Mark PH Independence Day with rally vs Cha-cha, militants urge public

MILITANT groups have called on the public to join mass protests against Charter change moves in the House of Representatives on Friday, the 117^th Philippine Independence Day.

Led by Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, the groups will lead “a legal challenge,” apart from “Cha-cha,” against the measure that seeks to ease restrictions on foreign ownership of land, utilities, media and schools.

“While foreign powers are playing tug-of-war in the West Philippine Sea, here are our congressmen moving to sell the entire Philippines to foreign interests. This is the worst form of betrayal. The rush to ease constitutional restrictions on foreign ownership is one of the biggest threats to our sovereignty and economy. The entire country will be up for sale to foreign powers,” Bayan secretary general Renato Reyes Jr. said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Congress is taking shortcuts in amending the Constitution. It is a very dangerous proposition that makes the Charter easily the subject of the whims of lawmakers with vested interests. Despite this, [President] Aquino has not lifted a finger to stop Charter change,”   Reyes said.

Reyes said Cha-cha would be “a requisite for the Philippines to join the controversial Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement which would further open up the Philippine economy to foreign control.”

The constitutional reform, according to the group, might also give a “positive signal” to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation delegates, whom they called “foreign monopoly capitalists.”

“There is no truth that allowing 100% foreign ownership of land, utilities, media and schools will lead to a more prosperous economy. On the contrary, this move removes from the Filipinos the power to chart our own economic progress. We would be forever subsumed under the interests of big foreign corporations and their profit motives,” he said. Julliane Love de Jesus, Sheen Limbo, INQUIRER.net trainee