THE MILITANT GROUP KILUSANG Magbubukid ng Pilipinas on Saturday lambasted President Macapagal-Arroyo for blaming the media and her critics for the current rice crisis.

“We did not cause this crisis and she should stop blaming us for her own folly,” said Rafael Mariano, chair of the KMP, one of the groups calling for the President to step down due to corruption and legitimacy issues.

Mariano said it was Ms Arroyo’s globalization and agricultural liberalization policies “that put us in this mess in the first place.”

He recalled that the President, when she was a senator, sponsored a bill for the country’s entry into the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

Later, the country became a member of the World Trade Organization, and “all hell broke loose in the agricultural sector, aggravating the import-dependent and export-oriented character of our economy,” Mariano said.

He said the Arroyo administration also “institutionalized” the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act of 1998, which the KMP and other militant groups wanted scrapped for being antipeople.

Also, the government entered into economic agreements with foreign countries such as Japan and China which would endanger the livelihood of small farmers and fisherfolk, Mariano said.

Malacañang also continued to support the extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, which KMP has blamed for massive land use conversions that drastically reduced the number of farms throughout the country.

“The ingredients for a continuing rice crisis is complete. With the continuing policy of rice importation being prioritized over food security and rice self-sufficiency, the rice crisis will be a permanent fixture of Philippine life,” he said.

The KMP said economic policies that went wrong should have been abandoned but instead the government either put in place worse policies or simply refused to acknowledge their failures.

“Time and again we have warned the government that a full-blown rice crisis is imminent if its liberalization policy continues but it has continued to turn a deaf ear to our calls. Now that it came true, the regime is blaming us. Ms Arroyo should stop this and grab the bull by the horns. Implement genuine agrarian reform then the crisis will be solved, if not, then she will suffer the wrath of the people,” Mariano said.