Anakbayan LA: Strengthening the Filipino Youth Movement in 2012
Advance the struggle for national democracy in the Philippines
by Eric Tandoc, Chairperson, Anakbayan Los Angeles
Since its founding in 2005, Anakbayan Los Angeles has grown in strength and expanded across Southern California. As an overseas chapter of the nationwide comprehensive youth organization in the Philippines, Anakbayan LA continues to educate, organize, and mobilize Filipino youth to address the issues affecting our community. At the same time, we organize to advance the struggle for genuine freedom in the Philippines.
We understand that we wouldn’t be in the US in the first place if it weren’t for the root problems in Philippine society that caused our parents’ migration. We live in the belly of the US imperialist beast that keeps our people oppressed and exploited. Even as overseas Filipinos, we have an important role to play in working to change the situation back home. We are an integral part of the people’s movement in our motherland to replace the current corrupt system that is dominated by the wealthy elite with one that is truly democratic and run by the working people for the benefit of the majority of the population.
In the past year, Anakbayan LA achieved many victories in expanding and consolidating our membership and community work. Our membership grew by 50% and we gained members reaching as far as the Inland Empire, Orange County, West LA, San Fernando Valley, and the South Bay. As a result, we now have members at UCLA, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, and Carson High School.
In our education work, we held monthly educational discussions on current issues, Filipino migration to the US, Philippine Society and Revolution, and the Struggle for National Democracy. We also conducted a monthly workshop series at Carson High School called Bridging the Gap as well as several presentations on college campuses. In the fall, we also conducted a Community Organizing workshop with UCLA’s Samahang Pilipino. We recently helped to facilitate a workshop on the “Qualities of a Leader” as part of the Long Beach Rising leadership training program, which brought together a broad range of local community activists and organizers.
The most direct form of education work last year was achieved through sending several of our members on exposure trips to the Philippines, where they integrated with the basic masses of workers, peasants, and urban poor. We were hosted by the Anakbayan National Executive Committee and got to learn first-hand how organizing is done in campuses and communities. We also had the benefit of participating in educational discussions facilitated by the Anakbayan leadership. These studies emphasized our responsibility as the organization at the forefront of the youth movement to step up our level of work and continuously integrate with and fight for the most oppressed and exploited sectors of society. We also learned of the need to build broader alliances and spread wider awareness of the national democratic line and program, while building the international anti-imperialist movement with other communities and people’s movements. Upon returning from the Philippines, our members were fired up and spread the inspiration to the rest of the membership.
We stepped up our local campaign work in taking on the California Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, Long Beach Hyatt and Hilton Hotel Workers’ Boycott, and initiated a student survey at Carson High School as a first step to address problems felt by the students. We also supported nurses strikes at the Long Beach Memorial Hospital and the Sunset-Vermont Kaiser Permanente hospital in Los Angeles. Our cultural work further developed, as we continued to integrate campaign and social issues into the creation of our music and videos. Songs such as “Justice 4 Melissa” call for justice for the victims of human rights violations, especially the 2009 abduction and torture of our fellow community organizer and poet, Melissa Roxas. This year, we are focusing on strengthening the campaign for human rights as well as the campaign for US Troops Out the Philippines.
In 2012, Anakbayan LA will further expand and consolidate its membership to strengthen the Filipino youth movement in Southern California and across the US. We are calling upon all Filipino youth to learn about the ongoing struggle for national democracy (national liberation and genuine democracy) in the Philippines. Most importantly, we invite all Filipino youth to participate in advancing our people’s struggle towards victory by joining Anakbayan.
As the pioneer Filipino revolutionary Jose Maria Sison said, “A nation that does not renew itself through progressive-minded and militant youth cannot possibly advance. A world of timid and apathetic youth merely feed all the regimes of injustice and exploitation with a constant flow of manpower for exploited labor and cannon fodder for unjust wars. Only through militant struggle can the best in the youth emerge.”
