Nationwide Protests for Food and Wage Launched Today

Tens of thousands of workers, farmers and urban poor will go back to the streets today, Oct. 21, to demand the stop of farm imports that make farmers’ income miserable and a P125 wage increase for labor, among others. The protests are being launched amid the recent spate of bombings in Metro Manila and Mindanao and threats to declare a state of emergency.

BY GERRY ALBERT-CORPUZ
Bulatlat.com

Despite threats of bomb explosions in Metro Manila and Mindanao, militant groups will push through their biggest protest action today, Monday.

The Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU-May 1 Movement), Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP-National Peasant Movement of the Philippines), fisherfolk group Pamalakaya and Kadamay, an urban poor assembly over the weekend said the nationwide rallies of workers and peasants, fisherfolk and urban poor will go as scheduled.

Protest organizers said they would carry out precautionary and security measures to protect participants from any untoward incident. "We will prevent all possible attempts of infiltration and disruption of the peoples' protests that aim to highlight the poor's widespread clamor for land, jobs, wages and rights," leaders of the groups said.

The groups said over 10,000 people from Southern Tagalog, Central Luzon and National Capital Region will participate in street protests in Manila. The peasant contingent will assemble at the Department of Agrarian Reform before proceeding to Welcome Rotonda. From there, they will march to Mendiola and the U.S. Embassy in Manila.

Simultaneous rallies will also be held in Baguio City, San Fernando, La Union, Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur, Masbate, Sorsogon, Albay, Cebu, Bacolod City, Iloilo City, Panay, Leyte, Samar, Davao City, Kidapawan, General Santos City, Polomok, South Cotabato, Butuan City, Cagayan de Oro City, Iligan, Malaybalay City, Bukidnon and other urban centers.

Usual suspect

Militant labor and peasant leaders said the one-day nationwide mobilization will also call for the ouster of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

KMP chair Rafael Mariano said Oct. 21 is judgment day for the President. “Mrs. Arroyo will get what she wants from us – a deluge of mass actions and all-out rejection that will lead to the collapse of her regime or frustrate her bid to become a back-to-back president."

"After our protest on Monday, things will never be the same for Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo," the militant peasant leader added. Mariano said the Filipino peasantry is sick and tired of the President's “superb puppetry to U.S., wholesale denial of land rights, sheer militarism and corruption."

The peasant leader said Filipino farmers will call for Macapagal-Arroyo's ouster because of her strong bias against genuine land reform, her campaign of state terror and her allegiance to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Washington's business of waging unjust war.

KMU's Elmer Labog said his group, aside from advancing the oust-Gloria campaign, will also press on the Filipino people's just demands for land, jobs, higher wages and democratic rights. "President Arroyo deserves a nationwide condemnation for opting to strengthen her 'war room’ instead of responding to the most urgent demands raised by basic masses," he said.

"Beyond the issue of economic relief we will further expose and oppose Arroyo's anti-worker and anti-people presidency," Labog also said.

KMP secretary general Danilo Ramos, on the other hand, accused the Macapagal-Arroyo administration of laying the ground for the declaration of state of emergency. Referring to the recent spate of bombings and bomb scares, he said these threats “are meant to justify Palace's position to declare a state of emergency and advance repressive measures like the Anti-Terrorism Bill and the National ID System."

The militant leader said those who stand to gain a mile from these bombings and bomb scares are the most likely perpetrators. He said his group believes the bomb blasts were sent off and bomb scares were concocted to rally people's support to Palace plan to declare a state of emergency and push the anti-terror bills and national ID system.

Unstoppable too

Meanwhile, citing a study made by research think tank Ibon Philippines, KMU spokesperson Sammy Malunes said instead of acting repressively on legitimate demands of Filipino workers, the Macapagal-Arroyo administration should recognize the immediate need to pass a legislated pay increase before the year ends. He said cost of living allowance went up by 156 percent but no substantial increases were made on the daily income of Filipino workers for the past 11 years.

