Akbayan Youth leaders to speak in San Francisco

Akbayan Youth national leaders Shamah Silvosa Bulangis and Justine Balane speaking to Filipino Americans in Washington, DC. INQUIRER/Jon Melegrito

SAN FRANCISCO — Two national leaders of Akbayan Youth, visiting from the Philippines, will hold a dialogue with Filipino Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area on human rights violations, extrajudicial killings, impunity in public office, and threats to democracy under the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte.

Shamah Silvosa Bulangis and Justine Balane will speak to Filipino American human right advocates, on March 7, Wednesday night, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m., at the Bayanihan Community Center, at 1010 Mission Street, Suite B, San Francisco.

• Shamah Silvosa Bulangis, National Secretary General of Akbayan Youth, undergraduate student of Silliman University, and Co-Convenor of Youth Resist

• Justine Balane, International Secretary of Akbayan Youth, recent B.A. Mass Communication graduate of University of the Philippines-Cebu, and Human Rights Group Coordinator of the Network of Young Democratic Asians.

Bulangis and Balane will also talk about the formation in the Philippines last year of Youth Resist, composed of members from Millennials Against Dictators, Student Council Alliance of the Philippines, and Akbayan Youth. Youth Resist organizes against the extrajudicial killing of poor drug addicts and low-level drug dealers, perpetrated by police forces in the Philippines. It recently garnered over 19,000 signatures to an online petition https://www.change.org/p/philippines-petition-for-the-immediate-resignation-of-doj-secretary-vitaliano-aguirre calling for the resignation of Philippine Secretary of Justice Vitaliano Aguirre for spreading of fake news and derailing the justice system.

This event is sponsored by Filipino American Human Rights Alliance, former members of the Katipunan ng mga Demokratikong Pilipino, Friends of Akbayan USA, and various Filipino American human rights advocates in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Bulangis and Balane are stopping by the San Francisco Bay Area from a visit to Washington D.C. where they are presenting on “Human Rights and the War on Drugs in the Philippines” at a conference sponsored by the Students for a Sensible Drug Policy.