Pictures capture last week’s SONA protests in US cities

Protesters gather in front of the Philippine Consulate in Koreatown, Los Angeles on Sunday, carrying signs and leading chants that represented the PSONA theme of “Para sa Pilipinas na Malaya sa Diktadura (for a Philippines free of dictatorship).” FACEBOOK

Hundreds of protesters staged their own United People’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) in various cities in the United States to counter the alleged lies that Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was going to say in his own SONA.

Older people join younger protesters in San Francisco. INQUIRER/Jun Nucum

Organized by MALAYA Movement with groups like Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), Friends of Akbayan Party-list, Migrante, Gabriela, International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP), protesters slammed alleged continued human rights abuses, extrajudicial killings (EJK), the administration’s push to change the Constitution, Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN), and various actions signifying the emergence of a “Duterte dictatorship.”

SONA protesters rally in front of Philippine Consulate in San Francisco. INQUIRER/Jun Nucum

In San Francisco, Pastor Emil Sazon of Sunnyhills United Methodist Church stressed that the people will always stand up for abuse as long as there is injustice:“If in killing people they think they can stop us, they are wrong. They cannot stop us because they can kill our body but they cannot kill our mission to fight for justice. Killing is really happening in our country.”

Anti-Duterte SONA demonstration in front of the Philippine Consulate in New York. FACEBOOK

Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA) San Francisco’s Vivian Araullo reported that “workers at the NutriAsia Foods in Taguig City were laid off, beaten up by the cops and their desire to form a union was thwarted. I remember how it was in EDSA in 1986, the people from different organizations who did not always agree became united. Now we all agree that things in the Philippines need to change.”

Similar protest were held in Los Angeles, New York – where small bands of Duterte supporters came out to counter the protests — and Washington, DC.

Protesters in front of the Philippine Embassy in Washington, DC. FACEBOOK