MANILA—President Benigno Aquino III is allegedly using the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona to cover up his inability to stop rising poverty and hunger, a militant youth group said Tuesday.

This developed as hundreds of youth and students marched to Mendiola in Manila near Malacañang to call on the government to stop the oil price hikes and impending tuition increases.

“Aquino and his allies want us to believe that they are against abuse and injustice. But we must ask them: what about the abuse and corruption being done by the big oil companies? Why can’t they exercise the same diligence in solving the more essential problems of the people?” said Vencer Crisostomo, Anakbayan national chairperson.

Some 9.1 million Filipino households considered themselves as poor in the last quarter of 2011, according to a report released last Friday by the Social Weather Stations (SWS).

Crisostomo said the government’s supposed inaction regarding “the more essential problems of the people” affirms that the real motive behind the impeachment is to have a Supreme Court that will reverse the ruling ordering the distribution of Hacienda Luisita.

The sprawling sugar estate in Tarlac is owned by the relatives of the President. (Virgil Lopez/Sunnex)