Author: Bandilang Itim

Bandilang Itim aspires to end the atomization imposed upon us by capitalist society, an alienation that separates us from each other. Bandilang Itim aims to be the banner that rallies together libertarian socialists in the archipelago known as the Philippines.

We at Bandilang Itim want social revolution—a revolution where radically new ways of doing things enters the realm of possibility. We are for forming a revolutionary organization capable of challenging capital and the state. We are for a politics that empowers everyone and endows them with the agency to govern their own lives and the things held in common. We are for the communization of the fulfillment of human needs. We are for a social ecology that recognizes our interdependence with our natural world. We are for an end to alienating forms of struggle and we are against the reproduction of hierarchies and domination in our movements. We are for the recognition of intersectionality in our struggles and the necessity of solidarity with those oppressed—as long as others are not free, we are not free. We are for liberty in all things.

Bandilang Itim aims to republish works by other anarchists and libertarians from the archipelago and its diaspora for the dissemination of libertarian ideals.

Bandilang Itim also publishes original works by members of our collective for a libertarian perspective on politics and social issues in the archipelago.

“Bandilang Itim” is Filipino for “Black Flag.”

Categories
Republished Southeast Asia

Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners in Tangerang and Bekasi in Indonesia

Anti Feminist Feminist Club, an anarcho-feminist collective in Indonesia, sent us this message asking for support for anarchist prisoners in Indonesia. We are reproducing this message.

The anti-anarchist repression in Indonesia is still ongoing whilst the country (and the world) is in the middle of a pandemic. Last month the anarchist milieu in the Philippines published a statement in support of imprisoned anarchist comrades in Indonesia. (See: In Solidarity With Comrades Imprisoned in Malang and Tangerang, Indonesia.)

Continue reading “Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners in Tangerang and Bekasi in Indonesia”
Categories
Original Writing Statement

Crackdown at Pride! Free the Pride 20!

A police man in army fatigue holds a crumpled rainbow flag. Taken during the arrest of the Pride 20. Photo by The Communicator. https://twitter.com/pupcocdakom/status/1276356410758983682

A statement from Bandilang Itim.

As we pass the 100th day in the longest and harshest quarantine in the world, we find ourselves in no better position to combat the COVID-19. All dissent is criminalized, ((Simoun Magsalin, “Against a Quarantine with Martial Law Characteristics,” Bandilang Itim https://libcom.org/blog/against-quarantine-martial-law-characteristics-03042020 )) and the lapsing of the Anti-Terror Bill, with its vague definition of what is considered as “terrorism” effectively legislates and normalizes the Philippines as a police state, without having to declare martial law. This is the kind of political maneuvering that would’ve made Marcos proud.

Continue reading “Crackdown at Pride! Free the Pride 20!”
Categories
Original Writing Translations

Contra el terror del Antiterrorismo

Por Malaginoo. Traducido por Confederación Internacional del Trabajo (ICL-CIT).

El gobierno filipino está un paso más cerca de mostrarse tal como es: una entidad antidemocrática y opresora, dispuesta a proteger y servir los intereses de un puñado de personas poderosas, ricas y privilegiadas. Ya antes de que se oyera hablar de confinamiento y cuarentena con ocasión de la pandemia de la COVID-19, se planteó la actualización de la Ley de Seguridad Ciudadana, una normativa que define los parámetros de lo que se considera terrorismo. Después de muchos días y semanas de tejemanejes políticos, declaraciones altisonantes y de acusar de rojos a la oposición, el congreso hizo público el Proyecto de Ley Antiterrorista 2020. ((Informe sobre el proyecto de ley: Neil Arwin Mercado, “Una detención sin orden judicial más larga entre las características del proyecto de ley antiterrorista de Lacson”. Philippine Daily Inquirer. 2 de octubre de 2019. https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1172687/longer-warrantless-detention-among-features-of-lacson-anti-terror-bill ))

Continue reading “Contra el terror del Antiterrorismo”
Categories
Republished

A Call for International Solidarity to Autonomous Resistance and Food Not Bombs Initiatives Around the Globe

A statement from Food Not Bombs Archipelago.

Homelessness and hunger is prevalent in many countries. People begging for food and malnourished children are common images in many places around the world that used to have healthy communities and ecology. While people are enduring poverty and hunger, governments particularly the first worlds are spending hundreds of billions of dollars to develop war materials they use to control other countries through war, intimidation and manipulations.

