True Anon Truth Feed - Episode 178: Anti-terror in the Philippines Aired: 2021-08-22 Duration: 01:04:55 === Afghanistan's Closeness to China (08:54) === [00:00:00] So a little bit of a different episode today. [00:00:03] Yes. [00:00:04] No jokey cold open. [00:00:06] No, it would be, I feel like wildly inappropriate in this context. [00:00:10] First, do you want to give our listeners a little background in what we're talking about today? [00:00:14] So we're really honored to have on Brandon Lee and Rhonda Romero. [00:00:19] Some of you might know Brandon Lee's name from, it was a pretty big story a couple of years ago. [00:00:25] In fact, almost exactly a couple of years ago, August 6th of 2019. [00:00:30] Brandon was shot by unknown assailants in the Philippines where he was working with the peasant movement there. [00:00:40] And so just to give a little context, I know Brandon and Rhonda from outside the show. [00:00:47] And it was a pretty big deal at the time. [00:00:52] And we talked about it in the episode and everything like that. [00:00:55] But I think just in the context of this show, Brandon was, to put it totally unadorned, the first American citizen targeted for assassination by the Duterte government since it took power. [00:01:09] Not the first American citizen targeted by the government of the Philippines in the past 50 years, but in the modern era, 100% the first. [00:01:19] And yeah, it was a real honor for us to have him on. [00:01:24] I feel like it was a pretty affecting interview. [00:01:27] Yeah, it's difficult to say, but definitely very important. [00:01:31] So I think we should just get into it. [00:01:34] All right. [00:02:04] I like to start our episodes off talking about any sort of foreign policy issues or anything like that with saying the one word I know from any language whatsoever associated with what we're talking about. [00:02:15] The single word I know is mabuhai. [00:02:18] So mabuhai, ladies and gentlemen. [00:02:21] Welcome to our interview for the day. [00:02:23] We have with us here Rhonda Ramiro, the chair of Bion USA, and Brandon Lee of the International Committee on Human Rights in the Philippines, San Francisco chapter. [00:02:35] Pleasure to have you guys here. [00:02:36] How you doing? [00:02:37] It's good to be here. [00:02:38] Yeah, thank you for having us. [00:02:41] So, Brandon, I think we'll probably have explained a little bit about this in the intro, but just to give a little background, Brandon was the first and so far, I hope, only person who was targeted for assassination by the Duterte regime for his political activities in the country and for his activism work there. [00:03:03] And Brandon, I just want to first start off by asking you, what was sort of the spark that made you get involved in Filipino issues? [00:03:10] What made you interested in this? [00:03:11] What made you go over there? [00:03:13] In 2001, when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, I joined the anti-war protest here in San Francisco. [00:03:22] There I went through the crowd and was attracted to a sea of red shirts. [00:03:27] Many of the shirts had the slogan, serve the people. [00:03:32] It was the Bayan USA Alliance of Filipino workers, students, and women who were leading a lively contingent that brought together other people of color communities that drew my attention. [00:03:46] At the time, the Philippines was declared the second front in the war on terror, and the Filipino groups mobilized with other people of the global south to have a unified anti-war and anti-imperialist stance against the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. [00:04:09] So it's really good to hear you talk about that moment, Brandon. [00:04:15] I remember it clearly also. [00:04:18] And of course, you know, I was there and it's pretty timely that we're talking about the connections between the U.S. war in Afghanistan and the legacy of war and colonization in the Philippines, you know, at this moment where we're seeing what's unfolding in Afghanistan. [00:04:35] So 20 years ago, when Brandon met us at the anti-war protest, Bayan USA was drawing those connections between the U.S. going to war to secure geopolitical interests at the detriment of people, you know, in Afghanistan. [00:04:52] For Afghanistan, at that time, it was under the guise of the war on terror. [00:04:57] It was about securing important trade routes, natural resources, a place for the U.S. to practice and perfect its war tactics and technology. [00:05:08] And it's really not unlike what was happening in 1898 when the Philippine-American War was happening, when essentially the U.S. was going about its first, you know, colonial, one of its first colonial projects. [00:05:22] It was that history of colonization, going abroad to secure islands with geopolitical interest, natural resources for extraction, and people to exploit for labor. [00:05:39] And since then, so over 100 years later, the U.S. still dominates the Philippines. [00:05:45] The Philippines is still a neocolony of the U.S. [00:05:48] And the U.S. is still has its hold on our country for geopolitical interests. [00:05:54] Today, the adversary is China, and it's still about resource extraction, geopolitical positioning, exploitation of labor. [00:06:06] And then, I think just to bring it up to date to Brandon's situation, the support of dictators like Duterte, who will follow along with the U.S. plans for exploiting the Philippines for U.S. interests and propping up puppet dictators that will go along with that. [00:06:30] And I think that really sets the stage for Brandon's story. [00:06:35] Yeah, yeah. [00:06:36] I think something that just to locate the Philippines in the world, there's been a lot of talk lately, especially this past couple of weeks, on Afghanistan's closeness to China and sort of its place on the front lines against both the big menaces in the region, Iran and also China, U.S.'s sort of foe, regional foes, or in the case of China, our global enemy. [00:07:05] But the Philippines basically shares that same position. [00:07:08] It's just with the South China Sea. [00:07:11] And that is like, you know, obviously, if you follow international news, that is a big hotspot and definitely a big, you know, when people talk about war games and all this stuff, that always factors hugely into it. [00:07:22] And so I think while a lot of people may see Duterte as like this guy who sort of like plays both sides, and to an extent that's true, I mean, the U.S. is also definitely trying to get him on the U.S.'s side too, because, you know, it's as important as anywhere that surrounds China. [00:07:40] I mean, they do the same thing with Vietnam, with India, et cetera. [00:07:44] That's right. [00:07:45] Yeah. [00:07:46] And it's, you know, right now, you know, in a couple of days, Vice President Kamala Harris is going to visit Southeast Asia again. [00:07:55] She's going to Vietnam. [00:07:56] She's going to