By Tarra Quismundo
Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines—The pleas posted on the walls of the school lobby spell out the name of the game in the age of globalization: “Say it in English, please.”

A chat with a student on the STI (Systems Technology Institute) College campus at Fort Bonifacio Global City in Taguig City shows that the campaign is working.

“It is an advantage because I know that when I work, I will encounter foreigners,” says Christy Cardines, 16, speaking in flawless English, the language of global commerce.

“Most of our students are graduates of public schools and incoming first year college students have communication skills of a Grade 4 student,” says Peter Fernandez, STI chief operating officer.

“We help them adapt to the courses. What we want to do is improve their communication skills and raise their confidence level … Even the simple thing of teaching them how to use chopsticks raises their confidence,” says Elbert de Guzman, an STI vice president.

Jobs-skills mismatch

Philippine colleges have been attempting to cope with a global demand for skilled workers, mostly in healthcare and information technology (IT) amid a crisis in the basic education system.

This demand requires proficiency in English, Science and Math—something that private businesses and government are trying to raise in a basic education system that has deteriorated through the years.

Few of the graduates of the public school system are able to proceed and complete a college degree and for them facilities that offer skills training that will land them jobs are the preferred alternatives.

Today, there is a so-called jobs-skills mismatch, a phenomenon of thousands of work available with few qualified workers—nurses, caregivers, call center agents, medical transcriptionists and IT workers.

“Right now, healthcare-related courses are really big because we are looking at the potential for employment abroad. And, of course, you have the demand for engineering and technology because of changes brought about by industrialization,” says Julito Vitriolo, a deputy executive director at the Commission on Higher Education.

He also points to the rapid changes in technology that colleges barely able to keep up with.

“There is a lag time between industry development and the capabilities [developed by] the curricula. When you implement a course that was based on technology three years ago, there is already new technology. That’s why schools should have enhancement programs to bridge that difference,” said the official.

Unpatriotic policy

But for student leader Vencer Crisostomo, such market-oriented education policy—served mainly by vocational-technical schools—is unpatriotic.

“The direction of that education policy is colonialist. We are becoming slaves of the world. There’s no more sense of history, no more sense of national dignity,” says Crisostomo, national chair of the League of Filipino Students.

It’s not enough for Philippine schools to produce students who “can read, write and speak English with a twang,” he says.

“What happens to the future of those who did not graduate in college and trained for call centers and [the industry] slumps in five to 10 years?”

But the student population and parents seem to have been going with the flow in the last five years, Vitriolo says.

In nursing alone, 80,000 enrollees five years ago rose to 600,000 in 2007. While there were only 200 nursing schools in 2003, 400 were on the list by last year, he says.

Mathematics and computer sciences enrollees, most of them students of IT-related courses, accounted for 10 percent of the total 2.4 million college students. The figure was roughly the same in 1998, when IT students accounted for almost 10 percent of the 2.2 million total enrollment.

Going with the tide

Going with the trend are schools like STI, which update its courses based on industry demands, De Guzman says. The school even has a partner placement agency that do the job of “farming out” STI graduates.

Vitriolo says the country is producing properly trained workers to propel economic growth.

“It’s a healthy sign because when our economic environment is ready, we have the human resources to back that up. Other countries have the money and investments but they don’t have the people, so it’s our people who go there,” Vitriolo says.

That also means they have to speak English well.

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College students urge: Freeze our tuition, too

By Jerome Aning
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 04:34am (Mla time) 06/09/2008

MANILA, Philippines—A militant student group on Sunday asked why private colleges were not covered by the tuition moratorium announced by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The League of Filipino Students said tuition in private tertiary learning institutions should be regulated by the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) and the government.

LFS national chair Vencer Crisostomo said there were more private than public college students. He cited 2004 government data that showed there were only 424 public colleges against 1,363 private ones.

“And the private schools are the ones more notorious in increasing their tuition unjustly precisely because government refuses to regulate tuition,” he said.

The Constitution, he pointed out, pins on the state the responsibility of ensuring quality and accessible education.

He also said CHEd had the power to regulate tuition as provided for in the Charter.

Crisostomo said, “The government should be held responsible for betraying the Constitution and letting tertiary education fall into the hands of vultures.”

According to CHEd data, 378 private tertiary schools increased tuition this year at a nationwide average of 10 percent.

LFS wants tuition increases suspended and investigated with an eye toward rolling back the rates if schools are proven to have abused their discretion to raise fees.

