Migrante Canada welcomes the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte. Throughout Philippine history, the Filipino masses continue to resist and struggle against injustice and hardships due to the systemic issues rooted from foreign domination, bureaucrat capitalism, landlessness due to land-grabbing, and fascism. Time and time again, we continue to show that the people, united, will never be defeated!
Migrante Canada continues to demand full accountability not only for Sara Duterte’s crimes against the Filipino people, but for all the corruption and abuses under the Marcos Jr. regime. We also call for the conviction of corrupt government officials like Sara Duterte in order to bring about genuine accountability and justice.#
Migrante Canada Statement in Support for the Call to Impeach Sara Duterte
February 4, 2025
Migrante Canada stands in solidarity with the Filipino people, both in the Philippines and abroad, in demanding the impeachment of Sara Duterte for her corrupt misuse of government funds. We also call for an end to systemic corruption under the Marcos Jr. regime.
As overseas Filipinos, we strongly condemn Sara Duterte for squandering public funds—resources that should have been allocated to address the urgent needs of the Filipino people. These funds could have been used to improve public transportation, strengthen the healthcare and education systems, support local production, implement a family living wage, increase assistance for distressed OFWs, and enhance consular services, among many others.
Instead, the government continues to prioritize its fascist and corrupt agenda by allocating significant amounts of public funds to the unmonitored Confidential and Intelligence Funds (CIF) through the General Appropriations Act (GAA). This blatant misuse of resources further deprives the Filipino people of the essential services and support they rightfully deserve.
While we support the call to impeach Sara Duterte, we recognize the systemic corruption in the Philippine government, one that Marcos Jr. himself is complicit in and is greatly benefiting from. In fact, the office of the President has a larger budget for its Confidential and Intelligence Fund at Php 4.5 billion which goes unmonitored.
The welfare of the Filipino people, both in the Philippines and abroad, was never the Philippine government’s priority, and continues to be that way. In the 2023 budget, Marcos Jr. appropriated Php 210 billion in Defenseand another Php 282.5 billion in Public Order and Safety and a significant increase in the 2025 budget where Marcos Jr. is allocating Php 256.1 billion ($4.38 billion USD or $6.27 billion CAD) for defence spending–budget that funds state terrorism against the peasant and Indigenous communities and people’s organizations.
With the intensifying government corruption and fascism, and the worsening economic and political crisis, the Filipino people continue to suffer. Thousands of Filipinos are left with no choice but to seek opportunities abroad. Over 7,000 Filipino men and women leave the country every day to support their families by working abroad The remittances sent by OFWs in 2023 alone reached Php 239 billion, in stark contrast to the government budget for the Department of Migrant Workers of Php 16.1 billion, most of which do not go directly to protect and help the overseas Filipinos in need. While OFWs continue to face hardships in their host countries due to human trafficking, labour exploitation, abuse from employers, loss of wages due to wage theft, inhumane and precarious working conditions, and anti-migrant policies, among others, the Philippine government has either not responded or if has, it has not been timely, not sufficient, and not compassionate. Monetary assistance, legal help, access to resources have been found wanting.
Migrante Canada stands united in its call to impeach Sara Duterte and hold the US-Marcos Jr. government accountable for the intensifying government corruption and fascism that puts the Filipino people in even greater poverty and dire conditions, pushing them, in the thousands, to leave the country every day to work abroad.
There will never be just and lasting peace until we address the root causes of our forced migration and until the corrupt and fascist regimeis not held accountable for their crimes against the people.
#ImpeachSaraDuterteNow
#LayasDuterte
#MarcosSingilin
#DutertePanagutin