Singapore. [00:07:58] She's going to reiterate the U.S. position on China and needing to secure its allies in the region. [00:08:04] And so the Philippines has that same type of relationship where it's a longtime ally and the U.S. is going to try to strengthen that allyship as much as possible as it gears up for and continues its rivalry with China. [00:08:24] So it's not the jockeying is not going away anytime soon. [00:08:32] And US involvement and meddling in Philippine affairs is not going away anytime soon either, considering the identification of China as the big menace. [00:08:46] Yeah. [00:08:47] Yeah, the State Department just approved that like $2 billion, $2.5 billion arms sale to the Philippines. === Indigenous Resistance Under Threat (16:00) === [00:08:54] And I'm sure that's coming with some guarantees that it's hoping for as well. [00:09:00] That's right. [00:09:01] So, Brandon, when you went over to the Philippines, what kind of work were you doing over there? [00:09:09] In Ifugao province, I initially helped organize professionals, especially teachers and government employees, to support the struggles of the indigenous peasants against development aggression, militarization, and food insecurity. [00:09:29] It was through the love of the indigenous people and the environment that I volunteered with the Ifugao peasant movement in their education and disaster relief programs for farmers in the province. [00:09:43] I wrote about these struggles in the Northern Dispatch Weekly, an alternative newspaper serving the Cordillera region. [00:09:51] I also helped organize the Justice and Peace Advocates, a church network which pushed the Philippine government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines to address the Ifugao people's issues and well-being. [00:10:08] I also helped as the International Solidarity Lay Zone to seek support from various international networks and individuals for the Ifugao peasants. [00:10:22] In 2014, William Bugatti, the previous human rights officer of the Ifugao peasant movement and a close friend, was killed by suspected military agents after attending a court hearing for political prisoners. [00:10:39] It was at that time that I volunteered to move to Ifugao and take up his role, of which I served until I was shot. [00:10:48] So I think that there's a few things probably we need to talk about here. [00:10:53] One is that I think when people, at least this was the case with me until I learned about it. [00:11:01] I think people are surprised that other countries, especially other countries maybe with brown people in them, have Indigenous people that live there or Indigenous communities there. [00:11:11] You know, I know that's the case in a lot. [00:11:14] Like, you know, India obviously has like an indigenous community of millions and millions of people. [00:11:18] The Philippines does too. [00:11:19] The Philippines has a huge, I can't remember, someone had told me once, but a lot of different indigenous ethnic groups who are, much like other places in Asia and throughout the world, often politically, maybe not so well represented and usually economically pretty poor and just overall not very powerful. [00:11:41] So can you tell us about this region, Cordillera? [00:11:46] Why would there be any kind of resource extraction or this construction there, this development there in the first place? [00:11:53] And what were these groups doing to fight against it? [00:11:57] So there was development aggression and violations of indigenous peoples' rights that persist in the Cordillera region. [00:12:06] Their ancestral lands continue to be treated as resource base for profit by the state, hand in glove with corporations of old and new colonizers. [00:12:20] Large-scale mining dams, energy, and other foreign projects are masqueraded as development at the expense of indigenous peoples, self-determination, and human rights. [00:12:33] Indigenous communities are robbed of their lifeland culture and worse, their future. [00:12:41] Despite decades of people's resistance, the plunder of natural resources in ancestral domains continues. [00:12:50] The region is blanketed with more than hundreds of large-scale mining applications covering the majority of the Cordillera and more than 100 hydropower and geodermal projects awarded to private corporations. [00:13:07] One such project, energy project, is the Chevron Geodermal Power Project, covering 25,000 hectares, which is roughly 62,000 acres in Kalinga province. [00:13:22] If left unchallenged and unopposed, all these could mean the ethnocide for the Igorots and the massive destruction of the ecosystems in the Cordillera region. [00:13:36] Yeah. [00:13:36] So Brandon was in the northern part of the Philippines, but really there are many parts of the Philippines, north to south, and in the many different islands in the archipelago that have indigenous people who are trying to resist this kind of development aggression. [00:13:53] Sometimes it's at the level of where we've seen Brandon, where you have targeted assassination attempts on indigenous leaders. [00:14:02] But then in other parts, so for example, in the southern part of the Philippines in Mindanao, you even have carpet bombing, large-scale bombing and destruction of entire villages and cities by the Philippine military for the same reason, though. [00:14:19] So, you know, I think a prime example was in 2017. [00:14:24] There was a city called Marawi, which was known as one of the largest Islamic cities in the country on the coast, a really important spot for the Philippine military. [00:14:41] They, you know, they wanted to take it over. [00:14:44] And it's also surrounded by indigenous peoples' lands, which were being contested for rich mineral resources. [00:14:54] So what did the Philippine military do in order to be able to take over this location? [00:15:01] It went in and under the guise of the war on terror and fighting ISIS, just bombed the city just to rubble a city of nearly 400,000 people and created this big refugee crisis within the country. [00:15:19] And people to this day are still displaced. [00:15:22] Very few have been able to move back. [00:15:24] And it was all done under the guise of the war on terror. [00:15:30] You also have the bombing of villages in the southern Philippines. [00:15:36] You have the occupation of their towns by the military, occupation of homes and schools and even churches in some places, all in locations where Indigenous people are trying to defend their forests, their land, which is used, they've had for generations. [00:16:00] But underneath that land are these mineral resources, or on top of the land are these rich, you know, considered lumber resources for corporations. [00:16:12] And then another major one is for big agribusiness. [00:16:17] When I was there two years ago, the land was being raised and used for the planting of palm trees, for palm oil, for export. [00:16:29] And if you've taken a look at almost