Pantukan tragedy: PNoy’s last wake-up call to end oppressive economic policy - Bayan

April 28, 2011



Pantukan tragedy: PNoy’s last wake-up call to end oppressive economic policy - Bayan



Davao City – We offer our sympathies to the families of those who perished in the landslide in Pantukan. Most of them and those who remain missing are the abanteros of small-scale mining tunnels who scour the earth with their bare hands for a living.



Sadly, in the wake of the tragedy, we hear government putting a blame on the victims themselves whom it forgets are the very people who are not supposed to end up dead had there been enough opportunities for them to cope with hard life.



Worst, Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) director himself, Leo Jasareno, takes advantage of the situation by declaring a shift to policies that are prejudicial to the small-scale mining and in favor of the large-scale and foreign-backed mining..



It is unnerving for this top bureaucrat of the Aquino administration to say that the Pantukan disaster is “the last wake-up call of the government to cut back on small mining operations” while sparing, on the other hand, the 1,600 hectare area of the U.S.-backed mining company Nationwide Development Corporation (Nadecor) within the tragedy site in Pantukan, from such declaration.



But Jasareno, understandably, is just playing well for his master. After all, he is serving an administration that has constantly pursued an economic agenda of promoting more foreign investments and public-private partnerships in industries, one of which is mining.



In fact, just as President Aquino ordered a nationwide logging moratorium but failed to cancel logging permits of large logging concessions, he has rejected 903 pending mining applications from mostly Filipino corporations, while favorably endorsing 247 foreign-backed applications for processing.



Duplicity from the Aquino administration is the last thing Filipinos need at this time.



Mining areas have been the veritable graveyard of poor Filipinos, like the abanteros whose cheap labor are being exploited by the capitalists so the country may fulfill its tragic role of being a mere provider of cheap raw material exports to foreign economies.



The Pantukan tragedy will always be a reminder of the harshness that life has been for the country’s poor. For this, it should be the Aquino government’s last wake-up call instead to reverse its oppressive economic policy that has made the people suffer long enough.#



For Bagong Alyansang Makabayan-Southern Mindanao Region (Bayan-SMR),


FRANCHIE BUHAYAN
Secretary General
0999.195.3370

“Aquino’s response to growing clamor vs price hikes is disgusting” Bayan-SMR

April 18, 2011
PRESS RELEASE

“Aquino’s response to growing clamor vs price hikes is disgusting” Bayan-SMR

DAVAO CITY – “Disgusting,” was how Bagong Alyansang Makabayan-Southern Mindanao Region (Bayan-SMR) expressed in reaction to President Benigno Aquino III’s responses to the people’s growing clamor against continuing price hikes and calls for substantial wages.

Bayan-SMR notes how President Aquino ignored people’s calls when he said he would wait for inflation to breach the 5% level before he would act on demands for wage hikes.

“Cruel, is even how you call a President who warns of punishing drivers if they conduct protests in the wake of another round of oil price increase,” Bayan-SMR secretary general Franchie Buhayan said.

Buhayan pointed out that last Wednesday’s P1.50 hike in the oil pump prices, the 12th since the beginning of the year, stripped down further the purchasing power of the country’s poor families because of its inflationary effects on basic commodities.

According to Buhayan, a recent check in the prices would show that a minimum of P286 daily wage of workers in the region can hardly provide for a family’s daily food needs.

Rice sold in the Davao public market nowadays costs P30-35 a kilo while galunggong, said to be the poor man’s fish now costs P100 a kilo. Cooking oil is sold at P105 a kilo while sugar, at P60 a kilo.

“The current minimum wage with allowance could even no longer provide for other household needs such as fuel, water, electricity and house rent. What about the other needs like transportation, school fees and daily needs the most basic of which is food?”Buhayan asked.

“As wages shrink, exploitation at the workplace gets more rampant. More are rising up against continuing violations of their rights to fair wages, security of tenure and safety. We see more professionals even joining the ranks of the poor,” she added.

Buhayan said progressive partylists have proposed measures that would have provided immediate relief as well as long term solutions on the crisis felt by the people, but all these fell on deaf ears.

She was referring to moves such as suspension of the E-VAT law which adds 12% more to pump prices of petroleum products and other commodities; the passage of the P125 across-the-board wage increase bill; and the scrapping of the oil deregulation law to restore government control of the oil industry.

Buhayan pointed out that the crisis situation now clearly tells that President Aquino failed to address the basic problems of the people, and is even guilty of adding more to their burden by acting callous to their just demands.

FOR REFERENCE:

FRANCHIE BUHAYAN
Secretary General
BAYAN-SMR
Mobile Number: 09106671009