On September 24, one day after the United Nations climate summit in New York once more failed to come up with any form of serious action to confront the climate crisis, Filipino socialist group Party of the Labouring Masses released the statement below.
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Philippines President Benigno Aquino concluded his United Nations speech in New York on September 23 by posing the question: What more can we do?
The question is rhetorical, even hypocritical, as the president well knows what needs to be done: to address the demands of the mass movements, which he has heard, but not heeded.
Philippines
When I was travelling from Manila to Australia, I bought a copy of a book to read on the plane. It was Dan Brown鈥檚 novel Inferno. Actually, when this book first hit the bookshops, the Philippines went crazy about a small part of the novel that referred to Manila as the 鈥済ate of hell鈥.
Sonny Melencio is chairperson of the Filipino Party of the Labouring Masses (PLM) and a former council member of Solidarity of Filipino Workers (BMP).
Melencio is also involved in a new coalition against the established 鈥減olitical dynasties鈥 in the Philippines, called Alliance for Truth, Integrity and Nationalism (ATIN).
The Manila Seedling Bank, a seven hectare area of small market gardens and big and small shops selling plants, was a rare green space among the traffic jams, shopping malls and slums on the intersection of Quezon and Edsa Avenues in Quezon City, Metro Manila.
It was also home to a community of hundreds of smallholding horticulturalists and their families. That was until January 20.
Residents in the urban poor settlement of San Dionisio in Barangay Cupang, Muntinlupa in Metro Manila, were woken on January 15 by a heavily armed police SWAT team.
Brandishing a local government order that referred to an address in a different barangay (neighbourhood), authorities overrode objections of residents and started tearing down their homes.
鈥淲hen we went out, it was like a Zombieland,鈥 Zoreen Agustin, a student at the University of the Philippines鈥 (UP) Tacloban campus told me on December 2.
鈥淎 lot of people were walking around, some with no shoes and their clothes all torn, a lot of people were covered in cuts.鈥
She was referring to what she saw after Tacloban, and much of the Eastern Visayas region, were demolished by Super Typhoon Yolanda (known as Typhoon Haiyan outside the Philippines) on November 8. The storm, one of the strongest on record to hit land, killed anywhere between 5000 and 10,000 people.
After the storm, the 鈥渟hock doctrine鈥. This is what awaits the Philippines after the devastation wrought by Typhoon Haiyan.
The familiar cycle of 鈥渄isaster capitalism鈥 allows wealthy and politically connected First World corporations to profit obscenely from the suffering of acutely vulnerable disaster-affected communities.
Disaster profiteering is a parasitic tendency deeply embedded in the structures of the neoliberal global economy. It will degrade and corrupt the international 鈥渞elief effort鈥 under way in the Philippines.
The People's Caravan is a grassroots relief effort initiated by , a Filipino party of the marginalised and poor.
A revealing story about the lawsuit against the United Nations over a cholera outbreak in Haiti was broadcast on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation鈥檚 The World At Six on November 13.
The report began: 鈥淭he United Nations is among those leading the effort to get aid to the Philippines. But even as it helps out with this natural disaster, it is haunted by the ghosts of another.鈥
Catastrophic climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions from industry is not merely a future threat for humanity. It is happening now.
When Super Typhoon Yolanda (known outside the Philippines by its Chinese name, Haiyan) slammed into the islands of Samar and Leyte in the Philippines鈥 Eastern Visayas region on November 8, and cut a path of destruction through the Visayas, it was the strongest storm ever recorded to hit the cyclone-prone Philippines.
According to some scientists, it was strongest storm to ever hit land anywhere on Earth.
鈥淲e have two Filipino traits -- Bayanihan, solidarity, community spirit, and Bahala na, daring, grit & luck,鈥 said Sonny Melencio, chairperson of the Party of the Labouring Masses (PLM). 鈥淭hese will guide our People鈥檚 Caravan.鈥
The People鈥檚 Caravan initiative is organised by the PLM (a national political party of the marginalised), the transport workers' union PMT and the Support Tado campaign (a networkt to support TV personality Tado Jimenez for elections in Marikina).
The statement below was released by the Party of the Labouring Masses, a Filipino party of the marginalised and poor. You can the PLM is part of organising.
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