It is interesting that such accusations are lobbed only at protest actions that are led by the uneducated and the unwashed. Do you hear similar opinions regarding 1986 EDSA or EDSA Dos? It is interesting how quickly we forget the pivotal role of the youth in changing the course of history. Would you call Martial Law student activists as simply “cute” or “impulsive”?
Drought is avoidable only if these farmers have access to water services. Poverty and hunger is preventable only if the people have the equal share and access to resources. Disaster is preventable only if the government will provide and do its obligations to its people.
The State in collusion with its mining capitalist-conspirators deploys military and paramilitary forces to ensure elitist economic gains from mining and mineral explorations. As a result of militarization, the Lumad had to be displaced from their ancestral lands. And born out of this is the formation of culture of resistance.
In my previous column where I tackled the 18 March lumad and peasant barricade in front of the EastMinCom of the AFP in Panacan, Davao City, I said that in addition to sympathy and charity, what the protesting farmers and lumad also needed was that the public understand the political roots and implications of their mass action.
The government already knew about El Niño as early as last year, which they predicted to be the longest in the past 65 years. In fact, the government declared some provinces of Mindanao under the state of calamity.
While the farmers’ demands were unquestionably just, the powers-that-be have in the instant answered them with astonishing indifference.
Under the leadership of the Regional Party Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines, all the NPA units in the region continue to show its mettle as the true army of the people by waging a protracted people’s war, gathering more and more strength from tactical offensives, agrarian revolution and base building.
Two years ago, when the two parties signed the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, we declared together, with courage and conviction, that a new dawn has come.
A few months ago, I wrote the following article, having sensed an ominous goings-on in our country’s political scene wherein the son “Junior” of the late Dictator Ferdinand Marcos as a member of the Philippine Senate seemed to be exuding confidence cum braggadocio to further push his political fortunes in the coming presidential elections.
Much has already been said about the lumad and peasant barricade last 18 March in front of the Eastern Mindanao Command Headquarters of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in Panacan here in Davao City.
