The Flour Massacre: Stop the genocidal siege in Gaza!

On Wednesday, February 28, 2024, Malaya Movement USA joined more than 300 Filipinos across the US in the online launch of the Filipinos For Palestine National network. As we fight for human rights and democracy in our homeland, it is crucial that we stand in solidarity with Palestinians. The following morning, we awoke outraged by news of the Israeli military’s horrific massacre of Palestinians lining up for food aid in Gaza City at 4am on February 29, 2024.

The spectacle being orchestrated from Manila to Davao by the Marcoses and Dutertes is a clear sign of the disintegration of the false UniTeam promise they ran on in 2022. It is an affront to the Filipino people who are suffering a national economic crisis.

While Marcos Jr. wasted over Php 16 million of the Filipino people’s money in his grand Bagong Pilipinas kick-off in Manila, Duterte’s camp held an anti-Charter Change rally in Davao City. They make Philippine politics no better than a reality show or teleserye - a shameful but unsurprising display from the most powerful dynasties in the Philippines.

We stand in solidarity with the 24 Filipino fisherfolk who were abandoned by their employers at a port in Washington state for months. It is shameful that US based company McAdams and PH based recruitment agency, Pescadores, endangered the lives of our kababayan, leaving them with little access to communication, food and water, and no clear path to return home. As an organization committed to defend human rights, it is imperative we amplify issues faced by Filipino workers who are especially vulnerable to maltreatment and unsafe working conditions.

Marcos’ disrespect for the Filipino people continues in the corruption riddled National Expenditure Program (NEP) that was approved in December. Not only is the NEP thoroughly anti-people, adding billions more to the nation’s debt, it is also a honeypot of unrestricted funds for Marcos.

As an organization founded to fight against state violence and fascism by the Philippine government, it is incumbent on us to speak out in solidarity with Yemen against the United States’ acts of war perpetrated in the past several days.

It has been more than 100 days since Israel unleashed its genocidal campaign on the Palestinian people in Gaza. More than 100 days of destruction and 75 years of occupation by Israel. Israel has so far dropped at least two hundred 2,000-pound bombs and over 600 bombs weekly indiscriminately, all the while feigning victimhood. 23,000+ have been martyred, more than 70% being women and children.