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By Al Jacinto, Correspondent
ZAMBOANGA CITY: Soldiers and
policemen broke up Monday an anti-Arroyo rally in Zamboanga City,
which coincided with President Gloria Arroyo’s State of the Nation
Address (SONA), organizers said.
Amira Lidasan, of the human
rights group called Suara Bangsamoro, said policemen dispersed
dozens of students and political activists who were holding a rally
to protest the high prices of basic commodities and the poverty
situation of the country under Arroyo’s seven-year rule.
“We are just expressing our
sentiments, but apparently there is no freedom of expression and
speech in Zamboanga City. City Hall ordered the police to break up
the rally,” Lidasan told reporters.
Police said the rally had no
permit and students were obstructing traffic near the Western
Mindanao State University. Lidasan said the local government
previously rejected their application to hold peaceful rallies in
the city.
“How can we have a permit when
City Hall is not granting us such permission? Soldiers and policemen
threatened us with arrest. They threatened to seize our vehicles if
we do not disperse or stop our rally,” Lidasan said.
She said Elmer Apolinario, a
senior City Hall official, led the dispersal of the rally.
Prior to the dispersal,
Apolinario told a local radio station dxRZ Radyo Agong that the
rally had no permission and ordered security forces to disperse the
protesters.
Lidasan said they had been
holding rallies in Zamboanga City every time Arroyo delivered her
SONA and it was the first time local authorities stopped them.
One protester, Abdel Abdulkarim,
said only anti-Muslim or anti-ARMM protests or pro-government
rallies are allowed in Zamboanga. “This is unfair. We have our
rights too,” he said.
Abdulkarim was referring to the
Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. Local officials in the past
had opposed any conference of the ARMM in Zamboanga City and would
tell organizers to bring their meeting elsewhere, like in Cotabato
City or areas covered by the autonomous region.
The ARMM is composed of Sulu,
Basilan, Tawi-Tawi, Lanao and Maguindanao provinces. Sulu, Basilan
and Tawi-Tawi are near Zamboanga City and have contributed largely
to the bulk of the local economy.
Most of the elected officials in
Zamboanga City were former members of the opposition party Laban ng
Demokratikong Pilipino, but have allied themselves with Arroyo’s
own Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino party in a merger last year.
Militant groups led by Bayan and
other farmers’ organizations also held simultaneous protest
rallies in key cities in Mindanao.
“President Arroyo should think
twice before letting out promises that are already nailed even
before she even finishes her SONA. Since 2001, she has promised
cheap rice, prosperous farmers and rice self-sufficiency. Now we
dare her to look at the landless farmers eating root crops, bananas,
or nothing at all.”
“Look at the paupers in the
street who are made to beg for two kilos of rice which has tripled
in cost,” said Tony Salubre, acting spokesperson of the Farmers
Association of Davao City.
Pedro Arnado, deputy chairman of
the peasant group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas in Southern
Mindanao, said more than 4,000 protesters held a rally in North
Cotabato province to protest Arroyo’s failure to improve the
country’s poverty situation.
“Under GMA, this country has
gone through the worst economic and political tragedy that this
nation has never experienced before. The immorality, corruption,
militarism and puppetry that have become the central policy of this
regime, has made us the sick man of Asia today,” Arnado said.
The Kawagib Moro Human Rights
group also assailed Arroyo’s pro-poor program and her failure to
stop the rising cost of fuel and rice in the country in a statement.
“Arroyo’s so-called pro-poor
programs such as ‘Ramdam ang Kaunlaran’ and ‘Katas ng VAT’
as well as the mushrooming of foreign capitalists in the country,
will again be the frontage of her rhetoric in the pretext of helping
the Bangsamoro and Filipino people.”
“But the truth continues to
haunt the poor people. In a survey of Social Weather Station, 50
percent of the 88.9 million Filipinos are ‘self-rated poor’ and
14.9 million people experience hunger everyday while prices of oil
and basic commodities continue to skyrocket. Cases of human rights
violations are also continuing while the Bangsamoro people’s right
to self-determination is not recognized,” it said.
Jose Maria Sison, founder of the
Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), said Arroyo has such a
long record of lying that no one expects her to describe the real
state of the nation.
Arroyo, accused by opposition
politicians of cheating and electoral fraud in 2004 Presidential
elections and whose administration has been involved in many
corruption scandals, is extremely unpopular in the Philippines.
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