Crisostomo said there was no reason to allow tuition increases in private schools as most of them were raking in hundreds of millions in profits from their collection of “unjust” fees.

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What is the Ugnayan ng Mag-aaral laban sa Komersyalisasyon or UMAKSYON?

It is a broad alliance of student formations – organizations, fraternities and sororities, freshmen blocks, student councils and publications – of iskolars ng bayan of the University of the Philippines united in fighting for our right to education and opposing the intensifying commercialization of education. It enjoins iskolars ng bayan to participate in fighting for our right to education through various creative forms of action.

What does UMAKSYON believe in?

UMAKSYON believes that education is a right of the iskolars ng bayan and the Filipino people. It therefore opposes the intensifying commercialization of education – the selling of education as a commodity – which makes education a right of a few who can pay and not the right of everyone. It believes that as a right, education must be provided by the state to the people. It therefore fights for greater state subsidy for UP and education.

It opposes the following forms of commercialization of education in UP Diliman:

* The 300% UP system-wide tuition increase
* The various lab fee increases in different UPD colleges, particularly in the Colleges of Mass Communication and Engineering
* The utilization of the UP Arboretum for call centers and commercial establishments in th guise of a Science and Technology Park
* The continuing threat of demolition of UP Diliman informal communities as part of the UP Administration’s goal of consolidating its territory to further its investment viability

What are the objectives of UMAKSYON?

UMAKSYON wants to unite as many iskolars ng bayan as possible in fighting for our right to education and in opposing the intensifying commercialization of education. It wants to translate this unity in principle into collective and creative action. It wants to call the attention of the public, the UP Administration and the government to its advocacies.

At present, it is involved in the campaign to rollback the 300% UP System-wide tuition increase in light of the current economic crisis of food and energy the country faces. More so, it also stands for the total junking of the UP tuition increase policy by the UP Administration, as the policy itself is the greatest means by which the education in UP is commercialized, thus, precluding many prospective Iskolars ng Bayan from entering the University and enjoying their right as Iskolars ng Bayan.

How will UMAKSYON achieve its objectives?

UMAKSYON plans to achieve its objectives through the following:

* Launch a widespread and sustained education campaign on the right to education and the intensifying commercialization of education,
* Seek out, craft, and utilize creative forms of action, and
* Deepen research and analysis on the commercialization of education.

How will UMAKSYON work?

As main convenors of UMAKSYON, the Office of the UP Student Regent and the Student Alliance for the Advance of Democratic Rights in UP (STAND-UP) are asking all student formations to join UMAKSYON. All members of UMAKSYON shall meet at least once in every two months in the UMAKSYON Meet. UMAKSYON shall have in the minimum four (4) committees: (1) secretariat, (2) education and research, (3) propaganda, and (4) finance. Members shall be asked to join one of these committees.

We also request all student formations to become co-convenors of UMAKSYON. The As co-convenors shall form the Board of Convenors which shall meet regularly to ensure the implementation of the plans of UMAKSYON. It is from the Board of Convenors that heads of the committees shall be appointed. Committees will likewise hold regular meetings to ensure the implementation of the plans of UMAKSYON.

UMAKSYON Manifesto

As part of the united resolve of Iskolars ng Bayan to decisvely confront the unabated commericialization of our beloved University, We, student councils, student publications, student organizations, fraternities and sororities of the University of the Philippines Diliman, unequivocally declare the following:

