superprofits and seeking to cope with the grave economic, social and economic crisis.

The TPPA was initiated by the Bush regime. Since March 2010, negotiations have been proceeded, with the objective of creating a legally-binding free trade agreement for the Asia-Pacific region. Right now, the TPPA talks involve nine countries – the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Brunei, Peru, Chile, Viet Nam, Malaysia and Singapore. Japan is poised to join. The USA has free trade agreements (FTAs) with four of the nine countries.

The TPPA is conceived of as an economic dimension of the growing US confrontation with China. This is a confrontation which is a growing danger to world peace. Peoples’ organizations in the nine countries covered by the TPPA have therefore agreed to expose and oppose the callous and unjust demands of the US corporations and the US Trade Representative regarding the TPPA.

At first, the talks on the TPPA advanced when the US delegation put forward specific text, revealing that the entire TPPA process is US-driven. Delays arose when the US Trade Representative waited for the FTAs of the US with Colombia, Panama and South Korea to be ratified by the US Congress.


What are the objectives of the US corporations in the TPPA?

These are: 1) to subordinate the health and medicines policies of all other countries to the demands of giant US pharmaceutical companies, including the extension of patent rights to allow the charging of higher prices for a longer period, and restrictions on the right of governments to control prices for medicines; 2)to require that all government procurement be open to US corporations – no local content or local training polices; 3) to require that all media policies that support local cultural content be abolished, allowing complete domination by US media corporations; 4) to impose US copyright law on all other countries – greatly extended copyright and royalty payments which greatly favour US corporations; 5) to make internet service providers criminally liable for any copyright piracy on their networks; and 6) to demand tariff-free access for US exports into all markets, while limiting corresponding access to US markets.


What would be the result?

This neo-liberal over-reach by the giant US corporations would deliver a disastrous blow on jobs, health, and freedom of communications and information in the entire Asia-Pacific region.

The just response to these outrageous dictates of US monopoly capitalism is for the people to mobilize themselves and and protest! And the people’s protests have taken place in Auckland New Zealand, Chicago and Peru, three of the sites of negotiating rounds.

The people’s campaign has been effective. The initial objective was for the TPPA deal to be signed by November 2011, and unveiled at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leader Summit in Honolulu as the blueprint for all member economies, including most of the ASEAN nations, Russia and China. But now that won’t happen.

Instead some kind of progress report may be given to APEC and then talks will proceed into 2012. The opposition of trade union, health and media sectors to the US corporations in the US itself and in other countries has delayed this obnoxious scheme. The ILPS is determined to work vigorously in cooperation with other forces in order to expand and intensify the people’s protest movement against the TPPA.###

(Reprinted with permission from Mr. Joma Sison)

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Source:

Sison, Jose Maria. ILPS CONDEMNS TPPA AS US SCHEME TO FURTHER CONTROL TRANS-PACIFIC TRADE. 30 October 2011. http://www.josemariasison.org/?p=8858#more-8858


Photo credits:

http://www.nznotforsale.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/WebPix-Teach-in-and-Strategy-Gathering-300x109.png

http://www.nznotforsale.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/As-Pos-No-TPPA.png
http://external.ak.fbcdn.net/safe_image.php?d=AQCt63Q8MwFGCX4g&url=http%3A%2F%2F3.bp.blogspot.com%2F-PPNVUSKxTNM%2FTm7eFWvXPxI%2FAAAAAAAAABg%2FXUAp5u8NyTM%2Fs320%2Fphoto-tpp%2Bprotest.jpg



Reposts are licensed to the respective authors. Otherwise, posts by Jesusa Bernardo are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Philippines.

Pakikiramay kay Manuel "Ka Nonong" Alabado, Unyonista

Ni Jose Maria Sison at Julieta de Lima (Ka Joma at Ka Julie)

Taos puso kaming nakikiramay sa pamilya ni Manuel (Ka Nonong) Alabado sa kanyang pagpanaw. Nagdadalamhati tayo sa pagkawala ng isang minamahal subalit ipinagbubunyi natin ang lahat ng mabuting gawa hindi lamang para sa pamilya kundi para sa sambayanang Pilipino.

Makabuluhan ang buhay ni Ka Nonong dahil sa matapat at puspusang paninilbihan niya sa uring manggawa at sambayanang Pilipino. Wala pag-iimbot na nag-alay at nag-ambag siya sa kilusang paggawa at kilusang pambansa demokratiko sa abot ng kanyang kakayahan.

Nakasama namin si Ka Nong sa pakikibaka. Ipinagmamalaki namin at lahat ng makamabayan at progresibo ang kanyang katapatan, kasigasigan at walang takot na pagkilos. Mahusay na ginampanan niya ang kanyang mga tungkulin kahit na ano ang mga kahirapan, mga panganib at kalupitan ng kaaway, laluna sa panahon ng pasistang diktadura ni Marcos.

Sa dekada ng sesenta, madalas na magpunta sa bahay namin si Ka Nonong para pag-usapan ang gawain sa kilusan at para maghanda ng mga plakard at iba pang kailangan para sa mga rali at aklasan. Malapit siya kay Ka Arthur Garcia na unang nakakilala at nagpaunlad sa kanya bilang kabataang makabayan at unyonista.

Matatag at militante si Ka Nonong sa pagkilos bilang opisyal ng unyon na itinatag ng Kabataang Makabayan sa US Tobacco Corporation. Isa siyang ulirang lider manggagawa sa matinding tunggalian ng uri at mahabang aklasan sa USTC. Gayundin sa pagtulong sa pagbubuo at pagpapaunlad ng mga unyon sa iba pang pabrika tulad ng Manila Cordage at San Miguel Brewery.

Sa ikalawang Kongreso ng Kabataang Makabayan noong 1966, iginawad sa kanya ang pagkilala bilang matatag at militanteng aktibista. Naging kasapi siya ng Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas dahil sa kanyang mataas na kamalayan at magsigasig na pagkilos bilang isang rebolusyonaryong proletaryo.

Mahalaga ang kanyang ambag sa muling pagtatatag ng Partido sa liwanag ng Marxism-Leninismo-Maoismo at sa pagbubuo ng sangay ng Partido sa pabrika at sa komunidad.

Madalas din siyangg kasama sa pagtatanggol sa pamunuan ng Partido sa mga pagpupulong at mahahalagang pakikipag-ugnayan sa iba pang pwersa.

Ang mga ambag ni Ka Nonong sa demokratikong rebolusyon ng bayan at sa sosyalistang hinaharap ay hindi kailanman maglalaho. Bahagi na ito ng laging lumalaki at lumalakas ng kilusan ng uring manggagawa at sambayanang Pilipino para sa pambansang kalayaan, demokrasya at sosyalismo. Mananatili sa ala-ala ng bayan ang maningning na pamana ni Ka Nonong. ###

(May pagpayag ng pagsipi/paglimbag mula kay Ka Joma Sison)

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Pinagkunan:

Sison, Jose Maria at de Lima, Julieta. PAKIKIRAMAY SA PAMILYA NI MANUEL (KA NONONG) ALABADO. http://www.josemariasison.org/?p=8855#more-8855


Hilaw na Larawan mula sa:

 (AP). http://www.daylife.com/photo/0er74bP8rF94A?q=Ferdinand+Marcos



Reposts are licensed to the respective authors. Otherwise, posts by Jesusa Bernardo are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Philippines.