A Solidarity Action to All the Victims of State Atrocities

The Etniko Bandido Infoshop, with several other collectives, in Manila, Philippines hosted on Nov. 17, 2018, a Food Not Bombs (FNB) action in solidarity with all victims of state atrocities.  In A Radical Guides interview with Cris of the Etniko Bandido Infoshop, he spoke about the importance of actions like these and how it brings the community together to create something new.

Here is an article was written by a member of this action, posted on the Etniko Bandido Infoshop website.  

Few people are in-charge in the distribution of material and social goods which the ultimate aim is to maintain social order under the framework of massive hierarchical structure wherein people compete to the top. Those who are sitting at the highest post enjoy power and privilege. To maintain and further expand their power and profits which are most common and recurring to many politicians; they must exercise control and they would “create” events as despicable as wars and invasions just to assert their agenda.

Local autonomous activists adopted the Food Not Bombs (FNB) tactic due to its applicability in terms of action and propaganda. In our local context, over ten million people in many areas of the archipelago go hungry every year. The latest record puts the number of unemployed and underemployed people at about 4.5 million. Every year, almost one million women and men want to leave the country to seek job opportunities. The country has one of the largest numbers of malnourished children in the world. In 2000, the country ranked 77 out of more than 150 countries with a poverty incidence of 34%. The human development index (HDI) figure was 0.656 (NGO’s for Fisheries Reforms’ strategic planning January 2007). 80% of fisher folk households live below the poverty line (Israel, 2004).

Instead of addressing poverty and hunger, the Duterte administration launched “War on Drugs” campaign that killed thousands of poor people. The number of dead bodies continuously rise.

Four FNB volunteers are dead and one is incarcerated. He is in the detention cell in Sta. Fe Bantayan Island Cebu.

Food Not Bombs Volunteers are here to criticize social injustices that we are enduring many decades ago. Our criticisms employ only peaceful and non-violent methods to effectively convey our MESSAGES OF PEACE, EQUALITY, ECOLOGY & LOVE. We are armed nothing but utensils, cook set and dishes. Our ammunition are books, zines, documents and skills-sharing workshops. We share nutritious food and relevant information because we know that this our contribution to the over-all initiatives of many communities around the world that is set to end poverty and war by uprooting the system from its core. By eliminating hierarchy and control.

Around 1pm, creative resistance started. We assemble in Welcome Rotonda, Quezon City. Different individuals and groups coming together with their own propaganda materials, foods to share, clothes for the Really Really Free Market and others initiated spontaneously their free school with free coffee and tea. In the middle of the afternoon they set up a free t-shirt printing with the design stated “War on Drugs, War on Poor” while some do wet pasting their political statement on the wall. It was also participated by some street children and other by passers. Volunteers distributed foods and flyers on all the moving cars, trucks and busses while others playing music with an open jam atmosphere. Some volunteers engage themselves with street kids giving them art workshop and basic education. There are also people coming from cannabis community who join the protest event. When the night fall, we solemnly light up the candle to remember all the victims of state atrocities.

JUSTICE TO ALL VICTIMS OF TOKHANG!

JUSTICE TO ALL VICTIMS OF POVERTY AND HUNGER!