TORONTO, CA | 25 September – Today leaders from the
Philippines held a press conference in Toronto ahead of the
Kapit Bisig conference and the 5th global assembly of the
International Coalition of Human Rights in the Philippines
(ICHRP) to brief the public on the urgent human rights and
intensifying of the Filipino people and their
resources.
“Pax Silica is not just a mere trade
agreement, but an agreement that has economic, political,
and security implications for the Philippines,” shared Liza
Maza. “The United States has made rare earth minerals a
national concern because they see the future as a future of
microchips to produce high technology warfare.”
Liza
Maza, two-time Philippine parliamentarian with the Makabayan
block, founder of the International Women’s Alliance and
chair emerita of Gabriela, speaks on the harms of Pax Silica
and the urgent need for international
solidarity.
Speakers included:
- Reverand
Patricia Lissen of ICHRP Canada - Liza Maza, president
of the progressive Philippine political party
Makabayan, - Danilo “Ka Daning” Ramos, chairperson of
the largest alliance of peasants and farmworkers in the
Philippines – Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas
(KMP).
All three speakers raised alarm bells
regarding Canadian mining in the Philippines, and unequal
trade deals led by the United States, namely the
multilateral “Pax Silica” critical mineral agreement (of
which Canada is currently listed as an “observer”). Pax
Silica is described by the Trump administration’s State
Department as their flagship policy to develop Artificial
Intelligence and support the Silicon Valley tech supply
chain.
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Maza particularly expressed how these AI-supply
chain projects have dire impacts on communities in the
Philippines. “Already, displacements are happening. They
were given notices to vacate the areas.” Maza added that,
“the people are really afraid that basic needs like
electricity and water will become more expensive when Pax
Silica comes, not to mention the environmental
impacts.”
“I’d like the stress the point that from our
position in the Philippines, among the indigenous sector,
land should be distributed for the tillers and not for Pax
Silica,” shared Danilo Ramos of KMP. “Foreign direct
investment is not the way for our development, only genuine
agrarian reform and national industrialization will lead to
development.”
These concerns were closely linked with
increasing militarization of the Philippine countryside by
the U.S.-funded Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). As
world leaders like Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S.
President Donald Trump deepen military and economic ties
with the Philippine government through deals like Pax
Silica, the Canadian Status of Visiting Forces Agreement,
and the upcoming Canada-Philippines Free Trade Agreement, it
is urgent that communities and human rights activists around
the world expose the impact on the Philippines, and migrant
communities in countries like the U.S. and Canada.
“We
cannot listen, express sympathy, and then leave [our
Philippine partners] to carry the burden alone,” shared Rev.
Patricia Lissen. “Our responsibility in Canada is to listen,
and then to act. Canada should pause further military
agreements.”
On September 25-26, hundreds of advocates
and organizations from around the world will convene in
Toronto to discuss the dire political and economic crisis in
the Philippines and how allies can come together in
solidarity. Attendees will include churches, unions,
lawyers, solidarity groups, and a number of prominent
activists traveling from the Philippines.
Canada is
home to nearly one million Filipinos, a community that has
been forced to migrate overseas because of US-led war,
plunder, corruption, and blatant state fascism in the
Philippines and are still directly impacted by the
conditions in their homeland. The Kapit Bisig conference
will also serve as an opportunity to connect the urgent
local issues and organizing efforts of the Filipino diaspora
to the global solidarity movement for the
Philippines.
