In the 39th year since the 1986 EDSA Uprising, Migrante International calls on all overseas Filipinos and their families to advance the democratic and freedom-loving spirit of People Power to greater heights.
We Filipino migrants owe continuing tribute to the heroes and martyrs of EDSA and the preluding years of anti-dictatorship struggle. We will never forget how the tyrant Marcos Sr. put together the current-day Labor Export Program in 1974. With US interests in mind, the Marcoses sold and continue to sell millions of Filipinos into modern-day slavery around the world. To us migrants, it is just to raise fists to those who spoke out, protested, struck, took up arms, and gave their lives to bring down the US-backed Marcos dictatorship.
To pay tribute to the many who marched not just on EDSA but throughout the country and around the world, we must finish what they merely started 39 years ago. Our people still suffer under the same roots of poverty, but with another Marcos in power. As Bongbong Marcos squabbles with the Dutertes who are corrupt all the same, millions of us are crushed under heavy burdens: high costs of living, a lack of jobs with living wages, persisting landlessness, and public services turned into businesses. Like his father, Marcos Jr. is also opening the country’s door to US troops and corporations that will strip the country bare and turn it into a battleground. It is these conditions that force even more of us to find food on the table for our families in other countries.
With the hardships that we face today, we must remember that People Power teaches us: no difficulty is insurmountable. Through collective action, we have what it takes to not only topple a tyrant, but overthrow the rotten system altogether.
As the political situation worsens and the 2025 elections draw near, the EDSA Uprising must not remain as a mere memory, even to us migrants. No matter where we are, let us make the Marcoses pay for worsening economic crises and hold the Dutertes accountable for their bloody wars against the people. Let us bring the living spirit of People Power from the Philippines to the entire world and fight on all fronts for genuine freedom and democracy in our homeland.
Isabuhay ang diwa ng EDSA!
Marcos, singilin! Duterte, panagutin! Sara, litisin!
Baguhin ang bulok na sistema!
