KMU leader campaigns in USA on Philippine rights situation

MANILA, Philippines — While the administration of US President-elect Barack Obama assesses its relations with the Philippines, a militant labor leader started a speaking tour in the US to "update" Americans about the rights situation in the Philippines. Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) chairman Elmer Labog was scheduled to tour universities in the West Coast to "educate" Filipinos and Americans about the Philippines' plight. "Ka Bong speaks at a time of great political and economic repression in the Philippines," said Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) USA chairman and Los Angeles-based trade unionist Chito Quijano, in an article on the KMU website (www.kilusangmayouno.org). Bayan USA organized the speaking tour along with the Institute of East Asian Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. Quijano said the speaking engagements hope to prompt the Obama administration into cutting off aid to the Arroyo administration. "With the dawn of the Obama administration, it is even more imperative to educate Filipino-Americans and others in the US about the link between the US tax dollars and the human rights crisis in the Philippines. We must build a strong movement from the United States that will pressure the new administration to wash its hands of the bloody counter-insurgency operations of the Arroyo government in the Philippines by cutting all forms of aid," Quijano said. Bayan USA and its allies are urging Obama to withdraw aid to and relations with the Arroyo camp in the Philippines, as US support is viewed as largely responsible for the human rights crisis in the country. Labog is the first member of the KMU to enter the US since the country was under martial law, Bayan USA added. The KMU article said Labog started his tour in California on Nov. 15, and has participated in workers pickets, including a demonstration demanding back wages for workers at the Woodfin Suites Hotel in Emeryville, to the wide appreciation of unions in the US. He has also spoken to standing-room only audiences at churches and universities, such as Stanford, San Francisco State University, and UC Berkeley. Labog will conclude his trip with a speaking engagement at the Cuba/Venezuela/Mexico/North America Labor Conference-V in Tijuana, Mexico on December 5-7. - GMANews.TV