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Militants from the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) lambasted anew president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for her dogged insistence on implementing her new repressive tax measures. According to Danilo “Ka Daning” Ramos, secretary general of the group, “Gloria is shoving upon us a bitter pill, that is the wrong one and she herself is not willing to take. The right pill for the current crisis, is the reorientation of our policies for our country’s and citizens’ interests and not those of foreign states and corporations. A debt moratorium is should also be in order, as well as the review of all the debts of our country, salary increases should also be done to help the basic sectors who were the most affected by this crisis,” “Besides why is this crisis being passed on to the already suffering “common tao,” The ones who should shoulder it are ones who profited from it, generally large corporations and the government itself. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo herself is accountable for the current mess we are in,” added the peasant leader. Now the regime is asking the top 50,000 taxpayers to pay P1 million more, so help tide the crisis, but is this enough? Unless drastic changes are done on the government’s fiscal and all-round policies, this crisis will only get worse. “These measures of PGMA are but aspirins against a full-blown cancer. She seems to be a doctor with the wrong diagnosis and the wrong remedy. It is better that we get a second opinion and hear the side of those who are the reeling from this crisis, the peasants and the workers,” said Carl Anthony Ala, public information officer of KMP. “All these years that she is in power Gloria has done nothing to alleviate this crisis, in fact she was the one who aggravated it. Now she is telling us that we should sacrifice when for a long time that has been our yoke. It seems that PGMA is nothing but a quack-doctor, trying to fool us to believe her,” ended Ala. # # # KMP - 17 September 2004 |
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