The group calling itself Alyansa Kontra Demolisyon (AKD) said: “Where is the place of the urban poor in President Aquino’s development program?”
AKD national spokesperson Estrellita Bagasbas said in a statement that Mr. Aquino had become a “demolition king,” in keeping with his alleged penchant for “neoliberal policies” that are detrimental to the interests of informal settlers.
She said that in Mr. Aquino’s first year in office alone, the AKD recorded not less than 35,000 persons evicted from their houses in “violent demolitions.”
These, she said, were a result of the public-private partnership programs, which the President announced as one of his priority projects when he assumed office.
‘Who’s the boss?’
In Digos City in Davao del Sur, farmers said their plight had remained unchanged since Mr. Aquino came to power.
“So who’s the real boss now?” 50-year-old Roger Villamor of Barangay (village) San Agustin said.
Villamor said the Aquino administration needed no further evidence of how poor farmers were. “Even television reports would show it,” he said.
Pedro Regala, also of Barangay San Agustin, said the administration’s failure to alleviate their condition was the reason he would not watch the Sona.
“It would be the same promise,” he said.
Regala admitted that he had received “six bags of fertilizer, a sack of palay and a bottle of rat poison” from the administration. But these are not enough to ease his plight, he said.
“We need things that can sustain us and help us grow,” Dita Pocong said. Orlando Dinoy, Inquirer Mindanao