By Mark Friedman, Labor Columnist
The Fight Like Brandon Lee! Speaking Tour landed in Long Beach this past Sunday, May 26 at the Unitarian Church, featuring human rights activist, Brandon Lee, a survivor of an assassination attempt by the Philippine military. Lee, a defender of environmental and Indigenous rights, discussed the economic and human rights crises in the Philippines, including war crimes and counterinsurgency programs committed by the Philippine government with the backing of the United States.
One hundred twenty-five people attended the speaking engagement, including church members, veterans opposing war, peace activists, anti-imperialist groups, labor unions, pro-Palestine groups, and individuals.
Brandon Lee, a Chinese American resident of San Francisco, recounted his story of how he became an anti-war activist after the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001.
“The US was there for profit, for oil,” said Lee.
When the US invaded Iraq, during its so-called war on terror, Lee joined the League of Filipino Students at San Francisco State. He wanted to learn how to organize Chinese immigrants and workers in the U.S. On an exposure trip to the Philippines, he learned that Filipino peasants tied to the land for generations are paid ten pesos a day, the equivalent of 17 cents in the United States, making them unable to buy basic necessities.
“I was equally inspired and in awe by the vivacious Igorot mass movement and culture of resistance against government neglect, development aggression like large destructive mining and large and hydropower dams, and militarization,” Lee said.
“Unbridled large-scale destructive mining, dams, energy, and other foreign projects, masquerades as development projects, while destroying the environment and forcibly displacing Indigenous people who have been living there for generations.”
Lee discussed the Filipino government’s brutal crackdown on Nestle workers engaged in a sustained labor action of picketing for salary increases and improved working conditions. Lee noted the slogan, “There’s Blood in your Coffee” was inspired by that crackdown.
Lee supported the indigenous communities’ struggle to defend their land, livelihood, and culture. These communities are 10 – 20% of the population, or 100 million people, in the Philippines.
“There is tremendous corruption and theft of money that is supposed to go to these Indigenous communities’ money allocated for roads and hospitals but the work is never finished,” Lee said.
Asked why Indigenous people and their allies are such a threat, he replied, “We are fighting them, imperialist plunder of the land for decades, for the protection of the natural resources like the Chico River which is essential for food and irrigation. But the mining industries have come in and destroyed the Indigenous people’s land and contaminated the river.”
Citing a specific example, Lee noted that, “The internationally banned white phosphorus bomb was even dropped on the province of Abra (2017) and Kalinga (2023) burning the Indigenous people’s communal forest for days and exacerbating the climate crisis.”
Assassination attempt
In 2019, Lee was shot multiple times outside of his home in Ifugao, a province in the northern Luzon region of the Philippines. Lee’s supporters maintain that the attack was an attempted assassination orchestrated by the Philippine government. In 2015, Lee was red-tagged as an enemy of the state for his work as a journalist, environmental rights advocate, and defender of indigenous rights. According to Global Witness, the Philippines has been labeled the deadliest country in the world for environmental activists.
The assassination attempt nearly cost him his life. One of the bullets pierced his spine causing permanent paralysis from the chest down as a quadriplegic, leaving him without the use of his legs or hands. Until now, there has been no accountability for the shooting.
Following the assassination attempt, President Rodrigo Duterte signed an anti-terror law in 2020, which allows suspects to be detained without a judicial warrant of arrest for 14 days and extended by 10 days. For suspects placed under a surveillance warrant for 60 days, the police or the military can extend the surveillance warrant by up to 30 days.
“I continue to voice my opposition to the Anti-Terror Bill in the Philippines alongside local Filipino American communities,” Lees said. “This controversial law granted sweeping powers to define terrorism, persecute activists and critics, and suppress free speech and the right to assembly and to associate with an organization.”
Lee said he was inspired to keep fighting and speaking out as have the indigenous communities and organizations, such as the Cordillera Peoples Alliance and the millions of people in the global south who continue to resist Imperialist attacks, and neoliberal projects, over the decades.
Filipino activists in Southern California are mobilizing for protests in San Diego, June 29-30 to demand the cancellation of RIMPAC, or The Rim of the Pacific Exercise, the world’s largest international maritime warfare exercise. A total of 40 surface ships, three submarines, 14 national land forces, over 150 aircraft, and more than 25,000 personnel are expected to join the maneuvers.
Members of the LA Hands Off Cuba committee participated in the meeting and received a warm response from Filipino activists who are part of the Cuba solidarity movement in LA, some of whom just returned from Cuba with the “Labor and Youth Activists” delegation.
For more information: Justice4BrandonLee@gmail.com