Assessing Aquino’s performance since 2012, various sectors and organizations criticized his administration on different issues, thus, giving him a “failing mark.” They said, regional issues “depict the worsening plight of workers, farmers, the urban poor, consumers, and intensified threat to the environment.”
Photos by MEDEL V. HERNANI, ACE R. MORANDANTE & TYRONE A. VELEZ
Text by MARILOU AGUIRRE-TUBURAN
DAVAO CITY, Philippines — They brought a battle tank and a bulldozer.
This was how Davao City activists and small-scale miners in Pantukan and Maco towns symbolized the two-year rule of President Noynoy Aquino as they held a protest rally during his third State of the Nation Address on Monday.
“The bulldozer symbolizes Imperialist plunder while the battle tank represents Aquino’s counter-insurgency program Oplan Bayanihan and his grim human rights record in the past two years,” Ariel Casilao, Bayan Muna’s National Executive Vice-president told davaotoday.com.
According to Casilao, they mustered about 4,000 workers, peasants, youth and students, women, indigenous peoples, and small-scale miners, among others, from the city’s three Congressional districts, including the Paquibato hinterlands, and Maco and Pantukan towns.
The protest rally dubbed “People’s Sona” was led by the umbrella organization Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan). It was participated by the National Federation of Labor Unions, political party Bayan Muna, labor group Kilusang Mayo Uno, Samahan ng mga Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto and lumad group Kalumaran. Youth and women organizations also participated in the rally.
Participants urged the people to “unite, expose and oppose the puppet, oppressive and inutile US-Aquino regime.” They called to “struggle for national liberation, freedom and genuine change.”
Assessing Aquino’s performance since 2012, various sectors and organizations criticized his administration on different issues, thus, giving him a “failing mark.” They said, regional issues “depict the worsening plight of workers, farmers, the urban poor, consumers, and intensified threat to the environment.”
As they lambasted PNoy’s “so-called gains” in “curbing corruption, poverty alleviation, increased infrastructure projects and regaining investor confidence,” they presented their alternatives through a one big cultural presentation.
Pedro Arnado of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas slammed the new mining policy of Aquino — the Executive Order 79 — saying, it will uproot farmers and their livelihood. He also called to junk the Philippine Mining Act. The current mining policies, he said, should be replaced with the People’s Mining Act.
Malen Uyanguren of the national federation of peasant women, Amihan, scored the continuing militarization in the countryside, which victimized women and children. She pushed for the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill.
Community youth depicted the state of the nation through a cultural presentation.
Sheena Duazo of Bayan, in a statement, said, “P-Noy’s two years is unprecedented in terms of fast tracking and enabling the most plunderous mining policy in history.” She added, the current government has “the most deceptive and vile military counter- insurgency perpetrated by the AFP through its Peace and Development Teams and Mining Militias.”
Bayan also criticized PNoy for responding to major public scrutiny and outrage “with the most unintelligent retort and condescension of the popular opposition against the pro-foreign Phil. Mining Act and the recently signed E.O 79.”
Meanwhile, Cherry Orendain of youth group Anakbayan said the promises of Aquino on subsidizing state universities still fall short of providing the education for the youth.
College students express their demand for “a higher state subsidy for education now.”
Atty. Carlos Zarate, Bayan Muna Vice President for Mindanao, said Aquino may have convicted the former Chief Justice Renato Corona but “he still fails in prosecuting Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.”
Activists burned the effigy to “demonstrate the people’s dissent against the plunder, exploitation, and state of impunity,” which they said, have sharpened under the rule of President Aquino.
Bayan’s Suazo said, PNoy “has grossly displayed his loyalty to US hegemony” with 6,000 US military troops in Philippine shores staging the US- RP Balikatan Excercises. She criticized the “parade of war drones” and the “actual presence of US military officials in AFP camps at the height of the Philippine-China rift over Panatag Shores.”
“The “master-slave” relationship of the Philippines and the United States makes the Filipinos a pawn in the US economic and military interests,” Suazo said.
Over 60,000 people nationwide simultaneously held the Bayan-led Peoples’ Sona. (Medel V. Hernani, Ace R. Morandante, Marilou Aguirre-Tuburan & Tyrone A. Velez/davaotoday.com)
World
