DIIN KAMI MAKADTO, SIR WAAY GUSTO

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DIIN KAMI MAKADTO, SIR? WAAY GUSTO ANG
MALACAÑANG SA AMON?
Privilege Speech of Senate Minority Leader
Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. at the Senate on
February 16, 2009
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Thursday, February 12, some 500 landless farmers
from Negros Oriental, Negros Occidental, Leyte
and Iloilo march along Mendiola towards
Malacañang in Manila.
02/12/09
They are unarmed. They want to air their
grievances to the President in Malacañang about
the inadequacies of the Comprehensive Agrarian
Reform Program (CARP) and to ask for the
redistribution of the Arroyo landholdings in
Negros Occidental. About 8 p.m. the farmers
are forcibly dispersed by a company of anti-riot
policemen.
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STILL pictures footages show the peaceful
start of the demonstration until the rough
dispersal begins. We share them with you, dear
colleagues, so that, hopefully, you will
experience a part of the helplessness of the
farmers-demonstrators, feel a tad of their pain,
or, at least, sense some of their anxiety of what
will happen to them and their cause now?
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The farmers march along Mendiola under a huge
streamer of Task Force Mapalad. A smaller
streamer bears the message Hunger Never Again.
Maralita Makaisa (Poor Unite). Lupa Para sa
Nakararami (Land for the many). Hindi sa iilan
(Not for a few).
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• A few meters into their march on Mendiola, they
  are blocked by a phalanx of the police.

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The farmers kneel down to pray. Look at
the picture, dear colleagues! Can anyone fail to
empathize with the aging peasant who can t even
kneel straight, whose face time has ravaged and
whose frail body poverty and adversity have
clearly consumed?
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• The police advance on them. The helpless
  farmers lie on their backs.

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To make them flee, firemen train water cannons
on them. They stay put despite the powerful
torrents that hit their tired, hungry aching
bodies. The anti-riot cops truncheon their heads
and smash the feet and legs of the men and women
as they lay prostrate and helpless on the
ground. Many farmers lose consciousness.
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M A Y H E M

• A CLEARER STILL PICTURE OF THE AFTERMATH OF THE
  FIRE HOSING OF THE FARMERS

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Those able to do so, succour their fallen
comrades. They are met with more violence by the
anti-riot cops.
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What follows is
A 30-Second awful scene
Captured by a video camera
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(No Transcript)
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Felled by the police attack, a farmer is helped
by comrades.
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No Discrimination Women Equal to Men (Magna
Carta for Women)

• Woman farmer awaits assistance after having
  been beaten up in the dispersal melee.

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Some excerpts of the comment of the peasant
leaders of the brutalized farmers follow
The incident, reminiscent of the violent
dispersals of protesters during the Marcos
regime, has betrayed the utter bankruptcymorally
and politicallyof the Arroyo regime. It can no
longer afford to face the people and address
their grievances. It can only respond cowardly
with fascist violence because it no longer
represents the interests and welfare of the
people but of the big landowners and the
plunderers of the nations coffers and wealth.
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We call on other groups and sectors who still
love peace, freedom and justice to join our
campaign. This may no longer be just a battle for
agrarian reform and land distribution. This may
be a battle of the Filipino people against a
regime that, wallowing in corruption and greed,
has metamorphosed into a fascist monster.
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IN SOLIDARITY
As a result of the appeal, on Friday, February
13, wider sectors of society the religious,
students, NGOs, labor, and concerned laity
express their solidary with the farmers. The
new demonstrators are likewise prevented from
going on Mendiola to reach the gates of
Malacañang.
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Reasons?
or
ALIBIS?
Maybe, the authorities can invent a reason why
the farmers and their supporters are not allowed
to air their peaceful grievance directly before
the President in Malacanang or, at least, before
the palace of the people. Maybe, the occupants
of Malacanang are scared of the very people they
have sworn to serve. Maybe, the President
cannot stomach reading the message carried by
this wizened landless farmer in the following
still photograph
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(No Transcript)
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Extension of CARP???
That, my dear colleagues is a message that is
also beamed to us Extend CARP with compulsory
Land Acquisition and Distribution.   When i
supported the extension of Republic Act No. 6657
last December 17, 2008 it was on the assumption
that what we were doing extending the funding
of CARP up to June, 2009, was better than seeing
the law expire.   Obviously, the landless
farmer-tillers know the situation better than us.
They want an extension of CARP with powers for
the Department of Agrarian Reform to acquire and
distribute land compulsorily.
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ACT NOW!
If we do not want social turmoil to afflict our
land, as lawmakers, we have to respond to the
just grievances of the landless tillers of the
country, and not turn our backs on them or turn
the police on them.   Indeed, as the
agonized cry of an unknown farmer demonstrator
asked of a policeman who was battering him
Where do we go, Sir? Malacañang does not like
us?
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Last Chance!
The answer is that they may come to us in
Congress. I would suggest that we should do
something concrete about their grievances now -
before June 30, 2009, the expiration deadline of
Republic Act No. 6657, comes to pass.
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SALAMAT PO!