1. UMAKSYON believes that education is a right of the iskolars ng bayan and the Filipino people. It therefore opposes the intensifying commercialization of education – the selling of education as a commodity – which makes education a right of a few who can pay and not the right of everyone. It believes that as a right, education must be provided by the state to the people. It therefore fights for greater state subsidy for UP and education.
2. That the 300% UP System-Wide tuition increase be rolled back by the UP Administration, in light of the current economic crisis the country faces, particularly the skyrocketing prices of rice, oil and other basic commodities. According to reports, the price of gasoline might reach as high as PhP65/liter while the price of rice might reach as high as PhP60/kilo. Both are utterly unreasonable economic burden the average Filipino family needs to bear which the UP Administration needs to recognize as well. Thus, the University of the Philippines must actively contribute its part in alleviating the plight of its tens of thousands of students who face these difficult economic conditions, all of which cannot necessarily be answered by UP’s mere offer of student loans and numerous scholarships.
3. That in order for the best and the brightest Filipino youth to continue enjoying their right to education in the years to come, the approved 300% UP sytem-wide tuition increase policy last December 2006 must be abated conclusively. In the last two years of its implementation, the University of the Philippines saw a decline in enrollment of freshman students, especially in unmarketable yet very important academic institutions such as creative writing, geodetic engineering, fisheries, among others. There have also been countless reports of unjust mismatches in the STFAP, in which many poor yet deserving students are rebracketed to Brackets C and B despite conclusive proof of their economic situation. This has led to a record number of unneccesary student loans and several reports of student dropouts by year-end.
4. That, while the UP Administration has much to account for pushing this policy to the detriment of our right to accessible education, the greatest accountability lies in the doorsteps of Malacanang. For years, the policy of the Arroyo government has always been to force state colleges and universities (SCUs) to internally generate its own income for operations, as the long-standing policy of her government is to annually decrease subsidies to these state schools under the Long-Term Higher Education Development Plan (LTHEDP) of the late 90s. This policy is clearly anathema to the long-term development of our state schools, especially the University of the Philippines. First, instead of the UP being able to recruit the best young minds in the country today, numerous students may be unnecesarily hampered by ther financial incapacity to pay the high tuition rates that shall be imposed under such a commercialization policy by government. Second, such a policy shall only lead to greater commercialization measures by state schools such as the utilization of idle assets for commercial purposes instead of using these lands for the further development of our academic programs and institutions. Worst of all, this policy clears the way for the likely future of total state abandonment of our state colleges and universities, where these SCUs shall soon operate like private educational institutions with high tuition rates and without the needed government subsidies to ensure that all students regardless of socio-economic class may enjoy a college education.
5. That, the only answer to the increasing financial woes of the University and other SCUs has always been full subsidies by the Arroyo government to these schools, as no amount of tuition increases or commercialization measures can necessarily account for the structural backwardness of our academic institutitions to make it at par with leading universities abroad.
6. That, as the leading alliance against commercialization, UMAKSYON shall unite as many iskolars ng bayan as possible in fighting for our right to education and in opposing the intensifying commercialization of education. It shall translate this unity in principle into collective and creative action. It shall call the attention of the public, the UP Administration and the government to its advocacies.
UMAKSYON concept paper

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May 29, 2008
MEDIA RELEASE

Vacation over, full strength anew for youth power
Youth, students nationwide to hold National Youth Assembly on May 30

YOUTH ACT NOW! (Youth for Accountability and Truth Now!) announced in a press conference today that it would be holding a National Youth Assembly at the UP Diliman tomorrow, May 30, to kick off the opening of classes.

The National Youth Assembly will be attended by different schools in Metro Manila from the Taft, Katipunan, University Belt, Aurora consortia. YOUTH ACT NOW! convenors and representatives from De La Salle, College of St. Benilde, UP, PUP, Miriam, Ateneo, Adamson, St. Scholastica, UP Manila, UST, UE, FEU and Trinity College will lead the student delegation.

They will be joined by representatives and student leaders from the National Union of Students of the Philippines, College Editors Guild of the Philippines, Kristiyanong Kabataan para sa Bayan, Kabataang Pinoy Party, Student Christian Movement of the Philippines, League of Filipino Students and Anakbayan.

Some high school students and out-of-school youth from urban poor communities metro-wide are also expected to participate.

YOUTH ACT NOW! Spokesperson Alvin Peters also announced that delegates from the regions and provinces are starting to arrive in Manila as of press time to attend to the event. YOUTH ACT NOW! coordinators and representatives from Southern Tagalog, Central Luzon, Cebu, Bicol, Panay, Davao, Baguio, Ilocos Region and Iloilo will participate in the youth assembly.

“The National Assembly’s objective is to gather youth and students nationwide to renew their pledges and commitment in the fight for truth, accountability and social change. Vacation is over, expect renewed and reinvigorated strength for youth power,” Peters said.

Peters said that the highlight of the event would be the pledges and planning sessions of youth and students from different areas of responsibilities to carry on with what they have left off during the summer break.

Engr. Rodolfo ‘Jun’ Lozada, Mr. Joey de Venecia and Bro. Eddie Villanueva will be guest speakers.

A firework display at the end of the program will signify the ‘start of the school year with a bang.’ ###

Reference: Alvin Peters, 09206209362

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May 26, 2008

As President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is set to make a statement on tuition fees and other education woes today, members of the League of Filipino Students (LFS) led a protest action calling for substantial reforms in the education system.

According to Vencer Crisostomo, LFS national chairperson, the statements the president will be making “will likely be just for show” as enrollment season has already begun and many have already paid their tuition fees.