any product, lotion, shampoo, to stuff in your cabinet at home in your kitchen, there's palm oil in almost everything. [00:16:40] And the Philippines is one of those places where indigenous land is being just taken over in order to build these multinational these plantations for the benefit of multinationals. [00:16:56] So What Brandon is describing is really rampant throughout the country. [00:17:04] Yeah, Ron, I had a question about that. [00:17:08] It seems it's like a twofold or maybe more than twofold sort of thing that they do. [00:17:13] Is one, they identify these places where there are natural resources or resources to extract for these corporations. [00:17:20] And then either they go in and kind of just like shunt the people aside because they're poor, they don't really have any political power or anything like that. [00:17:28] There's no way for them to fight back. [00:17:30] Or they create this like sort of specter of terrorism and that the army has to go into these areas and secure these areas, especially, you know, a lot of people I've talked to that have, you know, worked in the Philippines talk about sort of the specter of ISIS that they created, that like there's this huge organization that is like ready to take over the Philippines and is going to create a archipelago-based Islamic state too. [00:17:57] And so that requires, of course, I mean, it's ISIS. [00:18:00] It requires the absolutely most ferocious response from the Philippine military, which to I think a lot of people living in these areas is probably not much kinder to them than whatever ISIS there is there is. [00:18:16] And so it seems like, yeah, like these sort of this like war on terror rhetoric and actions actually basically dovetail perfectly with these multinational and some national interests in extracting these resources. [00:18:32] Yeah, I definitely agree with you there. [00:18:34] We see it happen all the time. [00:18:36] And so they use the justification of needing to secure the people from ISIS to go in. [00:18:45] And then after the so-called security has happened, once they've gotten rid of anybody who was resisting, once they've been able, the military has been able to secure the land, here come the corporations or the huge landlords to take over the land that was once Indigenous people's land. [00:19:05] So it's a pattern that we see throughout the country. [00:19:08] And I suspect that this is also common to other places where you have Indigenous people trying to defend their land and their water from multinational interests. [00:19:39] So, Brennan, the government of the Philippines named you an enemy of the state in 2015, which, I mean, I'll be honest with you, would freak me out, although you still stayed there. [00:19:54] I'm telling you, I'm not trying to get named an enemy of the state by anybody. [00:19:58] That scares the shit out of me. [00:20:00] Were you afraid after that? [00:20:01] I mean, you're telling me that the person you replaced in the group you were in had just been assassinated. [00:20:07] Obviously, the murder of activists, especially in rural areas, has really ratcheted up in recent years. [00:20:15] Why did the government name you an enemy estate? [00:20:17] And how did you feel after that? [00:20:19] Were you afraid? [00:20:21] Do you have to watch your back more? [00:20:23] The Philippine government, through its military arm, the armed forces of the Philippines, specifically the 86th Infantry Battalion, most likely branded me and my colleagues as Communist Party of the Philippines and New People's Army supporters because we sided with the people against corporate interests. [00:20:47] When the 54th Infantry Battalion replaced the 86th Infantry Battalion, the types of harassments worsened. [00:20:57] My colleagues and I were afraid when the state military executed my friend William Bugatti in 2014. [00:21:06] William had just celebrated openly in court when the judge caught one of the military witnesses lying. [00:21:14] It was nearly 6 p.m. when William drove his motorcycle home. [00:21:19] Five minutes before he reached this house, he was gunned down by two men on a motorcycle. [00:21:26] And of course, my colleagues and I were afraid, but we knew if we didn't do anything to help, things would get worse for the people. [00:21:38] Yeah, I mean, that's something that I think might maybe not surprise some listeners, but the fact that the military is so overtly involved in what you might term political affairs. [00:21:52] I mean, using the specter of the Communist Party and the New People's Army as sort of like a, you know, if they brand someone a leftist or a leftist sympathizer, they can easily say, well, you're a terrorist sympathizer because the largest force on the left here is this terrorist group, the New People's Army. [00:22:14] And that to me is just, I mean, that's what makes it so much more insidious, too, because that's something I wanted to bring up. [00:22:21] And Rhonda, I wanted to ask you about, because I know that Bion and associated organizations have done a lot of work on this. [00:22:27] But there are a couple of pretty notorious tactics that are used by the Philippine government against activists or against, I mean, pretty much anybody they want to. [00:22:38] And one of those is called red tagging. [00:22:41] And I was going to ask you if you could kind of explain to our audience what red tagging is, because that seems pertinent to what happened here. [00:22:49] Sure. [00:22:49] So red tagging, like you said, it's a really common tactic that the Philippine government uses to paint their enemies or anybody really who has a different opinion than the president of the Philippines right now as enemies of the state, as reds, as communists. [00:23:11] And because the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People's Army are considered terrorist organizations according to the Philippine government, and even the U.S. government has designated them as foreign terrorist organizations. [00:23:26] Thereby, if you are a Red, if you're a member of the Communist Party of the Philippines, then you are a terrorist. [00:23:35] And they use this as a blanket term to describe anyone who espouses politics that are about fighting for the rights of people to their land, fighting for the rights of workers to a living wage, fighting for the rights of students to be able to have quality education, fighting for the rights of people to have quality health care. [00:24:00] I mean, all these things, which should really be basic for all people, could be viewed by the government, the government which fails to provide any of those things for its people and in fact is doing everything possible to keep people at poverty level so that the elite can be richer. [00:24:22] They use that as a reason to tag you as a communist and therefore a terrorist. [00:24:29] And so if you're considered a terrorist, then the government has the right to put you in jail, to shoot to