Rites for hero Graciano Lopez Jaena turn into call for justice (tags)
The Echo Park Community Coalition (EPCC) News learned today that the annual rites commemorating the 153rd birth anniversary of Ilonggo patriot Graciano Lopez Jaena in Iloilo City, in the island of Panay echoed a call for justice for 31 journalists who were murdered in Ampatuan, Maguindanao. Graciano Lopez Jaena was known to be an orator but he was also a writer. “If he were alive today, Graciano Lopez Jaena would be part of the ‘endangered species’—journalists being killed with impunity,” said Demy Sonza, former Iloilo vice governor and head of the Dr. Graciano Lopez Jaena Foundation Inc. “But he would have fought hard, uncowed by threats,” said Sonza. Sonza said Lopez Jaena offered an inspiration for Filipino journalists “to remain vigilant, stand up for what is right and expose what is wrong” like what the patriot did in his lifetime.
The anniversary of the death of the Philippines' national hero Jose Rizal this Dec. 30 affords us the occasion to reassess his work, particularly in the context of ongoing fierce class war in the Philippines between the oppressed, impoverished majority and the few privileged landlords and politicians bought by global capital. This is taking place at a time when the Philippines is being re-colonized by the U.S. as the world's imperialist hegemon. Would Rizal want the country partitioned to greedy transnational corporations and their national elites in the current terrorist war against peoples of color in particular? These reflections hope to provoke a re-thinking of what it means to be a Filipino with the Philippines in permanent crisis, using Rizal as a point of departure, especially in the light of its citizens becoming an embattled diaspora--more than ten million OFWs as exploited domestics and contract workers around the planet, while the country's rich natural resources, cultures and traditions are wasted by foreign profiteers of globalizing capital supported by local comprador parasites currently headed by the corrupt Arroyo regime. "O where is the hope of the motherland...."?