Voting in the Philippine Elections?

On why you should vote for Leni Robredo, Kiko Pangilinan, and pro-people senators

Dear friends and family voting in the Philippine election this year,

I am writing this letter to you to consider voting for Leni Robredo and Kiko Pangilinan.

While I cannot vote in the Philippine elections, my inability to vote in the Philippine elections is a reminder of the historical circumstances that have brought my family to the U.S. It signals a long history of fear-driven displacement and the search for a better life—a well-known story in the life of an immigrant. While this is about more than just me and my family, I want to talk about my positionality as a second-generation Filipino American to explain why this election matters to me.

My positionality as a second-generation Fil-Am

Since my undergraduate college years at SF State, questions of community, identity, and belonging have been at the top of my mind. While I had many good, life-fulfilling experiences at SF State, my undergraduate years have been marked by 70+ hour work weeks in customer service jobs, the passing of my grandfather, my mother’s battle with cancer, a time when I was coming to terms with my sexual orientation, and countless hours of searching for community in participating in volunteer service projects. I admit, much of this search for belonging was motivated by my experiences living in a predominantly white suburban town where I was subjected to racialized practices that pigeon-holed me as Mexican, Hispanic, Latino, or Brown. While these identities themselves are not bad, in middle school and high school, I had teachers who had made particular racialized comments about why I shouldn’t take advanced classes despite excelling in various school subjects. At the same time, other students used slurs against me (i.e. wetback, FOB, fag), shoved me into lockers, threw food at me, stole my P.E. clothes, cyber-bullied me anonymously, rummaged through my backpack in classes when I wasn’t looking, and drew genitalia and profanity on my textbooks.

By the end of my time at SF State, I realized I was still struggling to find community, to find a place where I belonged. From the alienation that I felt as a queer person who tried to go back to church, to the election of Donald Trump fanning the flames of white nationalism, to the distant news of Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs in 2016, I decided to go to grad school to find answers.

Learning about Philippine history and politics

In 2017, I moved to New York to study at NYU. During my time there, I attended lectures and immersed myself in the existing literature on Philippine culture, identity, politics, and history. I also spent time listening to heartbreaking migration stories from friends and family who were forced to leave their homes in the 1970s and 1980s with the rise of violence and repression under the Marcos dictatorship.

Then in 2020, I joined Malaya Movement to work with a community of activists, organizers, academics, youth, and religious leaders in the Filipino diaspora who organize with the most marginalized in the Philippines to defend their human rights, host actions to raise awareness of ongoing issues, lobby US reps to end foreign funding that is used in Duterte’s war on drugs, and raise mutual aid funds for Filipinos who have lost their homes due to natural disasters.

Thanks to Malaya Movement: I have spent time listening to other peoples’ migration stories where some people were forced to hide in crop fields every day to escape police brutality and no-knock house raids. I have listened to Philippine-based community organizers who have received death threats, some of who have been targeted, shot, paralyzed, and killed. I have heard people in the Philippines talk about their struggles such as being threatened because they built free food pantries when their communities were experiencing food insecurity. I have followed Philippine news media more closely and have seen the Duterte administration disregard human life as they attempt to justify the killing of thousands of people as “collateral damage” for eradicating the trade of harmful drugs. I have watched many films about the Philippines and the Filipino diaspora that have documented the devastating impacts the Marcos and Duterte families have left on people’s lives. I have attended protests and actions to listen to community organizers speak and give public witness to issues their communities are facing. I have listened to music and read poetry that people have created to process the pain, sadness, and anger they feel about the danger and violence they and their friends and family experience in the Philippines. I have attended dozens of lectures and educational discussions about current issues on environmental degradation, Indigenous communities in the Philippines, and more. I have begun taking Filipino language classes to better meet elderly Filipino where they are at in terms of linguistic ability. While my only connections to the Philippines today are a few distant relatives living there and the history that led my family to the U.S., I believe my positionality in the world speaks to my ability to listen to the most marginalized voices who have the most to lose in this election.

This is why I recall these experiences over the last several years: I believe that Bongbong Marcos and Sara Duterte are the wrong candidates for President and VP. Their fathers Ferdinand Marcos and Rodrigo Duterte have made political choices that have detrimentally harmed and continue to harm my friends, family, and the hundreds of Filipino people I’ve met along this learning journey.

Now, I understand there is complexity in why people vote for certain candidates and so my aim in this letter is not to shame you or make conditions on our relationship if you do not align with me in certain ways. Rather, I aim to start a conversation to consider how decisions we make—voting and beyond—can impact others.

So, as you make your decision, I ask you to:

• Reflect not only on what candidate is right for you but also consider how voting for Marcos and Duterte may contribute to the neglect of acknowledging the violence and trauma many people have faced because of their administrations’ political decisions

• Read Malaya Movement’s Justice and Accountability Agenda of different issues to think about when choosing a candidate

• Attend an April 23 rally to talk to Leni Robredo supporters here in the U.S.

• Feel free to reach out to me if you want to hear more about why I align with Malaya Movement’s endorsement of Leni Robredo (10) and Kiko Pangilinan (7) as well as Chel Diokno (21), Neri Colmenares (16), Elmer Labog (37), and Leila de Lima (18). Beyond Malaya Movement’s endorsements, I also recommend Risa Hontiveros (34), who has been a longtime supporter of LGBTQ+ rights, and Teddy Baguilat (4), who has been an advocate for Indigenous rights and environmental sustainability.

Thanks for reading, ingat. <3