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InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5
MANILA, Philippines – He may have run on a promise to be the antithesis of his very unpopular, scandal-tainted predecessor, but President Benigno Aquino III got dismal scores from nongovernment and people's organizations who pinned on him their hopes for change.
On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 as a failing grade, the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan on Wednesday gave him a “4” or “cuatro” for his performance in the economy, governance, foreign policy and human rights. They are mounting a protest in Mendiola on June 30 to coincide with the President's first year in office.
The protesters will press the Aquino government to provide immediate and long-term measures to help people cope with the rising cost of living, even as jobs and means of livelihood remain scarce and state services and safety nets are inadequate.
“In his first year as president, Benigno Aquino III miserably failed to live up to his own hype and ‘change’ rhetoric. Aquino can’t claim to be the complete opposite of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo since he merely continued many of Arroyo’s policies. Aquino’s so-called daang matuwid has turned out to be one full of roadblocks, expensive toll gates, potholes, and wrong directions,” said Bayan secretary general Renato M. Reyes, Jr.
“Despite his rhetoric of good governance, the Aquino government has not brought any charge against Arroyo for the crimes of plunder, election fraud and gross human rights violations. Meanwhile, the economy remains in bad shape as the present government has failed to implement long-term programs for employment, higher wages, land reform and national industrialization,” he added.
Bayan said that Aquino did not pass as far as steering the economy is concerned owing to increasing unemployment, rising inflation, depressed wages, and hollow economic growth overall. The group noted that pantawid or “stopgap” programs were the most the government could offer amid the worsening economic situation of the people. The “pantawid” program or Conditional Cash Transfer was a program started in the Arroyo administration, continued by Mr. Aquino and given a whopping P21-billion budget to boot.
Little accountability in human rights
On human rights, Bayan lamented that Aquino has done very little to make rights violators accountable. While it lauded Aquino’s withdrawal of charges against the Morong 43 (a group of health workers arrested by the military and tagged as communist rebels) last year, mainly because of strong local and international pressure, the group said the government has not filed charges against any military official involved in extrajudicial killings, abductions and torture. The group said that lack of accountability has emboldened the AFP to continue with the violations, as there are now 45 cases of extrajudicial killings under Aquino.
“We don’t see any zeal on the part of government to go after the likes of Gen. [Jovito] Palparan. Where is Aquino’s inauguration promise of ‘true and complete justice for all’? Is the filing of charges against past officials also a matter of convenience? Is there no urgency to give the victims a measure of justice?” Reyes asked.
"The Aquino regime thinks it can blame everything on Arroyo. The ridiculous part is that Aquino has not really gone after Arroyo during the past year. It all been one PR after another, along with the occasional Twitter barbs, but no cases have been filed," he added.
Farmers unhappy, too
The regional farmers’ group Alyansa ng mga Magbubukid sa Gitnang Luson (AMGL or Peasant Alliance in Central Luzon) described Aquino’s first year as one of land grabbing, displacement, land use conversion and anti-farmer programs and policies in the region. The group said that Aquino’s government did not realize any fundamental reform that Central Luzon farmers would benefit from. They are primarily emphasizing the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with “Reforms” (CARPer), Public-Private Partnership Program (PPP) and more of his agenda focusing the region.
“Everybody knows that the Cojuangco-Aquinos, the very family of the President, keep their clutches on Hacienda Luisita, dodging land reform and sketching new schemes just to keep the lands away from the farmworkers hands,” said Joseph Canlas, AMGL chairperson.
As chairman of the Presidential Agrarian Reform Committee (PARC), the very body that revoked the Stock Distribution Option (SDO) at Hacienda Luisita on December 23, 2005, Mr. Aquino acted against his mandate when he did not pursue the resolution, performed within the interest of his family, and adopted a “hands-off” policy and claimed the issue as an “intra-corporate” dispute, the group said.
The Supreme Court has yet to decide on the revocation of SDO and farm workers worry that it would be favorable to the Cojuangco-Aquinos, such as the ordering of another referendum that would comprise a scheme similar to SDO.
In addition, AMGL claimed land grabbing and displacement worsened during the first year of Aquino. The group cited cases: near the interchange of Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (Sctex) and Sta. Rosa-Tarlac national road in Tarlac City and La Paz town; the 13,000-hectares covered by the Republic Act 10083 or Aurora Pacific Economic Zone and Freeport Act of 2010 (Apeco) in Casiguran and 312-hectare Food Basket program in Maria Aurora, Aurora province; the 386.8-hectares involving 12 barangays in Bayambang town, Pangasinan claimed by the Cojuangco-owned Central Azucarera de Tarlac (CAT) Realty Corp.; land grabbing of military officials and displacement of farmers within the 3,100-hectares in Fort Magsaysay Military Reservation in Laur, Nueva Ecija; the 57,930-hectare watershed program of Lopez-controlled Energy Development Corp. (EDC) and California Energy (CalEn) that displaces indigenous peoples’ communities in Pantabangan and Carranglan towns, Nueva Ecija; displacement in many areas in Bataan; massive cancellation of Certificate of Land Ownership Awards (CLOA), Certificate of Land Transfer (CLT) and Emancipation Patents (EP) in many towns of Nueva Ecija, Bulacan, Tarlac and Pangasinan; land grabbing of Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Villafuerte of the 300-hectares in San Miguel, Bulacan and displacement of farmers cultivating 84-hectares formerly part of Hacienda Davis in Guimba, Nueva Ecija.
“The very cause of these agrarian unrest is Aquino’s implementation of CARPer, which keeps the lands under landlord control and away from the farmers. Instead of realizing land reform, farmers’ CLOAs, CLTs and EPs are massively being cancelled,” Canlas said.
AMGL also faulted Aquino for extending Arroyo’s enhanced “W-corridor” and its road program Metro-Luzon Urban Beltway (MLUB). The corridor is composed of superhighways and national roads piercing through the region’s provinces from west to east and south to north. MLUB is primarily composed of the Sctex, Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway (Tplex), North Luzon East Expressway (Nlex East), Central Luzon Expressway (Clex) and network of national roads. The “W-corridor” is also pinpointed by eco-zones and industrial hubs in the region namely, Masinloc Eco Zone (Zambales), Subic Bay Special Economic Zone and Freeport (Zambales), Bataan Technology Park in Morong, Bataan Export Processing Zone in Mariveles, Clark Special Eco Zone, Hacienda Luisita Eco Zone, Hermosa (Bataan) Eco Zone, Magalang (Pampanga) MADCI, Philippine Jewelry Center in Meycauayan, Bulacan, Gapan, Cabanatuan City and Science City of Muñoz in Nueva Ecija, then towards Baler and Dingalan freeport in Aurora.
“By the very development program adopted by the Aquino government, the interest of the marginalized sectors such as land reform is nowhere to be found. His program and policies treated the region’s farmers as insects or pest that should be wiped out or swept aside,” Canlas said.
Amgl said the construction of superhighways entails converting some 1,222.6-hectares of farmlands.
Central Luzon’s prime agricultural lands will be turned into “cemented estates”, threatening food security, said Canlas, adding that Nueva Ecija, the rice granary, supplies about 9 percent of the country’s rice supply.