Crisostomo also said that the president may just be “using the tuition issue to boost her popularity, when in fact, during the most crucial period which was the consultation phase, she lifted the cap on tuition increases and permitted skyrocketing hikes.”

He cited a news article published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer dated January 9, 2008, which reported Arroyo’s approval of the CHEd move to lift the previously agreed upon cap of 7.6%, or equivalent to the prevailing inflation rate.
(http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view_article.php?article_id=111345)

Bogus consultations
“The government policy ever since actually allows unlimited and unjust tuition increases. They try to hide this fact by stating that increases are subject to consultations, but a look at the CHEd guidelines will show that these so-called consultations do not include miscellaneous fees, tuition of incoming freshmen, and ladderized or automatic increase schemes,” Crisostomo said.

He also said that consultations are not actually done as a “process for approval but only to notify.”

“Bogus consultations have become the norm. Even if the students and parents do not approve the proposals, the CHEd does not have the power and does not do anything, for that matter, to stop the increases,” he said.

Most schools also do not comply with the policy stated in the CHEd guidelines that “70% of proceeds derived from the tuition shall be used for increase in salaries and wages of school employees.”

State U’s operating like private schools Crisostomo also said that the Arroyo government is also to blame for the tuition increases in most state universities and colleges.

“We need only to look at the University of the Philippines (UP), which now runs like a ‘private school’ with almost P40,000 per year (P20,000/sem) tuition,” he said.

UP implemented a 300% tuition fee last year, from P300/unit to P1,000. Along with UP, Eulogio Amang Rodriguez Institute (EARIST), one of the schools with the lowest tuition fees, increased by 600%, from P15 to P100.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) attempted to increase its tuition from P12.50 per unit to P75 per unit but failed after being faced by student walk-out protests. But according to Crisostomo, students were surprised to learn that the administration was suddenly collecting P250 for “developmental fees.”

U-turn to state ‘responsibility’

Crisostomo said that in order to genuinely address the problems at hand, the government should take a “u-turn” from its deregulation and privatization policy in education. He said reforms should be implemented including raising government subsidy for education and the regulation of tuition fees.

“Fact is, the students and parents of today are being faced by high education costs due to a flawed policy of deregulation and state neglect. The government must reverse this, investigate in order to rollback tuition costs in private institutions and increase state subsidy and lower tuition rates in state run schools,” said Crisostomo. #

Reference: Vencer Crisostomo, LFS National Chairperson 09157991059, 09228262606

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BY BENJIE OLIVEROS
ANALYSIS
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No.9, April 6-12, 2008

Supposedly, if the Arroyo government is to be believed, there is no rice crisis.  But last March 19, Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo approved a P1.5 billion ($35,928,143 at an exchange rate of $1=P41.75) augmentation fund for the Department of Agriculture to boost rice production.  Last week, Arroyo approved a P5 billion ($119,760.479) subsidy for rice farmers.  And during the recently-concluded food summit April 4, Arroyo outlined a program, which she dubbed as FIELDS, and announced the approval of a P45.5 billion ($1,089,820,359) fund for this purpose.  The breakdown is as follows:

Earlier Pres. Arroyo announced a P5 billion subsidy to rice farmers.

If there is no rice crisis, why is there a frantic search for solutions? Why is there a sudden need to allocate funds to boost rice production? If indeed there is a crisis, why did the government act only now?  How did we reach this point?  Is the government outlining the right solutions?

Agriculture Sec. Arturo Yap said that there is ample supply of rice for the country’s needs up to the first quarter of 2009.  But rice prices have already been going up. And the much-touted distribution of cheap rice from the National Food Authority generated long lines.  If that is not yet a sign of a rice crisis then, what is?

The problem is that the government defines national food security in terms of supply regardless of the ability of households to buy the rice they need.  According to a primer released by the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PRRI) dated September 2006, “a nation could be secure although households particularly those with low income have nothing to eat.”

So food security could exclude the 4.1 million jobless Filipinos and their families.  But then again, there is a category in the government’s employment data that refers to unpaid and own account work so the exclusion may be even more. If we are to exclude the poorest 10.4 million families, this would approximate 52 million Filipinos based on the 2006 Family Income and Expenditure Survey. Worse still, this “food security” may benefit a mere 20 percent of families, which excludes 70 million Filipinos who struggle to survive on P110 ($2.63) a day.

But granting for the sake of argument that an ample supply of rice would guarantee food security, since rice is our staple food and a typical Filipino family could do away with a viand just to be able to eat rice. Do we really have enough supply of rice?  How did we reach this point?

