The UP Diliman (UPD) Center for International Studies (CIS), UPD Departamento ng Filipino at Panitikan ng Pilipinas (DFPP), All UP Academic Employees Union, and the Kabataan para sa Tribung Pilipino-UPD Chapter organized the The Socialist Project in Venezuela and U.S. Imperialist Intervention: A Solidarity Forum on the 2024 Venezuelan National Elections.

Held in partnership with the National Network of Agrarian Reform Advocates Youth and the Philippine Bolivarian Friendship Association, the forum invited Richard Gregorio Espinoza Lobo, Chargé d’Affaires of the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (Venezuela) in Manila, as its guest speaker.

Espinoza Lobo discussed the state of affairs of his country and the recently held national elections in Venezuela. He said the result of the national elections was highly contested by the Venezuelan right wing opposition.

Sarah Jane S. Raymundo, an assistant professor at the CIS, said “Despite the 51% win by Nicolas Maduro in the elections, it has been contested by the right wing opposition headed by Edmundo Gonzalez and Maria Corina Machado, [who are] supported by Washington and billionaires like Elon Musk.” Raymundo’s insights were from when she attended the World Conference on Anti-Fascism and Neo-Fascism from Sept. 10 to 11 in Caracas.

According to Raymundo, “President Maduro would like to make the congress as the beginning of an international movement against fascism, colonialism, and imperialism for peace, democracy, and humanity. Maduro said Venezuela has become the epicenter of the fight against fascism, ‘not by choice, but because it has become the target of the most powerful concerted attacks by US imperialism and its allies’ against the country’s and their people’s rights to build their societies and their future in their own interests.”

Meanwhile, Maynard G. Manansala, an assistant professor at the DFPP, said “We advance our learning in the realization that the experience of our struggles as Filipinos are kindred and in solidarity with the experience of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, and therefore, one and the same. We, at the DFPP, are committed to discuss as well as continue in the dismantling of fascism and imperialism and the advancement of our respective sovereignties, international solidarity, peace, and social justice.”

Danilo A. Arao, an associate professor at the UPD Department of Journalism, said “the socialist project is an important conversation here in our university,” despite the risk of red-tagging or persecution.

“Remember, certain concepts like radicalism, socialism, or even communism would be used in a sentence or even used as conversations in a classroom. That is something that we have to do. Because you have an inherently oppressive system euphemistically called capitalism, there has to be alternatives that we have to look at,” he said.

He also explained “The local media would demonize certain countries and certain territories that are critical of capitalism and much less would be openly socialist in character.” Arao pointed out that “that partly explains why in the local media, there’s very little good news in the elections in Venezuela, and if ever there are, it would be about cheating, about fraud…, of alleged crimes done or perpetuated by the Venezuelan government and other baseless accusations.”

The forum was held on Sept. 18 at Palma Hall Room 1131.