Message on Video to the Founding Congress of Anakbayan-USA, May 18, 2012
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson, International League of Peoples’ Struggle
We, the International League of Peoples’ Struggle, wish to express militant greetings of solidarity to all the delegations in the Founding Congress of Anakbayan-USA and we congratulate the National Organizing Committee, all the Anakbayan chapters (in Seattle, Los Angeles, Sn Diego, Silicon Valley, New York, New Jersey and East Bay) and the LFS-San Francisco State University for successfully preparing and convening this congress.
We commend you for constituting yourselves as a nationwide mass organization in order to better coordinate your efforts at arousing, organizing, and mobilizing the Filipino youth in the USA, upholding, defending and promoting your rights here and supporting the Filipino youth and people in the motherland in their struggle for national liberation and democracy against the evil forces of foreign monopoly capitalism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism.
The theme of your congress is highly important and urgent: “Makibaka! Huwag Matakot! Unite and Strengthen the Filipino Youth Movement in the US to Advance the Struggle for National Democracy in the Philippines!” We are confident that the congress brings you to a new and higher level of unity and strength in terms of political consciousness, organizational consolidation and readiness to undertake campaigns.
The crisis of the world capitalist system keeps on worsening. The imperialist powers headed by the US and their monopoly banks and firms continue to impose the neoliberal economic policy on the world. They are ruthlessly and relentlessly exploiting and oppressing the proletariat and people. They use state terrorism to suppress the people’s resistance and wage wars of aggression to overpower countries assertive of independence and to expand economic territory.
You who are at the center of global capitalism increasingly suffer the pangs of unemployment, homelessness, low incomes, rising costs of education and soaring prices of basic commodities, repression, racial discrimination, religious bigotry and the growing manifestations of fascism. Your fellow youth in the motherland suffer far more than you do the rigors of global depression and the war of terror unleashed by the US.
The Filipino youth in the US and in the Philippines suffer from the exploitation and oppression engendered by US imperialism. You have a common cause in fighting US imperialism and its reactionary agents and in aiming for a fundamentally new and better social system. Anakbayan-USA and Anakbayan-Philippines can share basic principles, responsibilities and duties even as the conditions in the USA and the Philippine are different.
You are bound by your Filipino identity and dignity to be ever respectful of and ever caring for the motherland. Like your brothers and sisters in the Philippines, you must be inspired by the Philippine revolution. Aware of the far worse social conditions of the Filipino youth in the Philippines, you must always seriously consider the ways by which you can support them in the continuing struggle for national liberation and democracy against US imperialism and the exploiting classes of big compradors and landlords. You can support them programatically and in so many concrete ways whether you stay in the US or go to the Philippines on certain missions.
It is highly meaningful and very appropriate that you are holding your congress in Chicago in close connection with the struggle against the G8 and NATO. These monstrosities are responsible for policies and acts against the people of the world. The G8 is the main instrument of the US for imposing the neoliberal policy on the people of the world. The NATO is the strongest military instrument of the US in carrying out wars of aggression.
We are confident that your congress can achieve its objectives: to elect the Anakbayan-USA National Executive Committee; to adopt your Constitution and By-Laws; to approve your General Program of Action; to present Anakbayan-USA History & Highlights (2002-2012); and to celebrate and strengthen your unity through discussions and decision-making, cultural performances, and oath-taking.
We are certain that your congress will strengthen your resolve and will instruct you to arouse the Filipino youth throughout the US, expand and consolidate Anakbayan-USA and mobilize an increasing number of Filipino youth along the line of anti-imperialist and democratic struggle and militant support for the struggle of the Filipino youth and people for national liberation and democracy in the Philippines.
You have both the traditional and high-tech tools for arousing the Filipino youth in the US, meaning to say, for agitation, propaganda and education along the anti-imperialist and democratic line. You can avail of the internet and priorly existing Filipino organizations to determine where the Filipino youth are concentrated as students, workers, professionals and residents and to forward to them informative and educational materials via website or list serve. Subsequently, you can arrange the contacts and meetings to deepen common understanding.
Ten years ago, Anakbayan first arose in Seattle. And you now have several local chapters. We presume that after the founding of the nationwide organization, Anakbayan-USA, you would be in a far better position than ever before to organize many more local chapters in a systematic and accelerated way. Your elected National Executive Committee can direct and oversee the work of expansion and consolidation. The secret of successful organizing is the application of the mass line. You can trust and rely on your organizers and the masses that they organize because the organization in the first place upholds, defends and promote their rights and interests.
You must undertake campaigns on burning issues. You mobilize not only your own ranks but also allies and the still unorganized mass of Filipino youth. Without mobilizing the masses, an organization is liable to stagnate, shrink and disappear. Campaigns to inform and educate the youth, to recruit them into Anakbayan-USA and to make protests and demands through indoor meetings, rallies and marches result in the further growth and strengthening of your organization.
We hope that you strengthen your Filipino bonds and practical cooperation with Anakbayan-Philippines and the entire Filipino youth and also our international solidarity and cooperation with the youth of various nationalities in the US. You can contribute significantly to the advance of the anti-imperialist and democratic struggle of the youth and people of the world only if you link up and cooperate resolutely and militantly with the other youth within your reach in the Philippines, the US and elsewhere. ###
