Filipino-American activists hounded Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in New York on his way to address the United Nations (UN) on Monday.
Bagong Alyansang Makabayan-USA, Malaya USA and other organizations said they “successfully delayed” Marcos’ attendance to the UN Commission on the Status of Women assembly where he eventually delivered a speech.
“We confronted his entourage that included Department of Foreign Affairs Secretary Theresa Lazaro, Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Manuel Romualdez, and more who here in NYC,” the groups said.
The activists heckled the president’s convoy as it appeared stuck in traffic on one of New York’s avenues leading to the UN.
“Don’t you have shame? There are 2.4 million Filipinos in the Middle East (amid the ongoing war), but you are here inside your Mercedes Benzes,” the activists shouted at the blacked-out windows of the vehicles purportedly carrying the president and his entourage.
Marcos flew to New York on a business jet shortly after ordering austerity measures to the Philippine bureaucracy as its response to the Middle East crisis severely impacting the Philippines.
As he arrived in the US, the Philippines hit an all-time currency value dive, massive electricity rate increase, and the start of a succession of oil price hikes that promises to be the highest in the country’s history.
The activists said Marcos should be back in the Philippines providing solutions to the crises.
“Mary Ann de Vera has died. But where are you? Here, staying in a US$17,000 per night hotel rooms!” the activists added, referring to the Filipino caregiver who was killed in Israel in the first few hours of the war.
They also mentioned about the massive corruption scandal Marcos himself is involved in back home.
“Shame on you!” the protesters chanted.
The groups said Marcos has no right to speak on the concerns of women at the UN as his “corrupt regime traffics and sells out working Filipina women, forcing them in the thousands to leave their families and work abroad in dangerous conditions.”
The activists also held a rally at New York’s famed Times Square to speak out on Marcos’ sell out of the Filipino and the Philippines’ resources by increasing US militarization in the Philippines, rampant government corruption, and withholding from protecting Filipinos who remain trapped in the Middle East War Zone.
Last March 5, the same groups held a protest rally outside the Asia Society in New York on March 5, denouncing Secretary Lazaro on “her indifference to the plight of Filipino migrants.” #