kill. [00:24:38] That's another thing that they have proven that they think they're justified in doing. [00:24:45] If you're a so-called terrorist, then you don't have a right to any kind of due process. [00:24:51] And they're shoot to kill orders. === Red Tagging Risks (10:29) === [00:24:54] There's plenty of instances of, yeah, anything from being jailed on trumped up charges to outright extrajudicial killing of people just for being tagged as a red or as a terrorist. [00:25:12] So I hope that explains a little bit about what this tactic is and what it can lead to. [00:25:20] And this is done via the big anti-terror law, right? [00:25:24] I mean, because this got a lot of like, I mean, got a decent amount of global coverage, actually, when it was passed because of how broad strokes it was. [00:25:36] It really is like, it really blurs the line between what's like extrajudicial and what's not because of how Broadly, it can be interpreted how easily someone can be branded a terrorist and these laws can be used against them, like you said, just for defending right to education or access to health care or what have you. [00:26:01] Right. [00:26:01] Yeah. [00:26:02] I mean, and the thing is that the tactic has been used for many, many years. [00:26:10] You know, it was used against Brandon. [00:26:12] But the anti-terror law, which was passed last year, expanded that authority. [00:26:19] And, you know, like you said, it just kind of opened the door to even further demonization of critics of the government. [00:26:28] And it also expanded it such that there could be use of this anti-terror law against Philippine nationals anywhere. [00:26:39] So not even just within the borders of the Philippines, but abroad. [00:26:44] And so that's one of the things that got a lot of people enraged about the passage of the law, that it could actually expand even further than Philippine soil and that it can be used to just paint anybody as a terrorist. [00:27:03] Yeah. [00:27:05] Yeah. [00:27:05] I mean, one thing too is that reading through these reports, which we'll link in the description here from the Investigate Philippines Commission. [00:27:15] I mean, some of the things that they do with this red tagging stuff is they'll like print out a poster of you calling you a communist or calling you like terrorist and like put them up at the supermarket. [00:27:26] So like listeners, like think about this. [00:27:28] Like if somebody, you know, you lived in a place where, you know, it's extrajudicial assassinations are basically legalized at this point, especially if you, you know, you're known to be a supporter of whatever organization. [00:27:42] And then every time you go to the grocery store, there's like a poster or like a banner with your name on it, sometimes your address on it, your phone number on it, branding you a terrorist in a place where basically anybody could come up to you and, you know, assault you or kill you and, you know, have a good chance of getting away with it. [00:28:00] I mean, it's like a legalized lynch mob sort of thing. [00:28:05] And that's what these posters are for. [00:28:07] I mean, they're basically to incite this kind of violence. [00:28:10] There's essentially no other reason for them. [00:28:13] Another thing too is that I don't even know how to pronounce this, but the Tokang, where they can basically, it's, you know, maybe too long to get into here, but it's essentially warrantless visits by the police to try to talk you out of your political beliefs. [00:28:29] And a lot of this stuff, originally that was supposed to be about the war on drugs, which was another excuse to basically extra judicially murder people, where they come to your house and try to talk you out of selling drugs and usually end up just shooting you. [00:28:46] So, yeah, it's kind of crazy. [00:28:49] I mean, it's really some Wild West sort of stuff. [00:28:52] Like, it's essentially legalized lynching. [00:28:55] That's right. [00:28:56] I know just walking around in the Philippines, I don't know how many times I've seen billboard-sized banners or billboards themselves with the faces of people I know, of people who are representatives of Bayan in the Philippines or of trade unions and farmers organizations. [00:29:16] Their faces plastered on there, just like Brace said, with terrorists on there. [00:29:21] And then sometimes there's a reward for turning these people in, or it's just warning people that these people are considered terrorists by the government. [00:29:31] And it can lead to arrests. [00:29:36] It can lead to extrajudicial killings and attempted assassination attempts, like what happened to Brandon. [00:29:45] And it's just it is on the daily. [00:29:49] You see it every day over there. [00:29:53] You know, even for myself, in thinking about the anti-terror law now, just last fall and then earlier this year, Bayon USA had been actively red tagged by the government. [00:30:06] And we're used to trolls picking on us on Facebook. [00:30:12] But this time, messages were being put up and issued by the undersecretary of the Presidential Communications Office, labeling us as a terrorist front, and then putting up pictures of the officers of Bayan USA, including myself, and saying that we were terrorist mouthpieces or propagandists for terrorism. [00:30:37] And, you know, even having pictures of us at protests here in the United States. [00:30:43] And I think, you know, some people may try to brush it off as, oh, you know, it's just on Facebook. [00:30:50] It's not really going to happen. [00:30:51] But if we know what is happening in the Philippines, when you have this kind of tagging, it leads to then real danger for people on the street, like what happened to Brandon. [00:31:08] And I wouldn't underestimate the kind of collusion between U.S. and Philippine government. [00:31:16] There's been that long history of collaboration. [00:31:19] And so it's really alarming to us here. [00:31:24] Yeah. [00:31:24] I mean, so speaking of Brandon, just getting to the incident. [00:31:29] So you were shot in 2019. [00:31:33] Were there signs leading up to it? [00:31:34] Was the rhetoric getting more intense? [00:31:36] Was there more repression on you and the people you were working with leading up to it? [00:31:43] What was sort of the context of it? [00:31:45] Like what was going on? [00:31:47] Okay, so shortly after William Bugatti was killed, we were bombarded with weekly red tagging posts, like Rhonda has said. [00:31:58] These red tagging posts linked us with the Communist Party of the Philippines and New People's Armies. [00:32:07] And in 2015, I was given a death threat in the form of the Ifugao burial blanket for the dead with a grim poem that said, Gray May, June Glue, No Sky July, which we took as a death threat. [00:32:24] In 2016, up until my attempted or the attempted assassination on my life, I was under constant surveillance. [00:32:35] In 2017, I was pulled out of a bus in a joint military