Millions of poor coconut farmers across the country will continue to remain destitute even with the improved export index of Philippine’s “coco water,” an official of the militant farmers group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas said Tuesday.
The militant peasant group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) and the claimants movement Coco Levy Fund Ibalik sa Amin (CLAIM) on Sunday declared support for a move to have Congress investigate the importation and selling of palm-based cooking oil by a sequestered oil mill.
Hundreds of protesting farmers stormed the offices of the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) in Quezon City Thursday, clashing with riot policemen who tried to stop them with fire extinguishers.
A militant farmers’ group on Thursday denounced the creation of a new agency on agrarian reform as an attempt by the administration to extend its “antipeasant, prolandlord” policies beyond the life of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) next year.
Militant farmers on Friday named five people included in the preliminary list of Hacienda Luisita who they claimed were actually working in the horse stables of President Aquino’s relatives.
Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio Delos Reyes on Thursday challenged critics to name names and formally file their objections against the purported inclusion of horse stable hands and house helpers of President Aquino’s relatives in the preliminary list of Hacienda Luisita beneficiaries.
Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes is open to a proposal by lawmakers to extend the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) by five years from 2014.
Clashes erupted along the southbound lane of Commonwealth Avenue after protesters tried to breach the police line by taking the opposite lane of the road where police have lined up earlier Monday to block rally groups from going beyond Ever Gotesco.
To break the legal impasse that has been preventing the poor coconut farmers from benefiting from the billions of pesos of coconut levy funds, a peasant group leader on Monday urged President Aquino to immediately push for passage of the proposed Coconut Levy Funds Administration and Management Act (HB 3443) now pending in Congress.
President Benigno Aquino III will decide based on “what is right for the people” the disposition of the coco levy funds.
Malacañang on Saturday denied it was going to dip into the contested coconut levy funds to finance its conditional cash transfer (CCT) program.
The Office of the Ombudsman has declined to pursue the plunder case filed by a farmers’ group against San Miguel Corp. chairman Eduardo Cojuangco over the coco levy funds, saying the issues raised by the complaint had already been addressed by the Supreme Court.
The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) has rejected the government’s proposal to increase its buying price for unmilled rice or palay by 70 centavos to P1, describing it as “crumbs.”
