Peasants group to launch 'kontra-gutom' campaign
Paghugpong sang mga mangunguma sa Panay kag Guimaras (PAMANGGAS) will launch a Panay-wide Kontra-gutom campaign to address the worsening hunger and poverty in the countryside. Nilo Arado, its secretary general said, farmers in Panay and Guimaras will conduct massive dialogues to Local Government Unit (LGU) officials from Barangay level up to provincial and regional line agencies of the government to push for food and agricultural subsidy.
PAMANGGAS will barrage the LGU's with petitions starting July 1 to first week of August. The peak of all these activities is a regionally coordinated mobilization and Kontra-Gutom Camp-out in Iloilo City on August 22-23 which will feature and highlight the basic and concrete demands of the farmers.
The farmers also plan to reach out the religious leaders and groups, civic and humanitarian organizations to ask for technical, material, financial and moral assistance they can extend to.
Arado stated that hunger and poverty are the current real state of the farmers in the countryside. "If the Macapagal-Arroyo government can afford to allocate P 1 Billion for murder funds in the name of All-Out War against CPP/NPA, it is reasonable enough to allocate funds for food to address the miserable condition of the peasants," he added.
He presented that the root causes of hunmger and poverty in the countryside is landlessness due to the failure in the implementation of genuine agrarian reform and not because of farmers' laziness. "It is still real that 7 out of 10 farmers are landless and the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) did not solve this age-old problem." Arado lamented.
PAMANGGAS pointed out the anti-farmer economic policies of the Macapagal-Arroyo government such as deregulation, liberalization of agricultural products and expanded Value-Added tax caused the spiraling of prices of agricultural inputs up to 300% while the prices of agricultural products have almost stagnated. "This aggravates the already miserable condition of the farmers." Arado stressed.
Arado lambasted the corrupt politicians of enriching themselves at the expense of the farmers, referring to the P 1.928 B fertilizer scam. "It is disgusting that what has been fertilized is not the farms of the farmers but the pockets of the few politicians, especially that of Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. They are abusing the name of the farmers to protect and push their own vested political interests." Arado ended.