Activists protest Asean summit in Clark

ANGELES CITY — Around 100 activists from the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) staged a 10 a.m. protest rally at the Clark Freeport main gate against the upcoming 31st summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in November.

Roman Polintan, chair of Bayan in Central Luzon, said Asean would “push more neoliberal economic policies that will only aggravate and worsen poverty not only in the Philippines but throughout the ASEAN region.”

Polintan also claimed that summit sought to “expand the role of the South East Asian region as an investment and production hub for large corporations in imperialist countries,” referring to the United States, China, Japan, South Korea, and the European Union.

The protesters also criticized President Duterte.

Paul Viuya, Workers Alliance Region 3 leader, said Duterte’s “strong policy pronouncements against Washington in his first few months in office were not followed by concrete patriotic assertions.”

The activists left before noon, warning they would mount more protests in the run up to the Asean summit. /je