In 2022, Canada released its Indo-Pacific Strategy investing in comprehensive Canadian intervention in the Indo-Pacific region. At the 2023 ASEAN summit in Jakarta, Indonesia, former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invited current Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to Canada for a state visit. Canada and the Philippines recently concluded negotiations on a Status of Visiting Forces Agreement and are in exploratory discussions on a Free Trade Agreement. Meanwhile, the Filipino community in Canada remains one of the fastest-growing and largest immigrant populations in the country.

Image: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. shake hands at the ASEAN 2023 conference in Indonesia. Image courtesy of canadianfilipino.net 

As archivists have noted for decades—from Duranti’s (1989) explication of the role of archives in government functions, to Zinn’s famous 1977 speech extolling the political role of archivists, to developments in analyses of power and archives (e.g. Schwartz & Cook, 2002)—the world of geopolitics is not so far removed from the archival discipline. As the Canadian and Philippine governments strengthen their military and economic ties, the question of historical records remains a vital one.

From 1965 to 1986, Marcos Jr.’s father, Marcos Sr., was president of the Philippines. Marcos Sr.’s regime was notorious worldwide for the 1972 declaration of martial law leading to hundreds of thousands of human rights violations, ultimately resulting in his 1986 ouster by a mass mobilization of people in Manila. The 2022 election of his son to power rode on the heels of a concerted campaign of disinformation about the Marcos Sr. era and especially the rampant human rights violations during that time (ICHRP, 2022). Recordkeeping by human rights advocates has been a key component in asserting the rights of Filipinos during both regimes.

In the context of the Marcos family’s return to power, Filipinos in Canada today—many of whom are political refugees from the Marcos Sr. regime—have asserted the importance of archival initiatives to preserve and make accessible government and personal records. This blog post will discuss community archives initiatives and perspectives on archives among human rights defenders in the Philippines and in the Filipino-Canadian diaspora.

Community Archives in the Philippines

Filipino archives, like all archives, are necessarily political. Archives of the state facilitate the governance of the Philippines, while personal records evidence the lives and perspectives of everyday people. This political relationship has been recognized by activists in the Philippines and in the diaspora as a reason to participate in archival work. Here in Canada, we can take lessons from the highly politicized work of community archivists in the Philippines to relate our profession to the needs and experiences of marginalized communities.

Memory projects such as the Philippine government-led Human Rights Violations Victims’ Memorial Commission and the grassroots Bantayog ng mga Bayani (National Heroes Monument) preserve records of human rights violations under martial law (1972-1986). Beyond the history of martial law, new community archives projects have emerged in response to historical revisionism. The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) noted during its 2022 international observers' mission that the election of Marcos Jr. into power was facilitated by the rewriting of history. Mass disinformation campaigns aimed to erase, downplay, or justify the rampant human rights violations and corruption under the Marcos Sr. Regime.

The Philippine Labor Movement Archives (PLMA) is one project with the goal of preserving the history of people’s movements in the Philippines. This project aims to combat historical revisionism by shedding light on the milestones of the Filipino working class over the past decades in their struggle for wages, jobs, rights, and genuine social change. Envisioned to be a community archive of workers’ historical narratives of political and economic struggle, the PLMA was established in 2022 shortly after Marcos Jr. assumed presidency.

In their 2023 exhibition entitled ‘Paggawa ng Alaala, Alaala ng Paggawa,’ the PLMA featured reproductions of photographs from the Marcos Sr. and Marcos Jr. regimes to visually draw the parallels between the two administrations, including low wages, high prices, rampant labor and human rights violations. As one archivist from the PLMA explained, “within these two governments, the militant struggle of Filipino workers persists and proves that truly, the masses are the makers of history.”

Other examples include the recordkeeping practices of Indigenous peoples in the Philippines, which are intrinsically linked to anticolonial struggle. In the Cordillera region of the Philippines, Lara Maestro’s 2019 thesis “Alternative becomings, alternative belongings” highlights the role of traditional records in maintaining a history of political struggle to defend ancestral lands.

The explicitly political creation and activation of records is part of the Filipino activist project of asserting historical truth in contrast with the disinformation of the current regime—a deeply grounded and practical objective that differs greatly from the subjectivist trends in Western postmodern archival thinking. In service to the working class, the PLMA broadens the archival concept of “context” to refer to the sociopolitical situation in which records were created. Similarly, Cordillera recordkeeping preserves records in the context of Indigenous struggle—a practice which may also be of special interest to archivists in Canada working with the records of Indigenous peoples here.

Filipino Community Archives in Canada

Many Filipinos in Canada retain records of their experiences in the Philippines, including experiences of political activism and repression. These records remain in houses and garages, on USBs and phones, ranging from newspaper clippings about arrests of activists, to testimonials prepared for class action lawsuits and publications, to photographs of monuments and other more recently created records.

Because of the context of political repression in the Philippines, many survivors of martial law hesitate to donate their records to archival institutions even overseas for fear of censorship. In interviews with Filipino survivors of martial law living in Canada, I learned that survivors generally “want records to be preserved long-term for present-day and future access by activists and the broader public,” but still hesitate to donate records because “the state’s custody over records gave it power over the historical narrative” (Carlin, 2023, pp. 62-63). Some have experienced the use of old records by the current regime to facilitate contemporary state harassment—for example, one interview participant noted that records from his Marcos Sr.-era arrest in the Philippines were used in the 2020s by state agents to find and intimidate him in Canada.