and police checkpoint. [00:32:42] Lieutenant Maestrado the police and Lieutenant Julius Ian Daklag of the Armed Forces of the Philippines asked for me specifically and illegally searched my bag under alleged credible intelligence that I had firearms in my possession. [00:33:01] They found nothing to prove their claim. [00:33:04] In 2017 to 2018, suspected military agents red-tagged my colleagues and I on flyers distributed all over several municipalities. [00:33:17] On the flyers, they said that I was a recruiter of the New People's Armies in schools and that my wife was a contact for the New People's Army. [00:33:29] And in 2019, after Executive Order 70 was signed by President Duterte, a national task force to end local communist armed conflict was created, which uses the U.S. framework toward counterinsurgency, or known as Hold the Nation approach, which uses the civilian bureaucracy to try to deal with the armed conflict. [00:33:59] But its operations are far from resolving the roots of the armed conflict. [00:34:04] My colleagues and I were visited by the 54th Infantry Battalion in our office and homes. [00:34:12] Lieutenant Carol J. Mendoza and Sergeant Joel Campilles of the 54th Infantry Battalion came to our office in the guise of wanting to partner with the Ifugao peasant movement. [00:34:26] This ruse was easily discovered when they went to my colleagues' homes, telling them that the Ifugao Peasant Movement is a front organization of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People's Army. [00:34:40] The soldiers from the 54th Infantry Battalion asked my colleagues, how much was I making? [00:34:47] What is my role in the Ifugao Peasant Movement? [00:34:50] Where's my whereabouts? [00:34:52] What is my daughter's name? [00:34:54] And what school does she go to? [00:34:57] In June, the military's Northern Luzon Command placed Ifugao as the priority of the Oplan Kapanatagat, the Philippines counterinsurgency plan in the Cordillera. [00:35:11] Soldiers from the 54th Infantry Battalion came to my residence on July 30th, asking my family where I was, and that they are seeking partnership with me. === Military Harassment Exposed (12:22) === [00:35:24] My family was not fooled, as they knew the military was harassing me. [00:35:30] That same day, I confronted soldiers in civilian clothing outside our office, asking me to meet with their boss for a partnership. [00:35:40] They took a picture of me without my permission. [00:35:44] A week later, on August 6th, after bringing my niece and daughter home from school, I was shot in four places, rendering my body paralyzed. [00:35:56] I mean, first of all, I'm so sorry to hear that. [00:35:59] You know, I'm obviously very familiar with your story, but hearing it, you tell it is an affecting experience. [00:36:12] It seems to me pretty obvious. [00:36:14] I think to anybody who kind of hears these stories, it's pretty obvious. [00:36:17] Yeah, like the military is behind a lot of this, right? [00:36:20] Like, obviously, there are a lot of people who are aligned with the military, maybe in paramilitary organizations, whatever. [00:36:26] But it's like, it's clear that, like, yeah, the military is investigating you. [00:36:32] The military is harassing you. [00:36:33] The military is after you. [00:36:34] The military are going to be the ones that shoot you. [00:36:37] I mean, it's another front on their war against, I mean, well, against working people in the Philippines and peasantry, but in their minds, against the war against the NPA or whatever. [00:36:50] That's why they have to associate you with that. [00:36:54] And their front just also extends to civilians. [00:37:00] I mean, what was the, you know, if you want to answer, if you don't, like, what was the aftermath? [00:37:06] I mean, you were taken to the hospital. [00:37:07] Did they think you were going to die? [00:37:08] I know you went into cardiac arrest at one point or several points. [00:37:13] What ended up happening? [00:37:15] Well, after I was shot, I can remember my teeth were slowly falling out and I was barely audible. [00:37:28] It was hard to form words. [00:37:30] Even though I'm trying to talk, my brother-in-law couldn't hear what I was saying. [00:37:38] I had asked them to call my wife to let her know what happened and to call the Cordillera Human Rights Alliance. [00:37:48] to let them also know what's happening. [00:37:52] And from there, my brother-in-law and our neighbor was a relative, brought me on their tricycle to the nearest hospital. [00:38:03] They didn't have the capability to handle my case. [00:38:08] They only removed my shirt. [00:38:11] They cut it open and the same with my shorts. [00:38:16] And they had bandaged me. [00:38:18] And they brought me on an ambulance to the next nearest hospital, which was around two hours away. [00:38:27] They didn't have a neurosurgeon, so they weren't comfortable with handling my case. [00:38:33] So they brought me to Baguio General Hospital, which was another five-hour drive. [00:38:41] Jesus. [00:38:42] And there, I remember the doctor who had received me. [00:38:49] He asked my colleagues what happened. [00:38:54] And I had told them it was the military. [00:38:57] And that's the last thing I remember before blacking out. [00:39:02] And later, my wife and my family who came to visit me from the U.S. told me that I had a cardiac arrest. [00:39:13] Jesus. [00:39:14] Yeah. [00:39:16] You know, for some reason, I think I didn't know you were actually hit four times. [00:39:21] That's, yeah, that is. [00:39:23] I mean, it's obvious that clearly they intended to kill you. [00:39:27] I mean, that's sort of a stupid thing to say almost. [00:39:30] I mean, they shot you a bunch of times. [00:39:33] You know, to me, I remember when this happened. [00:39:37] I mean, this didn't happen. [00:39:38] This literally happened like almost exactly two years ago. [00:39:41] I remember when this happened. [00:39:43] You know, you and I are both from San Francisco, you know, know a lot of the same people. [00:39:48] And this was, you know, this was a pretty big deal in the city then. [00:39:51] I mean, obviously, you know, Matt Haney came out and all that. [00:39:54] But, you know, it was just, you know, it was large news. [00:39:58] And I mean, I remember sort of being shocked because I don't know if we covered this earlier, but like, you're not Filipino. [00:40:03] You know, like you're not from the Philippines, but nor are you Philippine, you know, you're of any ethnicity from the Philippines either. [00:40:11] And I think that that may be, I remember being sort of surprised when I heard that too. [00:40:15] I don't know why. [00:40:16] But it, you know, I mean, to me, that represented like a big leap for the Duterte regime. [00:40:23] Not that big of a leap, actually, more like a medium-sized step. [00:40:27] But, you know, the famously, you know, the government had been extrajudicially assassinating people. [00:40:32] I