Militants from the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) assailed Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago for her frivolous habit of changing her allegiances. According to Danilo “Ka Daning” Ramos, secretary general of the group “this attitude of hers is very Macchiavellian, she says and acts always to her best advantage and not for the interests of the ones who elected her,”

Sen. Defensor-Santiago has now severed her ties with the ruling K-4 coalition after winning a senate seat and turning her back on her opposition allies during the campaign period. Now she is declaring that she would be an independent and live as a recluse.

“This type of attitude runs smack of elitist politics and is a betrayal of the public trust. It is as if that she is on a pedestal and watching over the Philippines. What a hypocrite, she was not elected, to be an observer or an agent provocateur in the Senate, she was elected because she is suppose to serve the people,” added Ramos.

The group stressed that particularly for the peasant masses Miriam has not done anything substantial to help them in their struggle for genuine land reform even when she was in the Department of Agrarian Reform. Up till now 7 out of 10 farmers do not own the land they till, and instead of decreasing this number is going up.

As for his part Carl Anthony Ala, media officer of KMP said that  “Miriam is acting as if she a notch above the other senators but actually she is one of the worst, with a propensity for intellectual masturbation. Even her colleagues cannot understand her, what more the masses?”

“Miriam should really reassess her priorities, is she in the Senate to raise hell, to provide amusement or to serve the people? What she is doing now, just proves the rottenness of the system that we have” Ala ended. # # # 
 

KMP - 26 July 2004