Image: Different books entitled Political Economy from the personal collection of interview participant and martial law survivor Ed. Image courtesy of Ed, used with permission.

Several local efforts have been made to preserve this community history. Grassroots organizations across Canada have activated records of martial law to build intergenerational connection within the Filipino diaspora, including through interviews and panel discussions with survivors.

Other examples include the 2019 photo exhibit “Kwento’t Litrato – Stories of Filipino Migrant Life in Alberta” launched in Calgary and Edmonton to share oral stories and photographs of migrant workers in the province. In Montréal, Migrante Quebec and Anakbayan Montreal held the “Gintong Batas” (Golden Rule) exhibit in 2022 to share the experiences of martial law survivors living in Québec. In 2023, Kamalayan Konsciousness and Myseum of Toronto held an exhibit titled “Patuloy ang Laban” (The Fight Continues) featuring photographs and other records from martial law survivors.

There is a vast quantity of records in personal custody among the Filipino diaspora in the country, and many efforts to activate and publicize these records. However, there have been few long-term initiatives by the archival community thus far to preserve Filipino activist records with the consent and direction of Filipino activists themselves.

Preserving and Protecting Philippine Democracy

Records play a crucial role in ensuring accountability and good governance. Archives are essential to both the functioning of the state and the participation of the public in political life. Yet for many Filipinos, archival institutions are sites where sensitive political records can be censored or even weaponized for further harassment.

In light of Canada’s growing political, economic, and military involvement in the Philippines through its Indo-Pacific Strategy (including billions of dollars set aside for military collaboration and funding, surveillance technologies, expedited visa processing, and Canadian-led agricultural production in the region), Canadian archivists can and should consider the ramifications of our field for the Filipino diaspora. There are many opportunities for archivists to connect with local Filipino diaspora organizations to preserve the rich history of Filipino activism and advocacy in the Philippines and in Canada. Archivists in Canada can build international solidarity with archivists, librarians, records managers, and memory workers in the Philippines through direct organization-to-organization partnerships and participation in Canadian solidarity alliances with Filipino people’s movements.

Image: Toxic Tour poster (April 27, 2024). Courtesy of Canada-Philippine Solidarity for Human Rights.

Our field can also take inspiration from efforts in other academic disciplines to conduct research and professional activities in direct and explicit support of social justice, such as the concept of “people’s research” from the International People’s Research Network. The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) has facilitated partnerships between Canadian institutions and Filipino organizations devoted to human rights, including exposure trips to learn from Filipino human rights defenders on the ground and observer missions to witness and record the human rights situation. These trips are also opportunities for archivists and archival institutions to build strong political connections with Philippine groups that preserve important human rights records and use archival work to assert human rights in the Philippines. To learn more about ICHRP, plan an exposure trip to the Philippines with your institution, or invite Philippine archival experts and recordkeepers to Canada, email info@ichrpcanada.org. Archivists can also directly contact the Philippine Labor Movement Archives at laborarchive.ph@gmail.com.

As a Filipino archivist in Canada, I hope to see more work in the Canadian archival field to support grassroots people’s movements in Canada, the Philippines, and worldwide. While the Philippines and Canada are far apart, Western intervention in the Philippines is at the heart of our migration from our homeland—and so the experiences of Filipinos in Canada and those in the Philippines are deeply connected. As the Canadian government asserts its influence in the Philippines and other countries in the region, and as more and more international students, temporary foreign workers, and other migrants from the Philippines come to Canada, Canadian archivists can play a crucial role in ensuring that human rights are respected and can even directly support people’s struggles for justice and liberation.

Further reading

Carlin, I. (2023). Archives for a new world : revolutionary personal records in the Filipino-Canadian diaspora [MAS thesis]. University of British Columbia. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/83493

Duranti, L. (1989). The Odyssey of Records Managers. ARMA Records Management Quarterly, 23(3-4).

Global Affairs Canada. (2024). Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy. Government of Canada. https://www.international.gc.ca/transparency-transparence/indo-pacific-indo-pacifique/index.aspx?lang=eng

ICHRP. (2022). Final Report of the Philippine Election 2022 International Observers Mission. International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines. https://ichrp.net/final-report-of-the-philippine-election-2022-international-observers-mission/

Maestro, L. (2019). Alternative becomings, alternative belongings : Cordillera case studies of records in context [MAS thesis]. University of British Columbia. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/69906

Schwartz, J. M., & Cook, T. (2002). Archives, records, and power: The making of modern memory. Archival Science, 2(1–2), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02435628

Zinn, H. (1977). Secrecy, Archives, and the Public Interest. The Midwestern Archivist, 2(2), 14–26.

Isabel Carlin

Isabel Carlin is a researcher at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia (UBC). They received their Master’s of Library/Information Studies and Archival Studies at UBC in May 2023. Isabel’s MAS thesis explored the personal records of Filipino martial law survivors.