DAVAO CITY – A 10-foot tall effigy of President Benigno Aquino III is being prepared by activists in Cagayan de Oro City for their protest rally on Monday in time for the President’s State of the Nation Address.
Bagong Alyansang Makabayan in Northern Mindanao said this years’ SONA protest “will feature the symbolic burning of the more than 10 feet effigy of the President to dramatize the growing desire for change after more than five years corruption, insensitivity and inefficiency of the Aquino regime.”
Bayan said the effigy, dubbed “Lumad killing machine”, symbolizes the experience of escalating human rights abuses against the lumads (indigenous people) in the region saying more than 20 lumad and peasant activists were killed in less than a year.
“The victims have been active in their local campaigns against mining, plantations and other environmentally destructive activities,” Bayan said. (davaotoday.com)
