By BHEA BIANCA PLAMINGCO and MA. KATHLEN G. HITOSIS
Bulatlat.com
MANILA – On International Human Rights Day, Filipino progressives raised the issue of the continuing suffering of the Palestinian people as the US government recently vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that called for a ceasefire.
Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay likened the ongoing attacks against the Palestinian people to the same militarist framework that the US government is pushing against the Filipinos through its “military aid, war materiel, and interventionist schemes.”
Yesterday’s international Human Rights Day is the 75th year since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The document supposedly enshrined the experience from the second World War and to never allow the atrocities and abuses from happenening again.
Recently, however, the world has witnessed the continuing bombing and attacks against Palestine, which Filipino progressives referred to as a genocidal war that is being funded by imperialist powers such as the US through its military support.
“This is a war crime. This is the worst of the worsts,” said Liza Maza of the International League of Peoples’ Struggles during the program in Liwasang Bonifacio.
Read: PH gov’t failed to comply with 75-year-old Universal Declaration of Human Rights – groups
Palestine president Mahmud Abbas said the US government should be held to account for the bloodshed in Gaza, where most victims are children, saying that the “US policy makes it complicit in the crimes of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes committed by the Israeli occupation forces against Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem.”
Last week, a solidarity night for Filipino-Palestinian refugees was organized by the UP Office of the Student Regent, All UP Academic Employees Union (AUPAEU) and UP Workers’ Alliance (UPWA), at the Arts and Sciences (AS) building, University of the Philippines Diliman.
Raymond Palatino of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan said this was not the first time that progressives held a gathering to show their support for the Palestinian people as they have held protest actions in front of the Israel embassy and in many parts of Mindanao where they “shouted for humanitarian ceasefire, shouted for justice, and the most, we are calling out to stop and end the Israeli colonial occupation of Palestine.”
Artists also performed during the solidarity night which was organized by Bayan, Philippines-Palestine Friendship Association (PPFA), Sandugo – Movement of Moro and Indigenous Peoples for Self-Determination, International Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self Determination & Liberation and the Concerned Artists of the Philippines. (JJE, RTS) 
