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About a dozen local Filipino young adults demonstrated outside the Philippine Consulate in Nuuanu Saturday as part of an international activist organization confronting Philippine government policies and alleged corruption. The Hawaii chapter of the militant youth and student group Anakbayan-USA held the demonstration in part to protest what it contends is a lack of protection by Philippine consular officials for Filipino nationals being detained on the mainland under what the organization calls the “brutal anti-migrant policies” of the Trump administration. “In the wake of Trump’s immigration crackdown, the (regime of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.) is continually exposed for its neglect and failure to protect its people,” said Sara Imata, a University of Hawaii at Manoa student and Anakbayan Hawaii member, outside the consulate via loudspeaker. Arriana Simpao, a Kapiolani Community College student who shared the loudspeaker with Imata, said corruption from political dynasties of the Marcos family and family of Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte is a “wake-up call” for fundamental change in Philippine society that she said is led by a government run like a business plagued by weak infrastructure and environmental destruction. “We must defend ourselves,” Simpao said. “We must fight back. Ultimately we must replace the current system with a national democracy towards a socialist perspective.” The group held signs with messages that included “Free all migrants from unjust detention” and “Defend migrant workers!” Rally cries repeated during the demonstration included “ikulong na yan, mga kurakot,” meaning “jail the corrupt now.” Some demonstrators also threw water balloons at life-size face photos of Marcos, Duterte and Philippine Ambassador to the U.S. Jose Romualdez held up by other participants. Anakbayan Hawaii chose Nov. 8 for the protest in part because Romualdez a year earlier had advised Philippine citizens who were in the U.S. illegally to voluntarily leave before President Donald Trump took office in January and followed through on a promised crackdown to rid the country of undocumented immigrants. Saturday’s demonstration, along Pali Highway in front of the consulate’s closed driveway gate and perimeter wall, lasted about a half hour. A couple of people from inside the consulate came outside to watch but declined to comment. Law enforcement agents from a mix of federal agencies including Immigration and Customs Enforcement have arrested more than 150 people in Hawaii since January on suspicion of violating U.S. immigration law. Misty Pegram, an Anakbayan Hawaii member who helped lead Saturday’s demonstration, wasn’t aware of a local case of a Filipino national being arrested over immigration status but said that on the mainland representatives of the Philippine government aren’t helping. “In all of the cases we’ve seen of Filipino migrants being detained by ICE or being held in ICE detention facilities, support for them is almost nowhere to be found,” she said, adding that help is coming from community organizations but not Philippine government representatives at consulates. Filipinos represent the second-largest ethnic group in Hawaii after Caucasians, according to 2020 Census Bureau data. Anakbayan was founded in the Philippines in 1998, with chapters in several U.S. cities later established. The Hawaii chapter was formed in 2020, according to an article in the Hawaii Filipino Chronicle.
