MABALACAT CITY -- Hundreds of farmers from Central Luzon Region have joined the protest against the State of the Nation Address (Sona) of President Duterte on Monday, July 24.
The farmers supported more than 7,000 farmers around country led by Anakpawis Party-list Representative Ariel “Ka Ayik” Casilao and other Makabayan Coalition lawmakers.
The farmers are demanding for a genuine agrarian reform, nationalist industrialization, a stop to all-out war in the countryside and end to martial law in Mindanao.
“We urge the President to be original and not copy what the past regimes had carried out, a neoliberal and fascist rule against the people,” Casilao said.
Casilao reminded the President of his promises of fundamental changes, such as rural development, free irrigation, end to contractualization of labor, end to destructive mining, stop to importation of rice, and especially the pursuance of a just-and-lasting peace in the country.
“The recent moves and declarations of the president are conflicting his promises to the people, chiefly his approval of all-out war and attacks to farmer communities and martial law declaration in Mindanao,” Casilao said.
He said that neoliberal and fascist rule is a template of an anti-people regime such as his predecessors.