While a Filipino worker's productivity went up by P737 from 1991 to 2002, wage increases totaled only P132 during the same period, he said. "Now President Arroyo is toying on war rather than the much deserved pay increase. This is highly inflammatory and totally revolting," Malunes added.

KMU said on Oct. 23, the House is set tackle House Bill 2605 seeking a legislated P125-pay hike. The bill, sponsored by Bayan Muna Representatives Satur Ocampo, Crispin Beltran and Liza Maza has reportedly gained the support of congressmen, despite objections from Malacañang and big business groups.

World Food Day

Last week, militant farmers and fisherfolk joined the global commemoration of the World Food Day with protests against the agricultural trade regime and a call for Agriculture Secretary Leonardo Montemayor to step down.

More than 100 KMP activists held a commando protest on Oct. 16 and slipped their way inside the tightly-guarded office of the Department of Agriculture (DA) to press for Montemayor's immediate resignation.

KMP chair Mariano said Montemayor should go. “He (Montemayor) has been working like a white elephant performing like a puppet and apologist for global monopolies which dictate the one-sided and pro-imperialist world trade under WTO," he said. 

Montemayor came face to face with the protesters to pacify and asked them to get out of the DA office as truncheon-wielding Quezon City policemen and SWAT men prepared to break up the protest. But Mariano's group held their ground.

In Manila Bay, fisherfolk activists from Pamalakaya staged a fluvial protest against the Macapagal-Arroyo government’s pro-WTO policies and programs and declared Oct. 16 as “World Foodless Day.”

Pamalakaya national chair Fernando Hicap said around 180,000 small fishermen in the country have been affected and displaced from their main source of income and communities due to Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo's “allegiance to globalization and trade liberalization.”

"The World Food Day celebration is one big political hoax,” Hicap said. “More than 15 million people in rural Philippines are dying of hunger. But President Arroyo, as always, compromised the food security and rights of the people in favor of corporate takeover and imperialist war."

Southern Tagalog woes

Farmers from Southern Tagalog demanded the country's pull out from WTO as prices of major crops in this region continue to plunge. In a statement, the Kalipunan ng Samahang Magsasaka sa Timog Katagalugan (Kasama-TK) said globalization and liberalization in agriculture further depressed prices of copra, palay, sugarcane and coffee, Southern Tagalog's major crops and pulled down farmers' income to levels way below the poverty line.

Around 200 farmers from the region held a caravan on Oct. 16 from Calamba to set up camp at the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) in Quezon City until the morning of Oct. 21.

 "We are living in a world less of food for anybody, but super profits for the monopolists," said Kasama-TK chair Eduardo Gumanoy.

Kasama-TK's Gumanoy said price of copra went down to P6 per kilo this month from a high of P16 per kilo in September 2002. In 2000, it was P2 per kilo, the lowest since 1986 resulting in widespread hunger and malnutrition among thousands of coconut farmers' families in the region.

"We are producing copra but the problem is the government is not using its own coconut for the betterment of copra-producing farmers,” Gumanoy added. “Copra buying and underpricing has become a lucrative business for big copra traders and local bureaucrats in the region."

The Macapagal-Arroyo government implemented the Coconut Farmers Food Access Program in 2001 supposedly to help farmers get by with the crisis in the industry.  But Gumanoy said the program was piecemeal and did not make a dent in solving the real problems besetting the coconut farmers in the region.

The farmers instead demanded the release of the coco levy fund from the control of businessman Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco. A considerable amount from the coco levy fund collected from the coconut farmers was allegedly used by Cojuangco to buy shares among others from San Miguel Corporation (SMC) where he is a major shareholder.

"While the coconut farmers continue to wallow in poverty and suffer the pains of the globalization of Philippine agriculture, Cojuangco together with his partners profit and enjoy the fruits of our labor," Kasama-TK said. Bulatlat.com

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