can never pronounce that word, but extrajudicially assassinating people basically since it came into power. [00:40:38] But this was a specifically targeted attack against an American citizen, which is, you know, not to say that like American citizens' lives are worth more, whatever. [00:40:49] But it does politically represent somewhat of a departure. [00:40:53] And that's, you know, it's a Rhonda, I mean, you're a chair of a national diasporic and also, I think, in the country too, organization. [00:41:04] I mean, what was your guys' response to that? [00:41:07] Like, how did you guys view that? [00:41:10] Yeah, we first, of course, being personal friends with Brandon, we were concerned about Brandon and his safety. [00:41:18] And we also saw it as this was the culmination of many years of Brandon writing to us and telling us there are these death threats against me. [00:41:29] There's this constant surveillance. [00:41:31] There's this harassment of my family. [00:41:33] And, you know, we knew that was happening to him. [00:41:37] And every time he would tell us, he would always also tell us, it's not only happening to me. [00:41:42] It's happening to my colleagues. [00:41:44] It's happening to other people in the indigenous community. [00:41:49] It's happening to the workers on the picket lines in the Philippines. [00:41:53] It's happening to environmental defenders. [00:41:59] It was for Brandon, being the selfless person that he is, it was never only about him, but him telling us that this is, you personally know me, you know I tell the truth. [00:42:12] Look at my case and this is happening to so many other people. [00:42:15] Please tell the world about it. [00:42:19] The Philippine government is even before Duterte has been notorious for this kind of thing. [00:42:25] Under Duterte, it just heightened. [00:42:28] And like you were saying, Brandon, pretty much from day one, he was starting to wage this war on the poor under, you know, calling it the war on drugs. [00:42:38] And it resulted in upwards of 30,000 people being killed by the police just for supposedly using drugs, dealing drugs, you know, with no kind of due process. [00:42:53] And then there became the war on terror and the war on activists. [00:43:00] And it just kind of extends from there, you know, with more people being caught in the crossfire or just targeted by the government. [00:43:10] So yeah, what we thought was, you know, oh my God, this happened to Brandon and we have to step up our efforts in the United States to bring light to what's happening in the Philippines because the Philippine government is trying to hide it, trying to, you know, not spread the word. [00:43:31] Or on the flip side, Duterte was bragging about it and saying, you know, I can get away with this and, you know, who's going to stop me? [00:43:39] So we just, we knew that we had to step up our efforts to shine a light on it, to oppose it, to try and get more people to care and more people to try and put pressure on the Philippine government to stop its business as usual. [00:43:57] And so, you know, it's led to some efforts to try and cut off military aid to the Philippines, to try and, you know, diplomatically isolate Duterte, you know, make him, you know, someone that people shouldn't do business with because he is targeting innocent people who are just trying to survive and have a decent life in the Philippines. [00:44:28] Brandon, we mentioned this a little bit already, but with the passage of the anti-terror law, do you think things like this will become more and more common? [00:44:36] It already has. [00:44:38] As soon as the anti-terror law was passed, we have seen a major spike in killings and arrests. [00:44:45] Again, the same style as what happened the night of my shooting. [00:44:50] One such coordinated raids of several human rights defenders and indigenous peoples has been dubbed Bloody Sunday, leaving nine dead and four others arrested on trumped up charges. [00:45:04] These kinds of raids continue on this day and have taken the lives of many journalists, community organizers, and land defenders. [00:45:14] In the Cordillera region, my colleagues in the Cordillera People's Alliance were also threatened, harassed, and intimidated. [00:45:23] The Philippine government has slapped fabricated cases of cyber libel, illegal possession of firearms, and even murder against indigenous leaders. [00:45:35] The Cordillera chief of police even attempted to legalize the way they conducted the drug wars to activists and critics. [00:45:44] So it's like what you were saying, Brace, with the Tokang. [00:45:49] They really wanted to do the same thing to activists. [00:45:55] The drug war has led to 30,000 mostly urban poor killed. [00:46:00] Yeah, I mean, that's what sort of strikes me about this. [00:46:03] I remember when the drug war stuff sort of started breaking the news here, it was like, look at this crazy thing they're doing in the Philippines. [00:46:09] Like they're like, you know, they're just like killing drug. [00:46:12] I mean, at first it was, it was almost presented like badass Duterte is fucking, you know, killing these meth dealers and like cleaning up the streets. [00:46:21] Somehow, I don't think that there were 30,000 meth dealers that, you know, and I have a feeling that this did not exactly solve the problem, especially considering, you know, not to cyber libel anyone here or anything, especially considering Duterte's own family's connections to methamphetamine production and distribution that I've read about. [00:46:42] Certainly many in the government there have similar sort of graphs going on. [00:46:48] Yeah, I mean, it seems so clear to me now is that they really sort of tested out these tactics in the drug war and then have essentially exported them, which I mean, again, to be clear, the government and armies of the Philippines throughout successive regimes have been fighting against indigenous peoples and left-wing organizations or worker peasant organizations for decades and decades and decades. [00:47:16] But now it's sort of like it's come to a sort of new iteration in the 21st century. [00:47:21] And now using COVID stuff as a justification, I've seen, you know, placing like mask warrants and using that to like as the precursor or like, you know, supposed legal justification for more mass arrests and more like violations, imposing what is basically like successive iterations of martial law, it seems. === U.S. Complicity in Philippine Military Operations (07:16) === [00:47:46] It's like, I mean, it's any kind of state justification they can find, it seems they just kind of, you know, grab what's available and run with it. [00:47:56] Brandon, how has it been being back in America since all of this? [00:48:26] How has your health been? [00:48:29] Obviously, moving back to America made practical sense for my safety and recovery. [00:48:37] However, making the transition from the Philippines to the U.S. has been