Americans complain about inflation.<\/p>\n
Filipinos complain about surviving.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not a knock on America. It\u2019s a reminder that for millions of Filipino Americans, the Philippines isn\u2019t some faraway place we visit on vacation. It\u2019s where our parents were born. Where our cousins still live. Where grandparents are buried. Where every phone call home can begin with, \u201cWe\u2019re okay,\u201d or, just as easily, \u201cWe need help.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bay Area is home to one of the nation\u2019s largest Filipino communities. California alone has nearly two million Filipinos\u2014roughly half of all Filipino Americans in the United States.<\/p>\n
Every year, Filipino Americans send an estimated $17 billion from the United States to the Philippines. Those remittances account for roughly a tenth of the Philippine economy. One wire transfer may keep children in school, put food on the table, pay hospital bills, or help elderly parents make it another month.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why Filipino Americans were paying attention to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.\u2019s State of the Nation Address this week.<\/p>\n
They were listening for justice.<\/p>\n
They were listening for Lyle Prijoles.<\/p>\n
Prijoles, a 40-year-old Filipino American from Hayward, was killed on April 19 during a Philippine military operation in Negros Occidental. Also killed was Kai Sorem, a 26-year-old activist from Seattle.<\/p>\n
The Armed Forces of the Philippines say those killed were connected to the Communist Party\u2019s New People\u2019s Army.<\/p>\n
Their families say otherwise.<\/p>\n
Human-rights advocates describe Prijoles and Sorem as labor organizers and peaceful activists working alongside sugar workers struggling under crushing poverty. Prijoles had traveled repeatedly to the Philippines since 2006, documenting conditions in Negros and advocating for farm workers whose lives rarely improve no matter who occupies the presidential palace in Manila.<\/p>\n
Those conflicting stories are exactly why members of Congress, led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA-7), have called for an independent investigation.<\/p>\n
After all, two American citizens are dead.<\/p>\n
If an ally\u2019s military kills Americans under disputed circumstances, shouldn\u2019t we want to know exactly what happened?<\/p>\n
Yet the story barely made news in the United States.<\/p>\n
Perhaps because it\u2019s inconvenient.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s inconvenient for Manila \u2013 and Washington. <\/p>\n
Strategic allies aren\u2019t supposed to kill American citizens.<\/p>\n
The Philippines isn\u2019t just another country.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s family.<\/p>\n
President Marcos had bigger issues on his mind this week.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s growing aggression in the West Philippine Sea dominated much of the speech. Marcos rightly rejected racist insults aimed at Filipinos and insisted his country would not surrender its sovereignty.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not racists. We are not liars,\u201d Marcos declared. \u201cWe are respectful, and we are dignified. We are Filipinos, and we do not yield.\u201d<\/p>\n
Strong words.<\/p>\n
But patriotism isn\u2019t measured only by how forcefully a government stands up to China.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also measured by how a government treats its own people.<\/p>\n
The Philippines inherited many of America\u2019s democratic institutions. Even the \u201cState of the Nation Address\u201d echoes our \u201cState of the Union.\u201d Congress. Elections. Constitutional government. We exported the architecture of democracy.<\/p>\n
What we couldn\u2019t export was accountability.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why activists like Lyle Prijoles believed ordinary workers deserved better.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s why his death matters.<\/p>\n
About the Author <\/p>\n
Emil Guillermo is an award-winning journalist, political analyst and comic monologist. See him on his microtalk show on YouTube at @emilamok1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Emil Amok Guillermo Americans complain about inflation. Filipinos complain about surviving. That\u2019s not a knock on America.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[9984,6361,170442,1752,96324,28118,536,6070,93,3721,170443,28416,64244,10533,14009,143,111164,145,144,170444,59978,143183,14442],"class_list":["post-428159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-adam-schiff","tag-alex-padilla","tag-coal-export-terminal","tag-congress","tag-defense-production-act","tag-department-of-energy","tag-donald-trump","tag-environmental-regulations","tag-featured","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-government-accountability-office","tag-jared-huffman","tag-john-garamendi","tag-lateefah-simon","tag-national-security","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-bulk-and-oversized-terminal","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-orice-williams-brown","tag-ro-khanna","tag-west-gateway-terminal-project","tag-west-oakland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}