Hundreds of Filipinos converged on the US embassy to denounce Trump ahead of his inauguration as president of the United States, accusing him of sexism, racism and xenophobia. / AFP PHOTO / TED ALJIBE
Hours before the inauguration of United States President-elect Donald Trump, hundreds of militants staged a rally in Manila denouncing the incoming US president as a protector of big business and American interests that would affect Filipino immigrants.
The militant groups of Bayan and League of Filipino Students marched along Roxas Boulevard and tried to come near the US embassy but were prevented by members of the Manila Police District.
Later on, the rallyists were allowed to get near but with the condition that they would later leave peacefully.
According to the MPD, they were only trying to prevent a repeat of the previous dispersal of rallyists in front of the US embassy last year when several militants had been injured.
Chanting “Dump Trump”, the protesters from leftist groups also expressed concerns that Trump was a threat to the millions of Filipino immigrants living in the United States.
“It is alarming to know that an accused sexual predator, a known racist, sexist, xenophobic man is assuming the presidency of the strongest capitalist country in the world,” Joms Salvador, secretary-general of women’s group Gabriela, told AFP.
“The decades of struggle of women across the world to fight for their rights is threatened by Trump’s presidency.”
The roughly 300 people who gathered near the US embassy in Manila held placards with the message “@realDonaldTrump hands off Filipino immigrants” and “Trump you’re trash”. They symbolically dumped photos of Trump in the rubbish bin.
Trump defeated the Democrat’s candidate Hillary Clinton after a divisive campaign in which the real-estate billionaire vowed to deport millions of illegal migrants and faced multiple accusations of sexual harassment.
“We are very concerned about Filipino workers in the US dealing with a rise of racism. Some Filipinos there are getting paranoid about their personal safety and their job security,” Salvador said.
The Philippines, a former American colony, has strong cultural and economic ties with the United States. The two are bound by a mutual defence treaty and US forces have for many years helped the Philippines on various security issues.
However leftist groups have long railed against the United States for exporting its capitalist model and for what they see as continued American domination of the Philippines.
Protesters at Friday’s rally also burned an American flag as they reiterated their longtime demands for US troops to leave the Philippines and the tearing up of what they called “unequal” military agreements.
They also expressed their fears that the US would try to interfere in the West Philippine sea issue.
The militants also called on President Duterte not to be swayed by the new US President from his independent foreign policy track.
Bayan’s Renato Reyes said the President should also scrap the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA)
(Eagle News Service’s Jerold Tagbo, with a report from Agence France Presse)
