Blogs from Baguio, Philippines, Asia - page 9

It has been a normal couple of weeks for me here. The second Fact Finding Mission we had planned to lead into the area affected by the militarization in March was literally rained out, postponed due to a typhoon that hit the region. That unfortunately also means that my attempt to celebrate a Canadian-esk Victoria Day long weekend was also preempted due to rain. A typhoon it turns out, is sort of like a blizzard of rain, the rains comes down hard for a few days strait, flooding the streets, blowing up, down and sideways, causing power outages and making travel dangerous. Even the beautiful, big-top circus, canopy roof of the city's biggest mall was soaked through, causing the patrons, all driven from their homes by boredom, to open their umbrellas inside. Trudging through the mall ... read more

I read a lot of Canadian news still. I do this partially because I am still a political junky and can't help myself from tuning in to hilarious gong show that has become Canadian politics. But also because my work with activists in the Philippines is showing me how interconnected everything really is. So I continue to pay attention to what is happening on Parliament Hill because I have come to see how a country's national policy effects their actions internationally and thus the ability of the international community to act on human rights concerns. (ie: Canada's unwillingness to sign the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples because they are unwilling to talk about the dire situation of most First Nations within our boarders.) I was upset to read this week that the Liberals ... read more

I have something pretty awful to admit to everyone.I have never really been involved... in all of the years I have spent reading about Human Rights and talking about Human Rights I have never actually been involved in the struggle. None of the volunteer work on my resume is over 3 months long. A hundred times life has gotten in the way of volunteerism and I have decided it was alright to get uninvolved again. I have always told myself that it was okay that I wasn't writing letters to politicians, or consistently joining rallies, or sitting on the boards of any safe spaces organizations, or rape crisis centers, because I was focusing instead on my academic human rights education. I told myself that it was more important to be prepared for the struggle when I ... read more

I sent this letter today to the Premier on Ontario and to the province's Minister of Aboriginal Affairs after receiving an article about the arrests from a co-worker here. I am absolutely disgusted to see something happening in Canada that I see happening here under a dictatorship. I wanted to share the letter with everyone else. Hon. Dalton McGuinty Premier Legislative Building Queen's Park Toronto, ON M7A 1A1 Hon. Michael Bryant Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs 1407 - 99 Wellesley St W Toronto ON M7A 1W3 Dear Hon. Members, I am writing as an Ontario resident to register my protest at over imprisonment of 6 members of the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation Band Council. The Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nations band protested and stopped the Platinex mining company from drilling on land that is subject to Treaty 9, ... read more

Somewhere in the process of settling into Baguio, going on vacation and making friends with my colleagues I forgot I was here doing human rights work. I chose to make human rights my career because it gets in your blood - from the first day I sat in a human rights class I felt connected to the people I was learning about, and since then, everytime I start to get distracted human rights issues jumps right back into my life to remind me of what I am suppose to be focusing on. And that point was brought back to me last week, when I visited the Migrante Metro-Baguio office. Migrante is an international NGO that advocates the rights of migrant workers. Migrante Metro-Baguio focuses their work on the numerous overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) that leave this ... read more