The featured image above is from Anakbayan’s summer 2011 exposure trip to the Philippines. Taken by Nicole Ramirez.
In a globalized world, it is crucial for people to form transnational networks beyond nation-states. Movements rooted in struggles share organizing strategies and build coalitions that resist global capitalism. Anakbayan-USA is exemplary of this—where youth and students in the United States actively build solidarity with the people of the Philippines. The group continues the work for National Democracy in the Philippines—a movement led by Marxist-Maoist-Leninist Jose Maria Sison, leader who founded the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) in 1968. Through local campaigns, informed by their summer exposure trips to the Philippines, youth and students in Anakbayan create platforms within the United States in order to shed light on killings, military occupations and poor working conditions in the Philippines. Anakbayan’s strategies of educating, organizing and mobilizing present new possibilities for building transnational solidarity among bottom-up grassroots organizations across borders.
Youth and Student Movement in the Philippines made by Anakbayan members Nicole Ramirez and Janelle Quibuyen. July 2011.
Anakbayan-USA members made this video during an exposure trip to encourage youth to join the National Democratic Movement for the Philippines. The trips consist of educational discussions, integrations, mass actions and community organizing.
Take Back Our Education: People First, Not Profit and War by Anakbayan-USA. November 2016.
Anakbayan-USA launched “Take Back Our Education: People First, Not Profit and War”: a national campaign that aims to fight against the privatization of the U.S. education system, and call for the end of U.S. militarism and wars of aggression and intervention abroad.
On April 1st 2016, 6,000 Filipino farm workers blocked a major highway in Kidapawan City to demand that the government deliver promised relief to alleviate severe drought conditions caused by El Niño. In response, the Philippine National Police unloaded M16s on the unarmed farmers, leaving 3 confirmed dead, 116 injured, 89 reported missing, and 2 tortured. Anakbayan youth took photos and fasted for 24 hours using social media to raise international awareness of these atrocities affecting Filipino farmers.