"Stop the Killings" Bus

A passionate group of young people from the Philippines is telling the world about the mayhem being committed in their country by President Duterte. Since February, when they staged a die-in in Portland, six thousand more Filipinos have died. Maryanna is one of a group who are painting a bus that will tour the Pacific Northwest to educate Americans about the so-called war on drugs in the Philippines, which is Duterte’s excuse for murdering or incarcerating political opponents. 

A young activist from the Philippines, Jerome Aba, was scheduled to come to the USA to discuss human rights in Washington, D.C., and the local group asked him spend time with them here, to be a May Day speaker in Portland, and to be one of the educators on the tour bus Maryanna is painting. Yesterday Aba arrived in San Francisco, was detained, and was sent back to the Philippines this morning. Local activists suspect Aba’s deportation was not, as immigration officials claim, due to a “glitch” in his visa, but is rather an example of collaboration between Trump and Duterte to keep the American public in the dark about the situation in the Philippines. They will continue painting and readying the bus for the speaking tour, and the bus will roll, with or without Aba on it.