The same PRRI study entitled the “Economics of Rice” revealed that from 1970-2003 the country’s net import of rice has increased tremendously.  It recorded the highest at 2 million tons in 1998, which is being attributed to the El Nino phenomenon.  But according to government estimates, the Philippines is expecting to import 3.7 million tons this 2008.  Our dependence on rice import has actually gone worse.  The PRRI study practically admitted that the growth in average farm yield is not able to cope with the present 2.36 percent annual population increase. And the government finds nothing wrong with the country’s dependence on rice imports. At the height of the current rice crisis, President Arroyo was quoted as saying that it does not matter if we are not able to produce the rice we need for as long as we can obtain it elsewhere.  In the 2006 PRRI study, it even asserted that “world rice supply is more stable and dependable.”

Thus, when Vietnam and Thailand decided to reduce their exports to ensure their respective country’s supply, the Arroyo government panicked.  And now they are trying to scramble for solutions. It is as if rice production can increase overnight, as the crisis is confronting as now.

Right or wrong solutions?

Are they putting forward the right solutions?

According to the PRRI study, palay (rice grain) and rice prices are one of the highest among developing countries in Asia.  Citing data from a study the government did from 1992-2001, it said that palay price in the Philippines is around P8 ($0.19) per kilogram, compared to P6 ($0.14) in Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and India, and P7 ($0.16) in China. Rice prices in the Philippines, on the other hand, are double that of Thailand and Vietnam and almost 30 percent higher than in Indonesia.

The study attributes the high palay prices to the high labor cost of rice production in the Philippines because of the backward state of agricultural production.  Post-harvest facilities in the country are so backward that it takes 30 working days to harvest, thresh, and haul palay, a process which takes 5 days in Thailand.

It also said that the average land tilled by a rice farmer, at only 2 hectares, is the reason they are poor.

The PRRI attributes the high rice prices to the price of palay, high interest rates and high marketing costs.

Meanwhile, it stated that the low supply of palay can also be traced to the relatively small agricultural area of the country compared to Thailand, which is 60 percent larger and to the much more land allotted by Thailand and Vietnam to rice production.

All these confirm what militant organizations have been saying all along: that the country is backward, and pre-industrial.  We cannot even boast of a single industrial achievement and our agriculture is even more backward than our Southeast Asian neighbors.  These problems cannot be solved by sporadic solutions and releases of funds.  Not even the solutions outlined in FIELDS are enough.

How many farmers would benefit from the P20 billion ($479,041,916) loan fund and the P8 billion ($191,616,766)seed fund? Merely dividing the P20 billion loan fund by the total agricultural land area of the country devoted to rice, approximately 3.84 million hectares, would give us a figure of a low P5,208 ($124) per hectare loanable amount. This is way below the P40,000 ($958) production cost of rice per hectare per cropping.  And who can avail of these loans?

The PRRI study revealed that farmers prefer the informal lending sector (read:usurers) because of the faster and timely releases of loans, less paper requirements, no collateral and flexible loan terms.  Also, usurers provide the farmers access to their basic needs in-between cropping/harvesting seasons. What about collateral?   Using the Certificates of Land Ownership Agreements (CLOA) as collateral of farmer-beneficiaries of land reform would only make them lose their lands as rice production does not give them much net income because of the backward production processes.

What about the modernization of the whole production process?  The fund being made available is only for driers and post-harvest facilities, which was loaned from South Korea.

Added to this, big landowners would rather convert their land to commercial or industrial uses as it raises the value of their land.

The solutions being proposed by the Arroyo government misses three important points.  First, food security and rural industrialization is a long process and its economic policies of privatization, deregulation, and liberalization even lead to more bankruptcy and backwardness in the agricultural sector. Second, the reason the marketing costs of rice are so high is because of the monopoly pricing of millers, traders, haulers and wholesalers, who are usually the same people.

The third and most important point is that there can be no food security in the country for as long as land is concentrated in the hands of a few big landlords whose sole interest is to earn more from their land through crop and land-use conversion or through bleeding their tenants dry. And the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988, which has been extended for 10 years already because it did not make a significant impact on the problem of landlessness is definitely not the solution.  It is time to take a serious look at the Genuine Agrarian Reform Program being proposed by Anakpawis (Toiling Masses), that is, if the government is serious in addressing the problem of rural backwardness and in finding a solution to the rice crisis. Bulatlat 

—

KMP Primer and Powerpoint Presentation prepared by BAYAN downloadable here.

