The militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) decried the continuing military and police operations in the Hacienda Luisita estate despite President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s supposed intervention in the dispute and her desire for a peaceful resolution of the near 3-month strike. According to Danilo “Ka Daning” Ramos, secretary general of the group, “this is the height of duplicity. Why are not the military and the police being pulled out of the area? Are the president’s pronouncements mere lip service to the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) and double talk to the strikers?

“The president should immediately pull out the police and the military in the area and she should rein in her men who are continuously maligning the strikers and their supporters. There is no truth in the claim of the Northern Luzon Command (NOLCOM) that the strike is a CPP-NPA coordinated one, their black propaganda of red baiting to project the Hacienda Luisita strike as a matter of national security is just a ploy for them to justify more troop deployments in the estate and in violently dispersing the strikers,” added Ramos.

“We are now contemplating on filing cases against the NOLCOM, the PNP and Presidential Management Staff Chief Norberto Gonzales for maligning our name and we will hold them responsible if any thing untoward happens to our leaders and members,” expounded the peasant leader.

As for his part Rodelson Mesa, spokesperson of AMBALA, “military operations in the towns of the hacienda are so rampant. Now, of the 10 baranggays in the estate 6 are already highly militarized and the military now plans to enter the 4 remaining ones. They are sowing terror among the strikers and their families so that they will not go to the picket lines, thereby paving the way for an easy dispersal for the military and the police,”

“Tomorrow we will hold a mass in front of Gate 1, to show that we are sincere in the impending negotiations. We will stand by the justness of our demands and we will uphold our rights till the end,” ended Mesa. # # #

KMP - 26 January 2005