The left-leaning Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) opposed the plans for the privatization of the National Food Authority in a picket rally in front of the Department of Agriculture Head office in Quezon City. According to Danilo “Ka Daning” Ramos, secretary general of the group, “with NFA’s privatization not only the employees of the agency will be affected but the whole peasant sector as well. This move will only tighten the hold of the rice cartel particularly the one in Binondo on our rice industry, which is inimical to our staple food producers,”

“Instead of privatizing the agency, it should be strengthened. Its rice procurement should be increased to 25% from its mandated 10%, so that they can buy more of the farmers’ produce and the latter would not be forced to sell to unscrupulous traders. But in actuality less than 1% is bought by the NFA in the pass few years, leaving peasants to sell their palay (unhusked rice) at sometimes P4 a kilo, even a kilo of darak (hogwash) is higher priced at P5 than this,”

Due to the policy of neo-liberalization the government has been hell-bent on privatizing its owned and controlled corporations but at the expense of the populace.

“Again the government is barking at the wrong tree, and instead of getting rid of these GOCCs they should be developed. Also in lieu of the recent resignations of government executives, it is best that president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo also tender her resignation, in the name of delicadeza, and her high culpability in the current fiscal crisis,” said Carl Anthony Ala, public information officer of KMP.

“She was the one who went into a borrowing binge in her first three years in office, surpassing the loans by the Ramos and Estrada administrations combined. Mina Figueroa and Roger Murga were just following her example. She was also the one who drafted our entry to the World Trade Organization, a primary aspect in our ballooning trade deficit and largely contributing to the fiscal crisis,” ended Ala. # # #
 

KMP - 16 September 2005