Affirming its role to organize and mobilize Filipino compatriots for the national democratic revolution, Compatriots was launched formally last month participated in by scores of revolutionary Filipino overseas workers in a country in the Asia-Pacific region. Compatriots represents the special sector of Filipino migrants under the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, and joins 17 other revolutionary underground organizations in the NDFP representing all patriotic classes in Philippine society.
Filipino migrants currently number up to 15 million (about 10 percent of the Philippine population), including millions of temporary workers in low-wage jobs (domestic work, child caring, among others). Since 2023, nearly 10,000 Filipinos leave the country every day due to lack of local jobs, absence or insufficient income, and very low wages, land and livelihood disenfranchisement. Through the labor export policy, the reactionary state sacrifices Filipino workers to ease the country’s employment crisis. They are daily fleeced by millions of pesos in the form of fees for basic services that do not even benefit them.
In foreign countries, they endure abuse, labor rights violations, racism or racial discrimination, violence, and very high migration costs. They have no protections, especially female workers in jobs most vulnerable to abuse and crime.
Among the high-profile cases which called worldwide attention to the plight of Filipino overseas workers and the criminal neglect of the reactionary Philippine government, include, among other countless cases, the wrongful murder conviction and execution of Flor Contemplacion in 1995, a domestic worker in Singapore. Sarah Balabagan was 14 years old when she worked as a domestic worker in the Middle East and in self-defense, killed her employer who attempted to rape her. The recent case of Mary Jane Veloso who was wrongfully convicted of drug trafficking and was sentenced to death by the Indonesian government, but has since been repatriated to the Philippines.
Countless other nameless Filipino overseas workers have suffered abuse, exploitation and mysteriously killed while working and have not been given any justice, yet are ironically extolled as “modern heroes” by the Philippine state if only for the billions of US dollars they contribute to keep the Philippine economy afloat.
During its formal launching, Compatriots emphasized the need: to build organizations among their ranks to promote their democratic rights, including the right to employment and social protections in the countries where they work. Compatriots foresee that the growth of these movements will increase their contribution to anti-imperialist solidarity, as well as the advancement of the international proletarian revolution.
“Being Filipinos, migrants are recognized as integral to the national liberation movement. The solution to their migration is the advancement of the national democratic revolution. The challenge for Compatriots is to strengthen the movement against the exploitative and oppressive puppet reactionary state in the Philippines and to expand support for the protracted people’s war amidst the intensifying fascism worldwide,” the revolutionary organization emphasized.
Compatriots stressed that the only solution to the problems of Filipinos overseas is to tackle them at the roots. “We must upend the semi-colonial and semi-feudal character of Philippine society, and it is only through a people’s democratic revolution under the leadership of the CPP that this can be achieved,” it said.