difficult for my family. [00:48:44] For myself, it has been an uphill journey for my recovery, and my life will never be the same again. [00:48:52] Today, I struggle with my quadriplegic condition, unable to use my hands or legs. [00:49:00] With my spinal cord injury, I am continuously at risk of a compromised immune system. [00:49:08] In addition to the physical disability, speaking and mental activities have become more difficult. [00:49:15] Christ, I'm yeah, I'm really sorry to hear that. [00:49:19] I knew that, but it's just been. [00:49:22] I mean, I think that's what really gets to me about this, too, is that like these, you know, it kind of leads us almost to the next question, too, is like the people that shot you have not been caught, right? [00:49:33] Like, I mean, has there been any sort of investigation into who did this? [00:49:36] I mean, this is, you know, this was this was a pretty big deal. [00:49:38] This made international news. [00:49:40] You know, there was people that came out, like politicians that came out to, you know, investigate or to bring attention to it. [00:49:46] But even Nancy Pelosi. [00:49:48] Yeah. [00:49:48] Yeah. [00:49:50] What, what, what, I mean, I know the answer to this already without, you know, having to even ask, but, you know, is there any investigation? [00:50:00] Are they any closer to catching the people that did this? [00:50:03] Well, the Philippine Senate and House of Representatives have both passed resolutions condemning my attack and pushed for independent investigations, as of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors did as well. [00:50:22] And like you said, Nancy Pelosi made a tweet condemning the attack and also asking the Philippines to investigate the killings. [00:50:33] And in the Philippines, the Commission on Human Rights did start an investigation, but it's already two years and there's been no real progress. [00:50:45] For them, the Commission on Human Rights say the military has been dragging its feet. [00:50:51] They don't want to be investigated, so they don't entertain the interviews. [00:50:58] During that time, the Philippine National Police also showed up at my home in Ifugao and said that they were investigating my shooting and asked my sister-in-law for my electronic devices, like my cell phone and laptop. [00:51:17] It's clear their real intents trying to cover up the shooting. [00:51:21] When I was in the hospital, they actually tried to suggest that I was shot by one of my colleagues. [00:51:29] I have no illusions that there would be no real investigation or prosecution under the dirty regime. [00:51:37] Our only real option to stop these killings and impunity is to continue the mass movement. [00:51:44] And one of our calls is to stop funding the Philippine military and police. [00:51:50] Yeah, Rhonda, could you expand on that a little bit? [00:51:54] I mean, Liz mentioned earlier is that the U.S. engages in multi-billion dollar arms sales to the Philippines, but we also, you know, we train and arm the Philippines military and police as well, right? [00:52:04] Right, yeah, and have been for a long time. [00:52:07] There are these decades-old military agreements between the two countries, mutual defense treaty and these bases treaties over the years, what's called the visiting forces agreement now. [00:52:20] All of these things pretty much cement the agreement of the U.S. and the Philippines to have joint training, joint exercises, being able to base, you know, quote unquote base U.S. troops inside of Philippine bases. [00:52:41] That's one of the ways they skirt around the sticky issue of foreign bases being illegal on Philippine soil. [00:52:49] So they just have the U.S. troops occupy Philippine bases instead. [00:52:54] And these agreements also allow the U.S. ships and planes and other things to be able to use even civilian areas for their storage or presence. [00:53:08] And then there's, of course, like the whole advising of Philippine military that takes place and sharing of intelligence and things like that. [00:53:19] So, you know, that relationship has been cemented by these long-standing treaties. [00:53:25] And so, you know, by the USA's view, the U.S. cannot claim any kind of innocence in this whole thing. [00:53:32] The Philippine military is committing these atrocities against people, people like Brandon, and they're being advised in counterinsurgency strategies by the U.S. [00:53:45] And they're being supplied arms. [00:53:47] They're being supplied, yes, arms and training by the U.S. [00:53:52] So the U.S. is, you know, at the very least, complicit and, you know, in some ways, very much responsible for the kinds of military operations being conducted against activists in the Philippines and, you know, just against ordinary people standing up for their rights. [00:54:16] Yeah, I mean, it reminds me so much of how in the 50s, the U.S. Army and the CIA or sort of, yeah, yeah, the CIA and special operations, these sort of proto-special operations groups trained in the Philippines, essentially, on the hooks and on the, I'm not going to try to pronounce the full name. [00:54:33] Don't, even if someone tells it to me, I can't repeat it. [00:54:37] But and obviously the peasantry as well. [00:54:41] I mean, there's the famous story of Ed Lansdale sort of developing his whole like theory of psychological warfare, essentially by draining the, you know, the blood out of Filipino, you know, either guerrillas or most likely just peasants and, you know, hanging. [00:54:56] It's an insane sort of history that America and the Filipino military has together. === U.S. Interrogation Techniques in the Philippines (04:04) === [00:55:03] And it's like we train and learn those tactics over there and then use them, you know, just across in Vietnam shortly after. [00:55:11] And now, you know, these tactics with the war on terror, these, you know, even more refined counterinsurgency tactics are, I mean, you know, in the case of Brandon, I mean, it comes literally home to San Francisco and re-importing them at this point, I don't even know how to, if it's imported or export, it's just there. [00:55:31] It's fully globalized. [00:55:32] Yes, yeah, yeah. [00:55:35] I mean, it's just, it's just, it's, it's sort of, it's sort of astounding. [00:55:38] And, you know, they're, they're, you know, speaking of too, even the guerrilla war there, you know, they've been, they've been killing, you know, peace mediators, you know, negotiators in the peace process between the NPA and the, sorry, the ice cream truck is passing by. [00:55:53] I assure you, I did not add those sound effects in. [00:55:57] But yeah, the same sort of like extrajudicial assassinations. [00:56:02] I don't even know why I have to call them. [00:56:03] All assassinations, I think, are extrajudicial. [00:56:05] I know. [00:56:06] It feels very odd to keep repeating that, but it's almost like you want to drive home how outside the