The largest and most militant peasant organization in the Philippines the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP)  asssailed the recent planned importation of rice by the National Food Authority worth P1 billion. According to Danilo "Ka Daning" Ramos, secretary general of the group "importation of agricultural products are slowly killing us farmers, foreign agricultural products are directly competing with our produce and are now more predominantly bought by the market," 

"Because of the rising cost of living Filipinos will of course tend to buy products with lower prices, which obviously is the case for imported agricultural products. These products have an undue advantage over ours because these are heavily subsidized by their governments. What would a cash strapped housewife buy a P10/ kilo big onions from Italy or a P40/kilo small onions from Ilocos? asked the peasant leader.

The group also reiterated that it is due to the policy of globalization under the World Trade Organization that farmers are suffering this plight. The vegetable growers of Northern Luzon are almost starving because of the competition by foreign agricultural products. Farmers' income are now at their lowest because of globalization and we are urging the goverrnent to pull-out from WTO.

As for his part Carl Anthony Ala, public information officer of KMP "The WTO has really been a bane on the lives of peasants and the issue on population should not be used to muddle the issue. We have enough resources here in our country to feed our population several times over, but it is only if our resources are distributed equitably to the majority of our people,"

"Importation is basically killing farmers slowly and softly, but it is death none the less and we will not allow them to muder us," Ala ended. # # #   
 

KMP - 2 August 2004