Members of “Bayan” (My Country) movement burn a mock U.S. flag near the U.S. embassy ahead of the start of the APEC summit in Manila.
Photo:Reuters
Manila – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrived in Manila Tuesday for APEC amidst protests from groups who denounce the 21-member meeting as no more than window-dressing.
With the recent Paris attacks, security is tightened for the meeting with major roads being closed to traffic.
“It is not coincidental that the Philippines is hosting the 2015 APEC Summit. We believe that this summit will be a battleground between US and Chinese domination in the region – and the Philippines is left stuck in the crossfire, with its territorial interests sidelined by the encroaching economic expansionism of these two powerful nations,” said Kabataan Partylist Rep. Terry Ridon.
According to the People’s Campaign Against Imperialist Globalization (PCAIG ) “APEC is a strong supporter of the policy favouring big foreign mining companies and big foreign plantations in Mindanao, where they conspire with the military and paramilitary groups in brutally removing lumads from their rich ancestral domain.
Justin Trudeau addresses a Filipino festival in Toronto in 2013.
The Philippine diaspora in Canada is growing, now estimated to be 700,000. The country supplies Canada with the largest number of foreign temporary workers.
A Canadian national was one of four kidnapped on Sept. 21 by the terrorist group Abu Sayyap who is demanding a a $28-million dollars ransom.
The Abu Sayyaf group is on Canada’s list of terrorist entities. The Public Safety Canada profile of Abu Sayyaf says that despite its stated armed Islamist objectives, it primarily uses terrorism for profit, and kidnap-for-ransom was among its “particularly favoured tactics.”
And the Canadian-originated shipment of garbage is still rotting unresolved in Manila’s pier.
The Philippines has the fifth biggest improvement in decrease of deaths related to terrorism in 2014, a think tank report has said.
The Philippines ranks ninth out of 162 countries worst affected by terrorism, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace’s Global Terrorism Index for 2014.
“The fifth biggest improvement occurred in the Philippines which saw deaths decrease by 18 percent to 240 fatalities in 2014, down from 291 in 2013,” the report released on Tuesday said.
The study also noted that the Philippines had been placed in the 10 countries most affected by terrorism for six times from 2000 to 2014.
It also lists the Philippines as among the countries where foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria come from, a claim being repeatedly denied by the authorities.