Press Release
February 24, 2011
Farmers ask “Is Noynoy content with simply revisiting a revolution?”
“This pro-landlord president is thrilled with just viewing photographs of EDSA People Power I on exhibit at plush Ayala Museum while peasants and majority of our citizens languish in poverty as prices of basic commodities rise, regressive taxes continue to burden our people and budget cuts on essential social services continue to be a norm for governance, not to mention the filth the AFP passes on to the citizens of our country.”
Wilfredo Marbella said this as militant farmers of Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) prepare to participate in the multi-sectoral mobilization commemorating the people power revolution that overthrew the imperialist US backed dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, Sr. 25 years ago.
“Noynoy is mesmerized by two-dimensional images of an illusory past event while the appalling three-dimensional and real-time suffering of ordinary Filipinos remain entrenched in our society,” Marbella points out.
“During Marcos’s time, landlessness was the issue for farmers. That was what compelled Cory to declare that agrarian reform would be the centerpiece program of her administration,” Marbella elaborated further.
“We now have a president who rides on the martyrdom of his father and tries to exude the mythical dedication of his mother to ‘democracy’ and yet, given his failure to commit himself to agrarian reform or to peasants’ welfare in his inaugural or his first state of the nation address and even in his first 100 days as president report, provides all Filipinos who subsist on agriculture with a decisive conclusion – agricultural development takes the backseat in his priority list as our nation’s chief executive,” Marbella declares.
“Even today, as in Cory’s term, landlords dominate agriculture, landlessness is widespread, landgrabbers are more brazen, agro-corporations wrestle farmers to servility, genuine agrarian reform is still a far-fetched reality,” Marbella attests.
“The people power revolution in February 1986 was not waged by militarist Fidel V. Ramos or by Martial Law chief architect Juan Ponce Enrile with whom he stands side by side at the blessing of a DND conference room/mini-museum. EDSA I is the culmination of a long-drawn struggle of Filipino masses to free themselves from feudal bondage and colonial subservience,” Marbella heartily explains.
“If these are the types of activities Noynoy participates in and the personalities he dies to be associated with during celebrations of EDSA People Power I, then we can say that the future remains dark to the more than 10 million households whose breadwinners are in the agriculture sector,” Marbella bemoans.
“We peasants have every reason to wear red and black, instead of yellow, not until a national transformation will smash all the structures of oppression and exploitation which this president represents and passes on to every Filipino citizen. We cannot simply sit idly in rain-fed rice paddies or weed-infested coconut groves and watch this president pride himself with images that revisit the past. We will make sure that our interests and the aspirations of more than 90 million stomachs we are striving to satisfy will be at the top of our nation’s agenda,” Marbella swears.###
Reference: Wilfredo Marbella
Deputy Secretary General – KMP
0917-6073165
February 24, 2011
Farmers ask “Is Noynoy content with simply revisiting a revolution?”
“This pro-landlord president is thrilled with just viewing photographs of EDSA People Power I on exhibit at plush Ayala Museum while peasants and majority of our citizens languish in poverty as prices of basic commodities rise, regressive taxes continue to burden our people and budget cuts on essential social services continue to be a norm for governance, not to mention the filth the AFP passes on to the citizens of our country.”
Wilfredo Marbella said this as militant farmers of Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) prepare to participate in the multi-sectoral mobilization commemorating the people power revolution that overthrew the imperialist US backed dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, Sr. 25 years ago.
“Noynoy is mesmerized by two-dimensional images of an illusory past event while the appalling three-dimensional and real-time suffering of ordinary Filipinos remain entrenched in our society,” Marbella points out.
“During Marcos’s time, landlessness was the issue for farmers. That was what compelled Cory to declare that agrarian reform would be the centerpiece program of her administration,” Marbella elaborated further.
“We now have a president who rides on the martyrdom of his father and tries to exude the mythical dedication of his mother to ‘democracy’ and yet, given his failure to commit himself to agrarian reform or to peasants’ welfare in his inaugural or his first state of the nation address and even in his first 100 days as president report, provides all Filipinos who subsist on agriculture with a decisive conclusion – agricultural development takes the backseat in his priority list as our nation’s chief executive,” Marbella declares.
“Even today, as in Cory’s term, landlords dominate agriculture, landlessness is widespread, landgrabbers are more brazen, agro-corporations wrestle farmers to servility, genuine agrarian reform is still a far-fetched reality,” Marbella attests.
“The people power revolution in February 1986 was not waged by militarist Fidel V. Ramos or by Martial Law chief architect Juan Ponce Enrile with whom he stands side by side at the blessing of a DND conference room/mini-museum. EDSA I is the culmination of a long-drawn struggle of Filipino masses to free themselves from feudal bondage and colonial subservience,” Marbella heartily explains.
“If these are the types of activities Noynoy participates in and the personalities he dies to be associated with during celebrations of EDSA People Power I, then we can say that the future remains dark to the more than 10 million households whose breadwinners are in the agriculture sector,” Marbella bemoans.
“We peasants have every reason to wear red and black, instead of yellow, not until a national transformation will smash all the structures of oppression and exploitation which this president represents and passes on to every Filipino citizen. We cannot simply sit idly in rain-fed rice paddies or weed-infested coconut groves and watch this president pride himself with images that revisit the past. We will make sure that our interests and the aspirations of more than 90 million stomachs we are striving to satisfy will be at the top of our nation’s agenda,” Marbella swears.###
Reference: Wilfredo Marbella
Deputy Secretary General – KMP
0917-6073165
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