A counter-Sona even in Duterte’s home city

DAVAO CITY – Hundreds of people from various sectors in Southern Mindanao are expected to flood the streets of President Rodrigo Duterte’s home city and stage a people’s State of the Nation Address (Sona) to counter the Chief Executive’s.

Jay Apiag, spokesperson of Karapatan Southern Mindanao, said the massive crowd of farmers, indigenous people (lumad) and other peasant groups from different communities in Davao region descended to the regional capital to denounce the alleged repression by government security forces against farmers, workers, youth, women, the urban poor and other sectors.

Hundreds of protesters, some bearing red banners and carrying black coffin replicas began streaming along Magsaysay Street, one of Davao’s busiest, around 9 a.m. Monday.

“This is the people’s Sona which would also shout the people’s strong opposition to martial law,” Apiag said.

Apiag said the alternative national address to be held at the Freedom Park along Roxas Avenue as the President addresses both houses of Congress on Monday afternoon would also echo the clamor for the resumption of the peace talks between the government and the communist National Democratic Front (NDF), which the President had ordered scuttled following recent attacks by the rebels’ armed wing New People’s Army, against government forces and civilians.

The people’s Sona was also meant “to call for the pushing of a genuine agrarian reform, national industrialization and just peace,” Apiag added./rga

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