MANILA, Philippines – Filipino-Canadian groups condemned the unwarranted handcuffing of the family of a stabbing victim Charle Dalde by British Columbian police who inspected their apartment last week.
On the night of April 14, the Richmond police ordered Dalde’s parents and younger brother come out of their Lansdowne Road apartment, lie down on the ground, and put their arms behind their heads.
The police allegedly did not present any search warrant.
“The disgusting abuse of authority from the police and harassment of the Dalde family is just another example of the systemic racism faced by the Filipino community in Canada,” said the umbrella-organization Kalayaan Centre in a statement. “Instead of being treated as victims, the Dalde family was treated like criminals by the police.”
Charle Dalde, 24, was on his way home from a date with his girlfriend on April 14 when a man stabbed him to death.
At the time of the incident, Dalde’s mother, Harlyn, heard a ruckus in the fire lane that divides several apartment buildings south of Lansdowne Road.
Not long after, the victim’s younger brother, Cezar, saw a police officer stringing up yellow police tape in the distance.
A few minutes minutes after that, they got a phone call from Richmond Hospital informing them of what happened to Charle. They were about to leave when policemen called up and ordered them to come out of their apartment unarmed.
According to the group’s statement, Harlyn requested the police to handcuff her with her hand in front instead of at the back because she has a shoulder injury.
The police inspected their apartment for fifteen minutes before they were released.
They finally reached the hospital. But it was too late. Charle Dalde was dead.
“They were refused by the hospital personnel and an RCMP officer to see the body of their son, or even look from a distance, which the mother pleaded, would be enough,” the statement read.
Members of the organization include Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada / the Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance -BC (UKPC/FCYA-BC), SIKLAB Overseas Filipino Migrant Workers Organization, Philippine Women Centre BC, BC Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines (BCCHRP), Filipino Nurses Support Group, and Sinag Bayan Cultural Arts Collective.
Systemic racism?
The Fil-Canadian group declared the experience of the Dalde family as an example of “systemic racism” imposed by certain Canadian institutions, including the judiciary.
“Many Filipinos are being easily targeted, and are victims of racial profiling and harassment,” the group said. “We are unjustly labeled and treated as ‘criminals.’ There is a lack of understanding in Canadian institutions such as the Richmond Police Department of the systemic issues including their racist acts.”
The Kalayaan Centre also enumerated several instances to support their claim.
This includes a case in 1998 were a group of Filipino youth was harassed by Caucasian youth during a camping trip.
“Although the Filipino community asserted that it was a racist attack, the media isolated this as an incident of ‘youth boredom,” the group said.
In 1999, about 25 Filipino teens were reportedly “harassed and threatened in the Vancouver Technical Secondary School.”
“Instead of recognizing the need of these Filipino youth for their safety, the response and solution of the Vancouver School Board (VSB) was to transfer these Filipino youth to different schools, neglecting the root causes of the violence,” they claimed.
The group also noted the killing of 17-year-old Jomar Lanot, by a group of teenagers in the Charles Tupper Secondary School basketball courtyard in 2003 as well as the stabbing of 15-year-old Deward Ponte last January.
Caregiver program
Like Ponte, Dalde and his younger brother were petitioned by their mother to Canada after working there for several years.
In 2000, Dalde went to Canada at the age of 17, after being sponsored by his mother, who had been working in Hong Kong since 1997 before going to the Canadian province.
Filipino community groups have earlier called for the scrapping of the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) that allowed Filipino women to sponsor their families to Canada after completing a two-year contract as live-in caregivers.
They view this immigration policy as reinforcing the separation of Filipino families while ensuring a constant supply of cheap labor in Canada.
A study at the University Of British Columbia (UBC) found that Filipino families who come to Canada under the LCP were separated for an average of five years.
Cheap labor
Citing the UBC study, the Kalayaan Centre also discovered that based Filipinos have the second highest drop-out rate from Vancouver high schools.
“Many Filipino youths can be found working in McDonalds, factories, janitorial, and other low-paying service sector jobs, resulting in Filipino youth becoming Canada’s new source of cheap labor,” they said.
“Many newly-arrived Filipino youth also face the trauma of migration, family separation and reunification as many Filipino mothers are forced to leave their children behind as they work under the LCP for 24 months within three years. Many Filipino youth once reunited with their mothers are reunited as strangers due to many years of family separation,” they added.
– Mark Joseph Ubalde, GMANews.TV