About 30 students, faculty and and Long Beach community members gathered Tuesday night to learn about the current political climate in the Philippines.
The Let’s Talk Peace forum, which took place in the Cal State Long Beach Anatol Center, focused on the Philippines’ long term struggle for independence and peace talks.
Speaker Eric Tandoc explained that the purpose of the forum was to raise awareness about human rights and independence of the Philippines. He said that ever since the Philippines were sold by Spain in 1898 for $20 million to the United States, the country has undergone a neo-colonization by the U.S..
“For the Philippines to assert independence and finally have its own country that is economically, politically, militarily, socially and culturally independent, it would have a big impact on U.S. power in the Asian Pacific,” Tandoc said.
The forum sought to educate students about the Philippines’ history, from Spanish colonization to current issues which continue to stifle the country, such as widespread poverty and rampant government corruption.
It started with a three-minute video on the background of the U.S.’s acquisition of the Philippines, then explained the conflicts between the extremely impoverished working class peasants and the wealthy top 1 percent that have plagued the islands. Tandoc explained that around fourteen families claim most of the wealth in the country.
However, many Filipinos became politically active and have mobilized their own rebel militia groups against the funded army of the wealthy families and corrupt government.
In 1969, the New People’s Army was founded as an armed rebel group of the Communist Party of the Philippines to protect the working class people’s interests. Although the U.S. and European Union have classified them as a terrorist group, the government of the Philippines has now delisted them as a terrorist group in effort to reignite peace talks throughout the region.
Tandoc emphasised that the NPA is not a terrorist organization or a rebel group, but can be seen as a second government to the Philippines. It provides schools for children, enforces taxes on all levels of government officials and work to unite the working class people for a better country.
Foreign businesses have taken advantage of the Philippines’ many resources, which has resulted in destroyed environments and forceful relocation of indigenous people. The U.S. military bases are unpopular among indigenous people because they also damage ocean environment while callously using the country for strategic military purposes because of it’s location in the South China Sea.
At the end of the discussion, there was a short Q&A as Tandoc began to wrap up the meeting, which went over time. Six people gathered in the front of the podium to sing a popular Filipino revolutionary song, “When the War is Over.”