At a fund raiser for the Filipino Advocates for Justice in Oakland on June 20, I sat down with the former national chair of Bayan USA to ask him if his group planned to join the July 24 global protest against China’s occupation of the Ayungin Reef.

Model of the Philippine Independence Day float of US Pinoys about bring issue of China incursions to International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). PHOTO/USP4GG.

I told him that two years ago, when the US Pinoys for Good Governance (USP4GG) was planning protest demonstrations in front of all the Chinese consulates in the US, his friend, Raquel Redondiez, the national chair of Gabriela USA and former Secretary-General of Bayan USA, told Balitang America reporter Henni Espinosa that her group was resolutely opposed to Filipino global protest actions against China because, she said, “it will only worsen the conflict between China and the Philippines.”