Fraud in Philippine election protested

Activists representing many sectors of Philippine society and the movement for national democracy in the Philippines gathered at the Philippine consulate here May 17 to condemn widespread fraud in recent Philippine elections.

The protest was part of a coordinated national day of action called by the Malaya Movement, a U.S. Movement Against Killings and Dictatorship and for Democracy in the Philippines, which also saw actions in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Jersey City, Portland, Ore.,  and other cities to coincide with mass demonstrations in the Philippines.

Kontra Daya (Against Fraud, a Philippine election watchdog) reported numerous instances of fraud in the national general election that took place May 13, including failing vote-counting machines, vote buying and voter harassment. (kontradaya.org)

Under these fraudulent conditions, allies of U.S. puppet President Rodrigo Duterte won all 12 Senate seats up for election, according to unofficial results. Before the election, the Senate was the only remaining branch of the Philippine national government not entirely under Duterte’s control.

Since his 2016 election, Duterte has used his position to further U.S. imperial dominance of the Philippines, launch a drug war that has killed nearly 30,000 people (anakbayanusa.org), invoke martial law in the southern island of Mindanao and carry out numerous other anti-people policies.

Speakers giving militant remarks in Tagalog and English condemning the recent election fraud and Duterte’s anti-people policies were represented by the Malaya Movement, Migrante New York, GABRIELA NY, ANAKBAYAN, the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines, the National Lawyers Guild, BAYAN USA, the International Action Center, SPARC, and Harlem Solidarity and Defense.

They called for vigilance against Duterte’s next political moves, including Charter Change, which would remove presidential term limits to cement Duterte’s dictatorship and allow 100 percent foreign ownership of Philippine utilities and other institutions. The rally ended with a performance of Bayan Ko, a Philippine national song banned during a previous period of martial law in the Philippines imposed by Ferdinand Marcos in 1972.