bounds. [00:56:13] Yeah, exactly. [00:56:14] Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:56:16] I also can't pronounce judicial, so I will stop saying that. [00:56:21] But yeah, like killing, you know, killing, killing people who are supposed to be literally involved in the peace process. [00:56:25] I mean, people who are essentially, you know, domestic diplomats. [00:56:28] I mean, that's like, you know, it's just, you know, speaking to you guys as activists and people who have friends over there, like it, you know, it, you know, must be kind of a frightening time to engage in this movement in the mass work that you do. [00:56:42] Frightening, but, you know, I can't imagine not doing it, you know, knowing that the people that are living there on the front lines, you know, have to face this kind of harassment, violence, all those things, you know, on a daily basis. [00:57:02] And in a lot of ways, they have no choice, right? [00:57:05] The choice is poverty and starvation, you know, loss of their land and livelihood or standing up and fighting back. [00:57:14] And, you know, that is so courageous to me and, you know, an example for all of us to follow. [00:57:23] And, you know, as buying USA, we can't imagine stopping, you know, even though the arm of the Philippine government has reached over to the United States in the harassment of us, the red tagging of us, we still have the ability to speak from here. [00:57:43] That ability has been taken away from so many others through these assassinations. [00:57:48] And so we have a responsibility to continue it. [00:57:52] And in our view, anyone in the United States who cares about human rights and doesn't think the U.S. should be supporting this kind of terror on Philippine citizens by its own government should also be involved in the movement to try and stop it through one. [00:58:16] There's one campaign that's being waged, and I think Brandon can also speak to this a little bit more: is a campaign to pass the Philippine Human Rights Act, which would end U.S. support and military aid to the Duterte regime. [00:58:34] Yes, in the U.S., the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines, U.S. chapter, along with Capitan Alliance and the Malaya Movement, are pushing for the passage of the Philippine Human Rights Act. [00:58:52] It will suspend U.S. military aid to the Philippines until human rights violations end, and parties responsible are held accountable, including the attack on my life, as well as all other victims. === Thankful Engagement (04:33) === [00:59:08] And then people and organizations here in the U.S. can also join ICHARP's solidarity network to help pass the bill or connect with a local committee on human rights of the Philippines. [00:59:26] I continue to be involved with the ICHARP work, and we recognize the role of the United States in upholding oppression and exploitation in the Philippines. [00:59:39] We have the responsibility to hold the U.S. accountable through our solidarity with the Filipino people. [00:59:47] And we have the opportunity to support their rich history of struggle for self-determination by joining the global movement against their exploitation and oppression. [00:59:59] Yeah, thank you guys. [01:00:01] It's been such a pleasure having you on. [01:00:03] We got to wrap up, but Brandon, I wanted to ask too, just on like a personal note, what kind of like, I mean, you know, you came back here. [01:00:10] You can no longer, I assume, really work much. [01:00:12] You know, you're confined to a wheelchair. [01:00:16] What sort of challenges are you facing just in like day-to-day life living in America? [01:00:20] Like what sort of resources do you need? [01:00:24] Can you talk about that for a second? [01:00:27] I have my support group here, and they have been doing fundraisers for me. [01:00:35] It really takes for my care a mass movement that they help with my political education still. [01:00:51] But for my physical disability, it has been hard because I'm limited in what I can do when I'm not in the wheelchair. [01:01:03] I'm in bed for around 12 hours a day. [01:01:08] Yeah, yeah. [01:01:09] And I know you were looking for ADA compliant new housing as well, which is in San Francisco, I can imagine is the most brutal possible place to find that too. [01:01:22] Yeah. [01:01:23] Well, thank you guys so much for coming on. [01:01:26] It's been a real pleasure. [01:01:28] I mean, it's actually been really heartbreaking, but it's been good to hear what both of you had to say. [01:01:34] And yeah, thank you. [01:01:36] Thank you for having us. [01:01:38] Thank you for having us on. [01:02:23] All right. [01:02:24] So we're going to put links down in the description of this. [01:02:28] I was actually, I probably, we know what, we're not journalists, so I don't have to do this, to be clear. [01:02:35] But I was a subcommissioner on one of the reports that or one of the hearings that led to one of the reports that we'll be linking in the second one. [01:02:44] And so I heard testimony firsthand, or rather, you know, on the computer, but live of people whose families had been executed by the government, people who had been kidnapped, people who had had their churches ransacked and burned down and all the funds stolen. [01:03:08] And it is just incredible how the mass movement has really kept going through all of this and is still, as you can see, even Brandon. [01:03:20] I mean, something that's really impressive to me about that is Brandon was shot for this and is still like, you know, is still going to political meetings and still, you know, still fully engaged in this. [01:03:31] Yeah, incredibly resilient, incredibly committed, incredibly, phenomenally organized. [01:03:36] Just a really, I don't know. [01:03:40] Yeah, so I'm like a little speechless right now. === Incredible Resilience (01:13) === [01:03:42] I'm sorry. [01:03:44] I was going to say, you know, I did want to, you know, for any of our new listeners out there who haven't heard, we did an interview with Vincent Bevins last year about his book, The Jakarta Method, and might be worth linking to that episode. [01:03:58] If you guys haven't listened to that, we go in depth into his book, which is great, but we do talk a lot about some of the stuff that Bryce mentioned in the show and the different not, you know, specifically with the Duterte regime, but specifically, you know, but more specifically the history with the U.S. and the Philippine government and the kind of, you know, [01:04:24] the kind of different sort of testing grounds of kind of counterinsurgency and terror tactics that the Duterte regime has perfected for sure. [01:04:38] Yeah. [01:04:38] So we should link to that. [01:04:39] Absolutely. [01:04:40] Good idea. [01:04:43] Well, let's close this out. [01:04:44] My name is Brace. [01:04:46] I'm Liz. [01:04:47] We are, as always, joined by producer Young Chomsky. [01:04:51] You've been listening to Truanon, and we will see you next time.