Militants see more protests vs Arroyo in Year of the Ox

MANILA, Philippines — Leftist groups on Wednesday predicted that 2009, the Year of the Ox, would see heightened protests against the President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. “The year 2009 will be a banner year for anti-Arroyo protest movement. There would be no let up in mass demonstrations against this regime of greed, brutality and puppetry," said the fisherfolk alliance Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya). Pamalakaya national chair Fernando Hicap said his group will join the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) in spearheading an across-the-nation protest on January 22 to mark the 22nd year anniversary of Mendiola Massacre. On that fateful day in 1987, thirteen people were killed and scores were injured when state security forces fired live ammunition on hundreds of angry farmers trying to break through barricades at Mendiola in a bid to storm Malacaňang Palace. The protesters were demanding genuine agrarian reform program. “The January 22 anti-Arroyo protest all over the country will demand justice to victims of the ongoing state repression and political persecution, aside from the junking of the bogus and pro-landlord CARP (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program) and its replacement by Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill (GARB) or House Bill 3059," said Hicap in a press statement. To welcome the New Year with an anti-Arroyo protest with bang, Hicap, his wife and their 10 children went to the seashore of Manila Bay on Wednesday evening to make noise with their “torotot (trumpets)" and “ batya" (wash basin) to drive way the “evil spirits residing in Malacañang and deliver the signal all over the country that the year 2009 will be a banner year for anti-Arroyo protest movement." Hicap said Pamalakaya will launch an across-the-country fluvial protest on February 24, the 11th year anniversary of the Fisheries Code of 1998, which the fishers group described as anti-fisherfolk, pro-landlord and pro-foreign fisheries code. “This is just a preview. More and more mass actions against the ruling gangland in Malacañang are slated this year. We will make it sure that protest will be a round-the-clock political staple for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and her company of corrupt and brutal government and military officials," the Pamalakaya leader added. Pamalakaya will also spearhead protests against the privatization, conversion and commercialization of fishing areas all over the country like Manila Bay, Laguna Lake, the offshore mining in Cebu-Bohol Strait being undertaken by the Australian firm NorAsia, as well as the offshore mining activity in Ragay Gulf by the Dutch company Premium Oil and the ambitious $ 110-million oil hunt escapade in Sulu Sea by Exxon Mobil in Sulu province. Pamalakaya fearless forecast in 2009 also include the people’s growing resentment of the Arroyo administration because of its gross failure to address the current economic crisis facing the country. Citing the study made by the independent think tank Ibon Foundation, Pamalakaya asserted that the economic slowdown that begun in 2008 and will carry through in 2009. According to Ibon study, growth in 2008 and 2009 could easily turn out the slowest in a decade. Joblessness will increase and add to the 4.1 million unemployed – estimated to include the jobless statistically removed from the labor force to lower officially reported figures – and 6.8 million underemployed as of 2007. The number of jobless and underemployed next year will very likely rise to well over 11-12 million. - GMANews.TV