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Summer ’08 Beat the Break!
YOUTH ACT NOW! kicks off nationwide summer campaign

YOUTH ACT NOW! (Youth for Accountability and Truth Now!) launched its summer campaign and program of action today.

Some 12 schools in the South Manila Inter-Institution Consortium, including De La Salle, College of St. Benilde, UP Manila, St. Scholastica, Adamson, Lyceum, PLM, PCU, held an assembly hosted by the Philippine Normal University Student Government to plan for the alliance’s summer campaign.

More than 100 student leaders from the different schools attended the activity.

Similar gatherings are also scheduled to converge in the University Belt and Katipunan Consortia, as well as among YOUTH ACT Now! high school chapters.

Summer ’08 BEAT THE BREAK! is the youth alliance’s theme for this summer vacation.

“(We decided to dub it) ‘Beat the break’ because we do not plan to spend our summer vacation in the usual ways. Summer vacation does not mean that students are taking a break from the youth’s fight for truth and accountability,” said YOUTH ACT NOW! Spokesperson Alvin Peters.

Summer ’08 BEAT THE BREAK will be composed mainly of three components:

* Summer Camps will be composed of campaign teams from different schools with the goal to set up as many ‘truth centers’ in schools with summer classes, communities, local parishes nationwide.
* Summer Workshops on film-making, theatre and the arts, skills and leadership, and other discussions will be offered – all with the aim to encourage the youth to express their opinions and voice out their protest in their respective outputs.
* Summer Jam will consist of big events such as concerts, dance contests, sports fests, and medical missions with a ‘truth twist.’

All will culminate in a Grand Youth Action Day at the end of the summer vacation.

For his part, PNU Student Government Chairperson Pepe Ancajas said he was surprised by the overwhelming response and solidarity among his fellow students in the Taft area.

“This event is unprecedented and impressive. Not in recent years have students in this area reached out to each other in this manner, yet now all are willing and committed to cheer and support each other in the continuing fight for truth,” Ancajas said. ###

Reference:
Alvin Peters, Spokesperson, 09206209362

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Youth lead Manila protest as politicians take back seat

Youth protesters rock ‘n’ roar

Throngs of activists, students press for Arroyo’s resignation

Videos from Inquirer.Net

Interview with Youth ACT Now Spokesperson and LFS National Chairperson Vencer Crisostomo

Gloc 9 performs at Liwasang Bonifacio during Friday’s festive youth-led rally

Peter Park Her performs at Liwasang Bonifacio during Friday’s festive youth-led rally

Catholic priests lead protesters in releasing doves and green balloons after an interfaith mass during the youth-led rally at the Liwasang Bonifacio on Friday

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News Release
March 12, 2008

The umbrella group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan today announced that it is all set to join the March 14 rally at the Liwasang Bonifacio organized by groups just before the Lenten break.

Bayan secretary general Renato M. Reyes, Jr. said that the Arroyo administration is “sorely mistaken” if it thinks that anti-Arroyo protesters are all set to pack up and go on a summer vacation next month.

“Malacañang is hoping that the Lenten break and summer vacation will break the momentum of protest actions. However, with so many unanswered questions and new issues coming up, it is too early for Malacañang to rejoice. The fight is not over, not by a long shot,” Reyes said.

While the expected numbers on March 14 are “modest” compared to the huge turn out last February 29, Bayan still believes that it is important for people to continue their “communal action” in the fight against corruption.

“There are many outstanding issues like Malacañang’s continuing insistence on using executive privilege to cover up the truth. There’s the Supreme Court’s impending decision on Romulo Neri’s case. There’s the issue of the sell-out of our national patrimony in the Spratlys. All these require the people’s collective response,” Reyes said.

Bayan hopes to highlight the issue of worsening poverty given recent news of an increase in the poverty rate and rising oil prices and prices of other basic commodities.

“The poor are the worst hit by corruption. They are deprived of much needed services just so some ‘greedy group’ can pocket kick-backs. This is on top of the economic hardships they are already experiencing due to price hikes and low wages,” Reyes said.

Urban poor groups led by Kadamay are expected to hold a “Kalbaryo” protest also on March 14 before linking up with the broad gathering at Liwasang Bonifacio.

The March 14 protest action will be held at the Liwasang Bonifacio from 3pm to 7pm. Organizers are expecting new faces and groups to also attend the Manila activity.

“There will be religious leaders, people from the business community, students, urban poor, union workers, film industry workers and other professionals. Those who missed the protests in Ayala can still come to Liwasan and join different groups in making a stand on the issues,” Reyes said. ####

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