Continue reading “A Call for International Solidarity to Autonomous Resistance and Food Not Bombs Initiatives Around the Globe”
Categories
Original Writing Statement

An Anarchist Opposition to the Anti-Terror Act and the Terrorism of the State

As anarchist, autonomous, and anti-authoritarian collectives in the archipelago, we declare our opposition the Anti-Terrorism Act recently railroaded in Congress.

Continue reading “An Anarchist Opposition to the Anti-Terror Act and the Terrorism of the State”
Categories
Republished

Detention is Better Than Cure?: The Railroading of the Anti-Terrorism Bill Amidst the Pandemic

photo: Phil. Star

Written by Safehouse Infoshop and initially published on their website.

We have witnessed the government respond to the health crisis with military and police might. Over 30,000 people were arrested and detained, while those estimated to be affected of the actual virus only amounts to less than number. Many were detained for non-violent acts. Some were beaten up for not wearing masks. Others were shot dead, with the president’s grace, for mere disobedience. Demolitions continued. And despite strict security measures in the streets, human rights activist were gunned down.

Continue reading “Detention is Better Than Cure?: The Railroading of the Anti-Terrorism Bill Amidst the Pandemic”
Categories
Republished Statement

We Reject the Terror Bill

Truncheon-wielding Quezon City police disperse protesting urban poor inside the NHA compound on Nov. 22, 2017. (Photo by Philippine Collegian)

Preface from Bandilang Itim

We are reproducing this cross-sectional statement drafted by the NUJP because we unite with them in opposing the Terror Bill. However, we are against the Terror Bill, but we do not oppose on the grounds that it is unconstitutional. As anarchists, we do not believe we ought to be governed by law—indeed, we do not believe we ought be governed at all. Making a thing constitutional does make it right, and what is right is sometimes unconstitutional. We reject the idea that the constitution and laws itself as concepts that decide what is right and what is wrong. The law has been used to tyrannize people ever since colonial times; that the archipelago is nominally independent does not change the fact that the law is still a tyranny used against activists and workers.

Continue reading “We Reject the Terror Bill”
Categories
Original Writing

Cosa Nostra: Sponsorships, Affinity-based vetting and recruiting

Written by APS.

I’m writing this as a quick guide to screening people one might invite to the anarchist collective, since we seem to have an issue at the present where some reactionary elements have entered nominally Anarchist spaces. Not to mention the threat of entryism by those in the Maoist-aligned National Democratic movement. The information here is a synthesis of conversations I’ve had with other organizers, written records of existing anarchist organizations and as well as my own experiences having to organize spaces for planning and action, however small they may be.

Continue reading “Cosa Nostra: Sponsorships, Affinity-based vetting and recruiting”
Categories
Original Writing Pamphlets

Advertising Anarchy

Written by Ponkan on his personal blog, republished by request on Bandilang Itim.

Throughout history Anarchism and Anarchies have long been known to appear and explode as vibrant as it is sporadic. At its most practical, it has been long defined by bursts of activity and small, however self-professing or simply resemblant it is.

Most of this intermittent yet persistent attitude is brought by the movement’s preference for solutions-based activity over theory. If there is any, its most seminal ones do not play around its own philosophy–it is unfettered and blunt aside from some bents towards propagandistic and erudite language. Why wait, nay–prepare for the coming upheaval when you can make liberation happen yourself? Direct action!

Continue reading “Advertising Anarchy”
Categories
Original Writing

Against the Terror of Anti-Terror

Written by Malaginoo.

The Philippine government is another step closer to revealing its true self: an undemocratic, oppressive entity ready to protect and serve the interests of the powerful, wealthy, and privileged few. Before there was talk of lockdowns and quarantines during the COVID-19 pandemic, there was the issue of updating the Human Security Act, a law defining the parameters of terrorism. After many days and weeks of politicking, grandstanding, and red-tagging, Congress unveiled the 2020 Anti-Terror Bill. ((See a report on the proposed law: Neil Arwin Mercado, “Longer warrantless detention among features of Lacson anti-terror bill.” Philippine Daily Inquirer. October 02, 2019. https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1172687/longer-warrantless-detention-among-features-of-lacson-anti-terror-bill ))

Continue reading “Against the Terror of Anti-Terror”