Protests Intensify Against Police Killing of Hungry Filipinos

Australian trade union groups and Philippines solidarity networks have all joined protests over the killings of at least three Filipino farmers in the southern island of Mindanao last Friday.

On April 1, 6,000 peasant farmers blocked a highway near Kidapawan City to demand 15,000 sacks of rice, free vegetable seedlings, and financial subsidy from the government after a months-long drought resulted in crop failures and a food crisis.

                                             

Farmer's protest violently dispersed in Kidapawan | Youtube/ KyleIsAwesome

The Filipino police answered the farmers call after days of protest with gunfire, killing at least three, wounding over 100, while 87 people are missing since last Friday. More than 40 protesters were arrested and charged with economic sabotage, harassment, obstruction of traffic flow, and illegal assembly.

The Philippine government and police officials accused leftist groups including the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Filipino Communist Party, of provoking the incident.

“We are outraged at the shooting of a large and peaceful protest of farmers in Kidapawan, Mindanao, last Friday morning, by the Philippines National Police,” Peter Murphy, spokesperson for the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines, said this Friday.

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“We demand action from the Philippines President today, along with protests around the globe.”

In Canada, activists in the Filipino community have denounced the government’s response as a “criminal fascist attack”, calling it “proof of the cowardly way of this government in dealing with the grave economic and social problems of its people.”

The statement was addressed to the government of Philippine President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.

Earlier this year, the government had promised billions of pesos to mitigate the impact of the El Niño climate phenomenon, including the distribution of relief goods, cloud seeding operations, managing of water resources, distribution of early maturing rice varieties and other measures.

Yet, when 11,000 peasant families were already suffering from hunger for months, the government from the ruling Liberal Party of the Aquino refused to distribute the promised rise.

The events of the last few days serve as a reminder of how climate change affects those most who contributed the least to the problem of global warming.

In the Philippines ,the U.S has instigated various neoliberal policies that can be said to have aggravated the country's food problem as land has been grabbed by foreign corporations and export crops have been favored over food crops for Filipinos.

On April 8, a global day of protest is planned to condemn the Kidapawan killings.