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The militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) decried once again the propensity of the Macapagal-Arroyo administration for always pushing for palliative measures rather than to solve the root cause of the problem. According to Danilo “Ka Daning” Ramos, secretary general of the group “for example the food coupons scheme of Gloria could hardly suffice to address the growing hunger of our country-men and may indeed lead to riots, because only 20 families per barangay is to be given a food coupon. It is even compounded by the fact that graft and corruption is so prevalent in the administration that it is certain that the P6 billion a month to be collected for this endeavor would be a new target for unscrupolous government officials,” “The immediate solution to the hunger experienced by most of our countrymen is not a dole-out measure prone to corruption, it should be the increase of the purchasing power of our citizens. This can be done per sector, for example the farm gate price of palay (unmilled rice) should be increased from P12-P15 so that the farmers can gain a little more, because the rice cartels only buys their produce at P7-P9 a kilo. Another measure is to increase the procurement level of the National Food Authority from 10% to 25% so that they can buy more palay for the farmers and have a signficant influence in the grains market. As for workers, the World Bank itself issued a statement that the salaries of workers here in our country needs to be inreased by P137, so definitely workers wages should be increased. If these measures are done immediately about 90% of our population would be have less burden in the middle of this crisis,” added the peasant leader. Meanwhile Carl Anthony Ala, public information
officer of KMP, said that the P6 billion a month for the food coupons as
well as the Bayanihan fund should be instead used to finance this proposal
so that it can readily be implemented. “The P6 billion budget alone can
purchase 400,000,000 kilos of palay from rice farmers as for workers this
would mean 16 million workers can have a P125 salary increase for 3 days,
thatwould be a lot,”
KMP - 9 October 2004 |
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